Email receipt has stopped working - tried everything but am missing something!

I have stopped being able to send emails using my icloud account. It was working and I've tried everything I can think of and everything I have found on Google! I have managed to get it to start to send but then get this message: "The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.mail.me.com was lost in the middle of the transaction. Try again" I can receive messages OK I thought I had solved it by resetting my password with Apple and using that. It seemed to work but and got further than previously but just when it seems to be sending this message appears. My outgoing server is set to Apple iCloud - smtp.mail.me.com I have tried port 587 and 465 connection is SSL/TLS Normal password I've turned off the firewall without success When using 465 the message is slightly different it is "The message could not be sent because connecting to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.mail.me.com failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please verify that your Outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again" Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated, I 've been playing with it for over a week without success.