topic Re: greenby migration woes in Email

greenby migration woes

handfordjeffes — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:05:44 GMT

If been with F9/Plusnet for over 30 years, one account changed over without me even noticing but then 2 more accounts only work on the Greenby page, I have 14 accounts for various local clubs and non-profit groups, this morning only 2 have incoming email and one of those can't sent email anymore.

This is a joke I only found out I had been migrated when i managed to logon to the greenby site and see my welcome email. I have raise numberous tickets on there but only get AI responses they do say I need a person and would I like to wait, I say I do and nothing!

I spoke to Plusnet they said basically we passed over to greenby, not our problem, I said you live off of your reputions of customer servise why would I get my phone/broardband from you after this? I have friends who say they are moving after this and have already set up Gmail accounts as it's too much hassle to login on the greenby site to check to see if they have email or send email or read an email you had the other day!

What answers have greenby come up with, my account could be sleeping and my come back in a few days, 2 weeks later that's wearing thin. What can I do enter my username in agian on thunderbird even though it's been working for years. And what happens when I do that no change that account or password is not working, but the same name and password works withing greenby.

Anyone else had this I've checked the account that works and the ones that don't and all the settings except the username are the same, nothings changed except greenby is hosting it?

Re: greenby migration woes

MisterW — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:41:16 GMT

I have 14 accounts for various local clubs and non-profit groups, this morning only 2 have incoming email and one of those can't sent email anymore.

@handfordjeffes taking the email address structure for force9 as <mailboxname>@<username>.f9.co.uk, so we can try and help understand the problem

do you actually mean 14 accounts i.e different usernames ?

or 14 mailboxes i.e different mailboxnames with the same username ?

Re: greenby migration woes

handfordjeffes — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:49:48 GMT

No I have 14 or more accounts as in usernames with either plusnet or force9 going back to the 1990s.

Some work now and some don't, I only know the working ones if I get the welcome email which has come once so far. None of my plusnet account have migrated yet only some of the f9 ones.

Re: greenby migration woes

MisterW — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 13:02:16 GMT

No I have 14 or more accounts as in usernames with either plusnet or force9 going back to the 1990s.

Ah!

First no <username>.plus.com accounts have migrated so they should still work exactly as before.

For the force9 ones, the migration is still in progress. You SHOULD have received an email to the contact address (probably <username>@<username>.f9.co.uk ) for any account that has migrated.

If you have an active PLusnet broadband account, then ONE of the force9 mail accounts should be free for 2 yrs but the others will be subject to a £15/yr charge after the 1st 30 days.

If the account has been migrated , then you should be able to login to the Greenby portal https://greenby.com/ using the force9 username and password and selecting force9 as the provider

Re: greenby migration woes

handfordjeffes — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 13:19:03 GMT

Yeah if I go one Greenby.com and login I can see my welcome email, but cannot get it through thunderbird last email I had was 20th of Nov!

Not sure about the Plusnet I've recieved email for plusnet account this morning but if I try to send I get

Sending of the message failed.
An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Unknown sender. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again.

which i think i may have had before the f9 ones changed over.

Re: greenby migration woes

MisterW — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 13:34:54 GMT

but cannot get it through thunderbird last email I had was 20th of Nov!

Are you using the email address or account+mailbox as the username to authenticate the account in thunderbird ?

Is the sending email address a real mailbox or are you using an alias ?

The PLusnet mail server is alias agnostic i.e will accept <anything>@<username>.plus.com providing the username part is correct but currently the Greenby server will only accept real mailbox names as email addresses.

If that's not the cause, then post all the information for the SMTP error as there should be more details

Re: greenby migration woes

handfordjeffes — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 20:38:42 GMT

just my email address me@username.f9.co.uk

I'm using

Server type: POP Mail Server Port 110

Server name: mail.force9.net

Username: USERNAME (see below for change)

Outgoing server username - relay.force9.net

Update I just had a reply saying to change my username in Thunderbird from USERNAME to USERNAME@<yourusername>.f9.co.uk and you actually type "<yourusername>" this confused me I type in my USERNAME and it did nothing so I thought I'd type in <yourusername> as written here and it did something, it downloaded 5 emails ending with the welcome to greenby but nothing after that so 02:12:2025 on one account and 24:11:2025 on the other .

Re: greenby migration woes

MisterW — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 07:51:10 GMT

The email address format for f9/force9 mailboxes is <mailbox>@<username>.f9.co.uk.

The primary mailbox is <username>@<username>.f9.co.uk and secondary mailboxes are <somethingelse>@<username>.f9.co.uk.

So using the example of username being bloggs, the primary mailbox would be bloggs@bloggs.f9.co.uk and a secondary one would be joe@bloggs.f9.co.uk.

A mail client such as Thunderbird needs a username & password to authenicate with the mail server to access a particular mailbox. The username historically has been either the full email address for the mailbox OR <username>+<mailbox>. It seems at the moment that the full email address doesnt work for secondary mailboxes and the 2nd format should be used.

Using just <username> will access the primary mailbox. To access a secondary mailbox it needs to be <username>+<mailbox>

So using my example above the username bloggs would access the primary mailbox whereas bloggs+joe would access the joe mailbox.

@handfordjeffes In your case it would seem that me@username.f9.co.uk is a secondary mailbox, so thunderbird will need the username+mailbox format (note the '+' character is needed)

Note also, that the password for the primary & secondary mailboxes can be different, if you are unsure then reset the password for the secondary mailboxes using the Greenby portal

Re: greenby migration woes

Dan_the_Van — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 08:14:51 GMT

@handfordjeffes

when you say me@<username>.f9.co.uk, does me have a full stop?

So the email address is something like handford.jeffes@<username>.f9.co.uk

Re: greenby migration woes

handfordjeffes — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:27:11 GMT

Just a name no . I have an update from Greenby

The issue is that your username needs to be the full email address rather than just the mailbox name.

To get your email client working correctly, please remove the existing account first (and take a backup if you are using POP3), then re-add it using the settings below:

Use Username and Password Authentication – No SSL/Encryption

Incoming (IMAP)

Server: imap.force9.net
Port: 143
Username: full email address
Password: email account password

Incoming (POP3)

Server: mail.force9.net
Port: 110
Username: full email address
Password: email account password

Outgoing (SMTP)

Server: relay.force9.net
Port: 25
Username: full email address
Password: email account password

Please try re-adding the accounts using these exact settings. Let us know if you run into any issues — we’re happy to help.

So I changed User Name to username@username.f9.co.uk and on one account it worked I did end up with copies of the last month of emails but that was easy enough to delete them.

But my other account did nothing other than asking for my password and then saying

Login to server mail.force9.net with username omniautos@omniautos.f9.co.uk failed.

Strange thing is an another account that changed over weeks ago works and is just the username for User Name instead of the full email address. So when this works, if it works, I may end up with 3 different User Name formats?

Re: greenby migration woes

handfordjeffes — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 22:15:36 GMT

I have an update from Greenby

So I changed User Name to username@username.f9.co.uk and on one account it worked, I did end up with copies of the last month of emails but that was easy enough to delete them.

But my other account did nothing other than asking for my password and then saying

Login to server mail.force9.net with username <redacted>@<redacted>.f9.co.uk failed.

Strange thing is another account that changed over weeks ago works and is just the username for User Name instead of the full email address. So when this works, if it works, I may end up with 3 different User Name formats?

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

Re: greenby migration woes

handfordjeffes — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 16:06:48 GMT

Thanks Everyone I found the fix, at last!!!!

When I was reading my emails on the greenby page I noticed they have a different name in front the @for me at the top ledthand on the window, so I quickly went back to thunderbird and changed the username@username.f9.co.uk to (greeby)name@username.f9.co.uk and 65 emails instantly arrived. Never once in any emails or in Tickets have they mentioned this other name, but it works so if anyone else has this problem. I found if you go to settings, Identity you change it so i have back to my name and will have to see if thunderbird still works or if I have to change the Thunderbird username to my new Identity?

Just tried, that's weird it still works but now I have a different username in thunderbird than I do in Greenby so that name must be hidden deeper, I will have to see if changing in to my new Greenby ID works?

No that doesn't work I've changed it back to the ID greenby had and it works so I guess even though none of my mail is address to that it must be the catchall default I'll have to see if there is such a thing anyway anyone with a problem check on greenby and if they have a different email use that it work for me.

Re: greenby migration woes

RealAleMadrid — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 22:28:35 GMT

@handfordjeffes Do you know that the email port and security settings in your msg #11 are totally incorrect?

Re: greenby migration woes

RealAleMadrid — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 08:31:21 GMT

@handfordjeffes Please ignore my previous post. On further inspection some of your settings may be OK but I believe Greenby's suggested settings may not be correct. I don't use any Plusnet email services myself so am not able to offer any advice on the recommended settings.

Re: greenby migration woes

Catbar1 — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 11:22:31 GMT

Hello.

As at Weds 21 Jan'26 - Has anyone experienced the following?

Greenby has not, so far, replied to any of my Tickets.

The first Ticket I created was about 15 days ago (see attachment, which is a screenshot from 2 days ago).

I use Thunderbird and my OS is Desktop Windows 11.

Re: greenby migration woes

MichaelD — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:35:21 GMT

Hi @Catbar1

Thanks for coming to the community.

What is happening with your email?

If you've already migrated, we may be limited as to what we can offer, but we can look to help.

Michael

Re: greenby migration woes

Catbar1 — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:18:19 GMT

Hello Michael and many thanks for your welcome!

I can never be quite sure how 'migrated' I am to Greenby - I never received what Greenby say is a 'welcome email'.

Yet, it seems that I could access my (former Plusnet) Inbox and see its contents.

The option to create a 'new ticket' was displayed, and I can fill in a message box and there's a button to 'send' or 'submit' - (sorry, can't offhand remember which). Sometimes I can find a list of all the tickets I've tried to create, and most of these have gone unanswered (did I upload an attachment showing this?).

Once, someone?/somebot? called 'Pascual' did answer - but I had to wait so long for further progress here that I'd assumed nothing would happen, and went off. I came back to find 'Pascual' had left the chat.

MY PROBLEM: Actually, the problem/request I was trying to convey to Greenby was that my Inbox keeps filling up with junk emails, and - remembering that Plusnet had done this for me - I asked Greenby if they could do a Server-side spam configuration, the way Plusnet always had.

But so far - no result.

Re: greenby migration woes

Christopher_G — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:21:44 GMT

Hi @Catbar1

We've seen an increase in spam messages recently. We're working to improve this for customers who have migrated, and also those who haven't.

Chris

Re: greenby migration woes

Catbar1 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:17:58 GMT

Hello Christopher and many thanks for your reply.

Good to hear from someone from Plusnet - can one hope that our woes are finally getting acted on?

And can Plusnet still do a Server-side spam configuration even for those who have been migrated to Greenby -

or can Plusnet put pressure on Greenby to do this?

Re: greenby migration woes

Christopher_G — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 10:47:58 GMT

Hi @Catbar1

We can still do server side spam configuration from our side, but not for accounts that have migrated to Greenby.

Chris