topic Re: What has happened to PlusNet service? in Plusnet Feedback

What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 08:04:50 GMT

Long rant...

I have been a PlusNet (Free-Online) customer for many years, and have always been happy with the service I received. On the few occasions I have had to report a problem, it has always been speedily resolved.

However, a few days ago I started having timeout issues retrieving emails. Nothing had changed at my end, so I went to look at the "Service Status" page - only to find it has disappeared. I then looked for the page to report a problem, only to find that the web-form had been replaced by a text-based diagnostics bot.

I used the bot, which offered to restart the router, but that didn't solve the problem (as I expected, since it's not a connection issue). It then said the problem must be with my hardware (LOL) and gave me a link to a series of general hardware tests/changes, none of which were relevant. So I requested further help.

A while later, I discovered a voicemail message, which said someone would contact me in 15/20 mins. Two days; still no call and still very intermittent email access.

COME ON PLUSNET, YOU USED TO BE BETTER THAN THIS!

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

willcutforth — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 11:13:15 GMT

Morning @andrewww that does sound like a pain, I've been here for 10 years nearly and been through when it was easy to raise up until when it was hard. The dialler system works most of the time though I have to admit but not sure why it didn't this time. I will pass the feedback on to the team for you. Just so I can get the full picture about the fault, is it just the retrieving emails that is the problem or do you have issues with other sites, etc?

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 11:38:11 GMT

Hi,

Just emails - timing out when trying to retrieve (most of the time, occasionally one or the other address will work). No problems with connectivity, getting a solid 72 down and 19 up, as usual. All websites OK and Usenet OK.

Thanks.

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

willcutforth — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 12:23:12 GMT

At least the other side is looking ok, what email software are you using?

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 12:34:53 GMT

claws-mail version 3.17.5 (since Apr 2022, configuration unchanged - which was copied from previously working config)

Linux Mint MATE 20.3 (Una)

Thanks

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

willcutforth — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 19:06:26 GMT

Out of curiosity and this is just for testing purposes. What's webmail like with retrieving them?

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 21:52:21 GMT

Webmail is OK.

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

James30 — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 12:30:47 GMT

Hmm that's a little out of my depth with Linux Mint and Claw. One issue, maybe that you are affected by our long-standing issue of performance when the mailbox is on the heavy side. Do you have many emails in webmail?

As well have you tried setting it on the phone or another device to see if it works?

Are you using POP or IMAP in claws-mail

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 13:29:00 GMT

Hi,

Do you have many emails in webmail?

account #1 inbox 8, sent 7, rest 0

account #2 inbox 301, rest 0

I wouldn't think 300 emails is a lot, but I have deleted them all anyway.

For both accounts, claws-mail was set up to delete emails on the server after 14 days. I have now changed that to 7 days.

It has so far made no difference, usually timing out and occasionally succeeding.

As well have you tried setting it on the phone or another device to see if it works?

I don't have emails set up on my phone. My wife's computer, which also uses claws-mail, is exhibiting the same timeout behaviour, so it's not my computer. I suppose I could set up Thunderbird and see if that makes any difference.

Are you using POP or IMAP in claws-mail

POP

claws-mail is set up to use (and has been for many years) mail.free-online.net on port 110 with no SSL/TLS. This worked until about a week ago.

I see that the current settings are specified as port 995 with STARTTLS.

I have just tried these settings, and it timed out without even trying to log on.

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 13:53:56 GMT

@andrewww

Have you tested the connection using telnet? Open a terminal window, enter command.

telnet mail.free-online.net 110

it will respond with something like

Trying 217.46.26.15...
Connected to mail.free-online.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK POP3 perditon ready on mail.free-online.net 00029b79

telnet mail.free-online.net 995

Trying 217.46.26.25...
Connected to mail.free-online.net.
Escape character is '^]'.

ctrl+] will break the telnet connection

This above means the PC can connect to mail.free-online.net on port 110 or 995, if it does then there something wrong with the config.

HTH

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 14:02:22 GMT

port 110 works OK

port 995 fails to connect

if it does then there something wrong with the config

who's config, mine or PlusNet? I haven't updated claws-mail or changed anything... What else could have changed the config?

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 14:03:18 GMT

OK, I have tried Thunderbird - it also times out.

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 14:50:42 GMT

Being around sometime I use free-online mail servers but I opt to use IMAP rather than POP.

time out for connection test on port 995 is worrying, as this would point to something external to your home network as no connection can be made to the mail host on port 995.

Does port 110 work with no security, with 995 timing out it will never work using that port.

A Hub reboot might resolve the issue.

Edit: does telnet imap.free-online.net 993 connect?

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 17:06:38 GMT

Port 110 with no security is what I have set up (see previous posts). It times out about 8 out of10 times.

Re-started the hub, still having timeouts retrieving email.

imap.free-online.net 993 does not connect.

EDIT:

Ok, since the hub restart, all telnet commands now appear to connect, but still getting timeouts (though it doesn't seem to be as often?)

Thanks

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 17:50:00 GMT

An improvement then.

Regarding the timeouts does it make any difference if you use either port 110 or 995 for mail.free-online.net?

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 18:33:08 GMT

Using port 110 times out after accepting user ID and password:

* Account 'XXXXXXXX@mail.free-online.net': Connecting to POP3 server: mail.free-online.net:110... [2023-12-03 18:12:01] POP< +OK POP3 perditon ready on mail.free-online.net 00029b7a [2023-12-03 18:12:01] POP> USER XXXXXXXX [2023-12-03 18:12:01] POP< +OK USER XXXXXXXX set, mate [2023-12-03 18:12:01] POP> PASS ******** ** Session timed out. You may be able to recover by increasing the timeout value in Preferences/Other/Miscellaneous.

Using port 995 with STARTTLS times out without asking for anything:

* Account 'XXXXXXXX@mail.free-online.net': Connecting to POP3 server: mail.free-online.net:995... ** Session timed out. You may be able to recover by increasing the timeout value in Preferences/Other/Miscellaneous.

NOTE: I have now managed to get Thunderbird working without timeouts by deleting and re-creating the accounts (or maybe it was just after the hub restart?) So it may be a claws-mail issue after all -- but I haven't changed the config or installed a new version. The only thing I can think of is an update to another library. I do regular updates and security patches so maybe one of those could be the culprit? I'll look back through my update logs to see what was updated in the last week or so.

EDIT: Scratch that, Thunderbird has just timed out again!

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

Dan_the_Van — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 11:02:11 GMT

Out of interest are you still seeing the timeout issue?

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 11:09:33 GMT

Yes, still having timeouts.

This morning, I have installed the latest version of Linux Mint MATE and claws-mail in a VM. Set up the same as my live system, and I'm getting the same timeouts in the latest version in the VM.

Also, Thunderbird is timing out too.

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

Dan_the_Van — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 11:29:10 GMT

As they says "that's disappointing"

It would be good to ping mail.free-online.net but the servers do not respond to ICMP packets, but you can use trace route forcing it to use TCP and a port, terminal command sudo traceroute -T -p 110 mail.free-online.net (-T forces TCP -p 110 uses port 110, -p 995 uses port 995)

Not sure if this is helpful

Re: What has happened to PlusNet service?

andrewww — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 11:38:03 GMT

I get:

[andrew] /home/andrew andrew $ sudo traceroute -T -p 110 mail.free-online.net traceroute: invalid option -- 'T' Try 'traceroute --help' or 'traceroute --usage' for more information. [andrew] /home/andrew andrew $ traceroute --help Usage: traceroute [OPTION...] HOST Print the route packets trace to network host. -f, --first-hop=NUM set initial hop distance, i.e., time-to-live -g, --gateways=GATES list of gateways for loose source routing -I, --icmp use ICMP ECHO as probe -m, --max-hop=NUM set maximal hop count (default: 64) -M, --type=METHOD use METHOD (`icmp' or `udp') for traceroute operations, defaulting to `udp' -p, --port=PORT use destination PORT port (default: 33434) -q, --tries=NUM send NUM probe packets per hop (default: 3) --resolve-hostnames resolve hostnames -t, --tos=NUM set type of service (TOS) to NUM -w, --wait=NUM wait NUM seconds for response (default: 3) -?, --help give this help list --usage give a short usage message -V, --version print program version Mandatory or optional arguments to long options are also mandatory or optional for any corresponding short options. Report bugs to <bug-inetutils@gnu.org>. [andrew] /home/andrew andrew $ traceroute --version traceroute (GNU inetutils) 1.9.4 Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Written by Elian Gidoni.