Update on this morning's outage

[#1]

mod:note
I have split the off topic posts from this thread to Update on this morning's outage [Off Topic]
Please can I ask the we keep this thread on its original topic.
Jonathan
aka Chilly

[#2]

I now recall that when I phoned Plusnet around 2am I did not get the member of staff who took the call to log in to my user account as I merely asked what the outage was and when it would be fixed.  They said by 3am at the latest.
Only later when calling again after 7am and the problem was still not fixed was I asked for my username and password and log in to my account.  That is why it appears to the gentleman from Plusnet as though I did not ask for an update until the morning.

[#3]

1. You are utilising a FREE email service on the basis that "my continued use of it comes down to inertia and the fact that on the whole in the last 6 months with spam filtering etc and no long multi hour pop downloading failures things had been much better".
2. No emails were lost.
3. There was a period of around 8 hours where emails were unable to be collected - you were very unfortunate that it affected you. It appears that some people were "affected" for longer simply because they did not realise they needed to re-enter their password as their mail client had discarded it when login failed (that had me going for a bit).
It was exceptional circumstances. In my books a measure of a company is far more down to how problems are resolved. In this case staff were mobilised very rapidly for a stupid o'clock problem and everything brought back on-line in remarkably short time. I must admit that I was surprised by the total lack of synchronisation problems between the two sites after it came back given the nature of the problem.

[#4]

Quote from: jelv

It was exceptional circumstances. In my books a measure of a company is far more down to how problems are resolved. In this case staff were mobilised very rapidly for a stupid o'clock problem and everything brought back on-line in remarkably short time. I must admit that I was surprised by the total lack of synchronisation problems between the two sites after it came back given the nature of the problem.

In my book competent ISPs don't have to use the excuse of "exceptional circumstances" because they have chosen suppliers and put in place plans that avoid the "exceptional circumstances" occurring in the first place.
It seems clear that Plusnet are relying on an SLA with Easynet that isn't worth the paper its printed on if a few contractors can just come in to a data centre and shut off all the power with the red emergency button with no one being there to stop them.  The only reason this happened was because of a gross dereliction of duty by Easynet on who it allows access to its data centre and what information and training it gives them in advance.
When I was with Lixxus their regular broadband outages were blamed on Telehouse and Global Switch and almost anyone but themselves but when I have been a NewNet or an Entanet customer these regular periods of broadband outage do not occur.
The fan boys amongst you can continue to applaud the efforts of individuals at Plusnet for doing their best to again patch up the steaming crock of you know what systems the company uses but the fact of the matter is that the email of a major ISP was down for over 8 hours without a genuine acceptable emergency reason like a major flood or a major storm and this is simply not good enough.

[#5]

Moderators Note
Again, discussion has been split off into http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,61386.0.html
Any 'discussion' not directly related to this subject will now be silently removed from this thread.
B.

[#6]

from the forum rules....

Quote

The role of the moderators is to ensure that the forums provide an enjoyable and informative experience for all. They also ensure that the Forum Guidelines and rules are followed. The moderators have the right to edit, censor, delete or otherwise modify any posted message.

[#7]

Is anyone else still having problems acessing their emails?  I am still receiving an error message through Oulook Express and am unable to sign in via webmail.  Although I have been able to sign into the Member Centre.

[#8]

Hi Bing,
I've replied to your ticket.  Can you try again in about 20-30 minutes or so?

[#9]

Hi James
No luck so far through either webmail or Outlook Express.
Although I may have added to the problem, as before I discovered on this forum that there had been a problem, I did try resetting the password on one of my email accounts.

[#10]

Hi Bing,
I've managed to log into both your bing & fax accounts via telnet.
Are you still seeing the same problem?

[#11]

Hi James
I've just tried restarting my computer and I'm still having the same problem with Outlook and Webmail.  Although I'm trying to log in to webmail through plusnet is this not correct as you have said you logged in through telnet?
I have been able to send emails this morning.

[#12]

James is using telnet to simulate a POP3 connection to your mailbox.
Open a DOS box then....
telnet mail.plus.net 110
user username
pass password

if the above works then there must be a problem with your email client
Note: for a named mailbox you are using username+mailboxname as the user/login name and its associated password entered when you set-up the mailbox?

[#13]

Quote

telnet mail.plus.net 25

telnet mail.plus.net 110 would work better

[#14]

So it would - was testing SMTP elsewhere just before I wrote it 

[#15]

Hi Bing,
I also managed to login fine via webmail to your Bing account.
Which mailboxes are you having difficulties with?  All of them or just some?