topic Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers in Email

POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

archerry — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:19:12 GMT

My email client, kmail on kubuntu 20.04, has suddenly started downloading old emails from the plusnet email accounts I have set up.

The same thing appears to be happening for the client k-9 mail for android on my phone.

Anyone experienced this before?

Regards,

Alistair

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

AlanH2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:29:47 GMT

Yes. I'm experiencing something similar. Between around 14:00 and 14:15 today, the mailboxes on both my laptop and iPad received 59 old email items dated between 23 and 30 May three times! When I logged on to Plusnet Webmail, my inbox only contained those same 59 email items. Everthing dated prior to tat have disappeared! I've since received one further (new) email which has only arrived once - at the time of writing!

I have raised a query on the Plusnet Twitter Help Page but haven't had a response yet.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

archerry — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:32:14 GMT

Alan,

Thanks, please update here when you get a response.

Regards,

Alistair

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

balvack2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:32:14 GMT

My email accounts have just started doing this too. It *seems* like it may just be downloading messages that I had deleted from my inboxes but too soon to say as it's in the process of downloading several hundred messages 😞 And I also had connection errors on 2 accounts though 1 seems ok again now as it has already got a couple of hundred 'new' old messages.

I wonder if this is something to do with the changes being made to the email system as each of my accounts has received an email saying I might need to change my outgoing server settings (which I don't). It would have been good to get some warning or a heads up...

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

SilverE — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:34:25 GMT

I'm glad I'm not alone. I suspect they've reset the mail database and the sequence IDs have changed, so POP3 thinks that everything sitting on the server is new mail.

Best thing is probably to let them all download and then just delete the unread items.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

breslaw — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:33:49 GMT

My Thunderbird email client is currently trying to download over 500! old emails. I've spoken to tech support. They know there's a problem but don't know what to do about it. Meanwhile, I haven't a clue how to clear this mess up at my end. I can't delete all unread emails because amongst the >500 are some new ones. I'm furious.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

AlanH2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:39:15 GMT

Clearly, it seems to be a fairly widespread.issue. I hadn't been notified of any upcoming changes to the email system or warned that I might need to change my settings. Has anyone else had (older) items deleted from their Webmail inbox? Mine is currently displaying none dated bfore 23 May 2022!

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

balvack2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:39:39 GMT

Yep, that's my plan. At least I know anything older than yesterday has been dealt with so easy to sort by date and then mass delete. Or move to a temporary folder and sort it all out later.

Oh joy, my final account has now reconnected and there are now up to >1500 emails being downloaded

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

balvack2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:57:15 GMT

yep, no notification about any upcoming changes but then - in my experience - there never is, or it's irrelevant & incomplete like today's outgoing mail server one which doesn't say when the change is happening. The Service Status page is useless.

I've checked webmail for one of my accounts and older messages are still there so whatever the issue is may be still working its way through the system?

From what I can see (so far) it does look like it's any email that is still on the server but not in my local inbox (e.g. because deleted or moved to another folder) that is being downloaded again. So for me it doesn't appear anything has been lost... fingers crossed...just a pain waiting for everything to download so I can get new emails.

I suspect I'll leave the tidying up exercise for another day in case this takes time to get sorted.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

AlanH2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:11:46 GMT

Yes. I'm also going to stand back and wait and see what happens. For what it's worth, I've Tweeted Plusnet and asked them to come to this Forum topic.

I remain concerned about the disappearance of all emails dated prior ro 23 May 22 from my webmail inbox, although I may have some of them in my Outlook inbox. It's making the time to reconcile things that's annoying!

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

PCSensei2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:14:17 GMT

Same thing happening here. Hundreds of emails from the last 2-3 weeks (which I know I've deleted because many are spam) are pouring in to my inbox. It's going to take me a lot of time to sift through them, because there are genuine messages among them and I'll have to check each one to see if I've filed/dealt with it.

We should all get a discount to compensate us for the time it's going to take us to sort out PlusNet's mistake.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

balvack2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:18:25 GMT

thanks. It will be interesting to see what they say. I'm off for a teabreak while 1507 messages download...

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

dsluk — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:34:21 GMT

Currently downloading 1035 messages on 2 devices, again, after having already marked all as read then deleted. Some of the emails go back to early 2020......Whatever has happened I hope Plusnet get it fixed asap!

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

balvack2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:50:43 GMT

I suggest not deleting or moving any messages from your inbox(es) until the situation has stabilised, just in case they download yet again depending on what's going on at the server end ... Reading/replying or marking as read will probably be OK, I think (but no guarantee!).

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

PhilipHeyes — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 15:05:35 GMT

We are also seeing Outlook via POP3 re-downloading 1000+ emails.

Clearly this is a fault or a change that has gone very badly wrong.
Can we have an explanation please and ETA to a fix.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

SilverE — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 15:06:29 GMT

I have downloaded all, deleted all, turned off mirroring (leave on server option) and it's calmed down, nothing left on servers. If I really needed them left on the server I'd use IMAP instead of POP3.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

SilverE — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 15:22:07 GMT

Let's not make too much fuss, PlusNet want to shut the whole email service down anyway. Getting it all twice is better than not at all.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

PhilipHeyes — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 15:51:51 GMT

Just called Plusnet and reported having this problem of the entire content of the server being re-delivered via POP3,
quite surprised to have the chap on the phone talking to me about Plusnet withdrawing the email service.

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

tarencapel — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 16:23:59 GMT

"Plusnet withdrawing the email service" - say whaaaat?

What's this all about?

Re: POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

breslaw — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 18:00:00 GMT

Every time there's a problem with the email service, there's a long conversation about PlusNet doing away with email for good. This is usually accompanied on this forum by much harrumphing from customers (including myself), and solemn warnings from the tech gurus who may or may not be echoing the company's future strategy.

And here we are again ...