topic Re: Freenetname email frozen/intermittent in Email

totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 11:27:17 GMT

Had similar issues twice last week , as well as overnight 21st to 22nd April.
Help desk is not aware of the issues mentioned in the first reply, perhaps someone should tell them?

Re: Freenetname email frozen/intermittent

jab1 — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 17:22:04 GMT

@Hughesler As the mail service is (a) now a 'legacy' component (no longer offered to new subscribers) and (b) moving to a new platform in the near future, the Helpdesk team are not kept up-to-date, but assistance is available via this channel.

Re: Freenetname email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 18:29:48 GMT

Hi @jab1, thank you for that, I had read about email being transferred to Greenby (I think?), could this issue of email not refreshing for several hours be part of the transfer? Is there a resolution being sought, or In sight do you know, It's unsettling not knowing if or when it will occur again, or if in fact some mails have been lost as suggested by the original poster.
I appreciate this is legacy, not to mention free(!) but it seems unfair on the helpdesk operatives not to know what is happening as they are going to be caught in the crossfire if people ring in instead of posting here. This is from the perspective of someone who did 2 years on an IT helpdesk

Re: Freenetname email frozen/intermittent

jab1 — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 18:35:13 GMT

@Hughesler I am not going to answer that directly, as I am not 'in the know', but from my experience on this (and other ISPs) support forums, I would say it is a possibility - but don't quote me.

Re: Freenetname email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 19:08:42 GMT

I understand completely, thank you @jab1

Re: Freenetname email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 13:20:35 GMT

@Townman, for myself it is an old totalserve email, the email address is [Removed]totalserve.co.uk, the username to sign in to the account is [Removed]@totalserve.co.uk. Our access is with BT broadband. The issue occurs whether through the Webmail interface or using Outlook as a client.
To be clear, we do not have authentication issues, webmail shows existing emails, however a refresh does not bring up any new email for several hours. Then after a few hours, mails that were sent during the blank period slowly filter through, usually with receieved time set earlier, i.e. not current time.
Thanks again for your interest

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Personal information removed from a public forum (to an area that staff can see).

Re: Freenetname email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 13:19:03 GMT

@Townman, for myself it is an old totalserve email, the email address is <Redacted>.totalserve.co.uk, the username to sign in to the account is <Redacted>@totalserve.co.uk. Our access is with BT broadband. The issue occurs whether through the Webmail interface or using Outlook as a client.

Moderator's note:
Personal information removed from a public forum (to an area that staff can see).

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Mav — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 11:32:58 GMT

Moderator's note(s):

Several posts have been moved from https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Freenetname-email-frozen-intermittent/td-p/2006529 by request.

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Townman — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 13:06:36 GMT

@Hughesler

Now that we have you on a different thread for the different brand, can you please try this...

Extracted from elsehwere...

This process is not difficult, but you will need the following resources which might be unfamiliar...

Windows: POWERSHELL window (NOT CMD / DOS window) - right click on the Windows Start button and select TERMINAL (not Admin) from the context menu
macOS: TERMINAL window - open through Spotlight (cmd +space) or navigate in Finder to '/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app'
Linux: You might need to update curl

Brand: Totalserve
Preferred userID: Address
Encryption supported: No

IMAP: mail.totalserve.co.uk port: 143
POP3: mail.totalserve.co.uk port: 110
SMTP: mail.totalserve.co.uk port: 587

curl.exe -v imap://mail.totalserve.co.uk -u userID
curl.exe -v pop3://mail.totalserve.co.uk -u userID
curl.exe -v smtp://mail.totalserve.co.uk:587 -u userID

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 13:23:07 GMT

@Townman - possibly I'm being dim, I apologise in advance.
Right-click on the Windows icon gives me power she'll or power she'll admin (rather than Terminal) so I select power she'll and the window opens. I'm assuming the term 'brand: totalserve' is setting a variable in powershell? Powershell returns 'the term brand is not recognised as the name of a cmdlet' etc. possibly I'm on an old version of powershell but can't remember how to upgrade if that's the case
If I'm slow responding, please forgive me, I'm doing this as I get a free minute at work......

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Townman — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 13:53:26 GMT

No not dim!! Thank you, that helps refine the guidance!

Win 11 is TERMINAL
Win 10 is Windows Powershell

They are the same!

You only use the three cURL.exe lines. In the full solution they are copied to the clipboard read for use.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Updated guidance:

This process is not difficult, but you will need the following resources which might be unfamiliar...

Windows: POWERSHELL window (NOT CMD / DOS window) - right click on the Windows Start button to open the context menu and select
- Win 11 TERMINAL (not Admin)
- Win10 Windows Powershell (not Admin)
macOS: TERMINAL window - open through Spotlight (cmd +space) or navigate in Finder to '/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app'
Linux: You might need to update curl

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 14:49:01 GMT

Hi , we are pops3 so I picked that one, the command worked. I got messages:connected to mail.totalserve.co.uk; POP3 ready; capability list follows (top,user,uidl,sasl plain login); sasl plain login; Auth plain; ok lugged in.
Then POP3 clients that break here, they violated std53 followed by a numbered list of 277 number-strings. Then the command exits
At this point, mails are coming in as normal, since about 9:55 today however I can run this sometime incoming mail is down if it helps

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Townman — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 15:01:57 GMT

There are two distinct considerations...

Is mail arriving in the inbox
Can you access the servers

No to both might be related, but they are not the same issue. The diagnostic tests addresses (2) - IMAP / POP3 for receiving and SMTP for sending.

I'll reflect on if the guidance notes elsewhere need further clarification.

That said, I think I might have headed down the wring track, this issue being initially posted in a differently themed topic ... and a focus on login issues. None the less, it has helped refine the work in progress guidance notes.

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 15:17:18 GMT

Thanks for that.
I believe the original poster had the same issue as me, with mail simply not coming through, and then trickling in later in the day. The thread seemed to have taken on credentials failures more recently. Hard for you to keep track of I know 😕
To be clear, we CAN login to both webmail and outlook clients, it simply doesn't update for a few hours then slowly catches up.
I should also have said, our outgoing mail has to go out via BT mail servers due to their email relay rules rather than through legacy totalserve servers, that may be some of the errors?

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Townman — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 16:06:45 GMT

There is no reason why the outbound mail should not go via the totalserve SMTP server on port 587 with authentication . Try the SMTP diagnostic.

Re: totalserve.co.uk email frozen/intermittent

Hughesler — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 20:31:44 GMT

The SMTP diagnostic worked, unfortunately the outgoing mail settings didn't work for Outlook. However there may be something else I'm missing as I can't now get outgoing email to send after reverting to the BT settings - I did take a screenshot first. I'll work on it further and see where it takes me. It would be a lot easier if I could go out using totalserve mail servers