Cable Forum - Email

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Anyone know if the big problems with some email services over last few weeks are still there ???

Any of my dad's (ntl) mails to me (not ntl) were not getting through to one particular account, but other account did get them.

Judging by this...

http://www.ntl-isp.ntl.com/lookup/default.asp

I would say there is still a problem!

Well after weeks of me not being able to get mail properly on either of my email accounts i am now running ok.

I was reliably informed that 1 of the main email servers crashed and to compensate they transfered everone from the crashed one to another one. This ment that the other servers had more work to do and this caused all the problems.

sent ME a mail saying there were problems with the Mail ... (upgrading it ?!?) .... 'Guess if you couldn't recieve Mail that wouldn't matter though :)

Must be another 'Regional' thing 'cos in London the SPAM is still having no trouble getting through :(

One of my mates who lives in the same street as me was also fine. Dont know what email accounts they messed with, only know it was all of mine :mad:

i ve been trying to e mail me old man all day .......(well most of it ) and keep getting error message :mad: .

Strangely ok here, in the last 3 or 4 days.....

Whats happening about SPAM

recently it has gone up for me from 1 or 2 a week to 30 a day

and all variations of the same post . since the server problems which i havent noticed that much

Quote:

Originally posted by paul11974
i ve been trying to e mail me old man all day .......(well most of it ) and keep getting error message :mad: .

What error message do you get ?:D

Quote:

Originally posted by skyblueheroes
Anyone know if the big problems with some email services over last few weeks are still there ???

Any of my dad's (ntl) mails to me (not ntl) were not getting through to one particular account, but other account did get them.

Last few weeks ?. These problems have been going on for MONTHS:grind: I thought NTL were a internet company:rolleyes:

NTL T's & C's.

I would draw your attention to the following section of the terms and conditions for the provision of the ntl service:

10. Faults and Matters Affecting the Services

10.1 We cannot guarantee that the Services will be fault free. If a fault occurs you should notify us by contacting our customer management centre.

10.2 We are responsible for the maintenance of the Equipment and the ntl Network.

10.5 If it is necessary for the Services to be interrupted or suspended we will give you as much notice as is reasonably practicable and restore the Services as soon as is reasonably practicable.

:D :D :D
Talk about covering your own back eh.:D :p

As has been said elsewhere, hotmail is superior to ntl's crappy email offering in almost every respect. I'm particularly unimpressed with ntl's policy of deleting our emails even if we've saved them because they're important.

So I asked ntl about the deletion policy

Quote:

ntl would appear to be the only ISP that deletes explicitly saved emails in the UK. There is already a 'high tide' limit on the size of a customer's mailbox. Here are some arguments for allowing customers to save mail on the server:-

1. Many customers use the internet to shop. Saving copies of receipts/proofs of purchase online is commonplace. To give an example of why this is a good idea I once had a house fire. The insurance company required copies of cetain proofs of purchase. Luckily I had kept these (tiny) records online so they were not lost or damaged.

2. Account security - Customers can save copies of usernames and passwords online in their mail accounts. This is intrinsically better than storing such details locally or writing them down.

3. Hardware failure - Let's assume that a customer downloads email regularly but their machine suffers a hard disk crash. All local data would be lost. If important emails were allowed to be kept on the mail server (as long as the customer does not exceed the mailbox size limit) then the customer could rebuild their machine and still have access to those important documents from ntl's mail servers.

4. NTL would not compare favourably with other ISPs in this regard. I have been unable to find another ISP that engages in mail tampering of this kind (deleting read messaged that have been specifically saved even if those messages are placed in a dedicated folder on the mail server).

5. Good publicity/customer relations - Announcing an improvement to the mail service would go down well at this time following the problems you've been having with the mail servers recently.

You might say "We need to reduce the amount of data that is stored on our mail servers". I dont mean to preach to the converted but there are a number of ways you could do this without deleting important documents from customers accounts :-

1. By all means delete unread items after 90 days. This used to be 270 days so savings should already be being made.

2. Use data compression

3. Close down accounts that have remained inactive for 6 months.

4. Store only a single copy of "mass mailings" and leave a pointer to the item in each recipients account.

5. Subscribe to a list of blacklisted senders and block mail from these locations.

they replied with this

Quote:

Hi! Paul,

Please allow me to apologise if you've been given any misleading or contradictory advice in regard to this matter. However I am able to confirm that all emails, including those emails saved in folders via web mail, on the ntlworld mail servers will be deleted after 90 days.

We feel that 90 days is the correct amount of time for these emails to remain on the ntlworld servers as this timescale allows us to maximise the available capacity, plus giving our customers a realistic window in which they can decide wihich emails to download to a local client.

Though we are very sorry for any inconvenience the initial confusion may have caused our customers in the short term I think you'll agree that this action will lead to an overall improvement in service and benefit all our customers.

ntl are commited to ever improving our customers experience and to this end we are presently in the midst of major capital investment project to upgrade and replace or current email servers.

Please rest assured that improvements are at present being made to the service, the benefits of which will be fully evident to all our customers in the next few weeks.

I hope this helps to assure you

Nathan Thomas

Internet Customer Care

which is complete BS as usual.

btw, the reply came from internetccare@ntlworld.com so feel free to add that address to your list of useless contacts.

This argument seems to be going round in circles, if the e-mails are that important to you, then download them to your computer and keep them there instead of complaining about ntl's new e-mail policy. If it helps ntls e-mail problems then sobeit.

I for one wouldn't keep important e-mails in a webmail based account anyway.

Quote:

Originally posted by poolking
This argument seems to be going round in circles, if the e-mails are that important to you, then download them to your computer and keep them there instead of complaining about ntl's new e-mail policy. If it helps ntls e-mail problems then sobeit.

I for one wouldn't keep important e-mails in a webmail based account anyway.

I do download them locally.
It's not a new policy. They've always had it but they've only recently enforced it.
Storage is getting cheaper and cheaper. The more they need, the cheaper it is per customer.
Let's say I've bought 10 programs online that need a key to unlock them. How do I get the key? Via email. Is it a better idea to keep just one copy of those emails locally or to store a backup on the mail server in case the PC goes titsup? Or perhaps I should write them all down for anyone to find :)
Same thing for ebay records,receipts,bank statements etc etc etc. I just want to use my allocated email space for email.

Some documents are supposed to be kept. So I used to keep them locally and remotely. Even hotmail dont delete your saved emails.

Oh and AFAIK if you keep them locally then they get deleted off the server, outlook will synchronise with the server and delete your local copies anyway. There's probably an option somewhere to switch that off?

Assume the mail problems are not fixed yet ??
Is there a status page I can go to without having to annoy you guys ?!

My old man is getting to end of his tether and is close to cancelling ntl email and phone line (he already got rid of DTV earlier this year).

Mail problems now resloved. If it still isn't working for you I suggest you check your settings.:p
Sometimes if our servers have been off-line and you try to connect, it can corrupt the password file.:rolleyes: To get around this all you have to do is to delete the mail account from your mail program and then re-enter the account again.

If you ned any help to do this then just drop me a pm.:p

server status is here

And check your settings as ntlrebel said as the issue is resolved on the server status page:

Quote:

29 June 2003 08:11

ntlworld Email service (RESOLVED)

ntlhome internet customers may currently be experiencing problems collecting email due to a hardware failure.

Our engineers are aware and are working on a resolution as soon as possible.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

This has now been resolved.