2 weeks of duplicate emails just arrived !

[#1]

All the emails that I had already received over the previous 2 weeks from Plusnet into my Outlook client ... have suddenly arrived again.  ow I have to go through and (probably) delete them all.  Why is this happening ?

This is not the first time.  It happened once before - a few months ago - and only since the move to Greenby was announced ...

[#2]

Hi there @irritablegit 

Thanks for letting us know. 

Could I just check as you have mentioned the outlook client, if you log into the email account using webmail, do you see the same duplicate emails? 

Leanne.

[#3]

That's a good question.  I didn't check at the time and in fact I almost never log into the Plusnet webmail.

Logging in now, the duplicates are not there (or were never there).  Of course, I did delete them all from the Outlook client yesterday so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised they aren't there.

I can't recall the settings re clearing from webmail.

Sorry I can't be more help

[#4]

I see @irritablegit 

If this happens again, could you check in webmail to see if they are showing in there as well and let us know? and we can check with the support team to see what could have caused this. 

Leanne.

[#5]

ok

[#6]

Hmm, yes, I've had the same issue. 

A while back, I received duplicates of all of my mail going back ages. Obviously added to my inbox size and then during the week and today, I've again received duplicates going back to November accompanied by 'new mail alerts' - I have thousands of emails and not all wanted ones are 'marked as read' 😱

It took me ages before and now, I have to waste more time, deleting the duplicates. 😭

For me, this is just another issue in our 'migration' to greenby. Absolute nightmare!

AND that's not forgetting the intermittent messages that my 'email server isn't connecting' so then that stops my receiving email. 

Three months and just problems EVERY WEEK! AArrgghh!

[#7]

@irritablegit @tangodoll on the device that's receiving the email duplicates, do you by any chance have the email client configured for POP3 with the 'leave messages on server...' option ?

[#8]

It's POP and

Leave messages on server BUT delte after 14 days

(Remove from server when deleted from Deleted Items ... is NOT ticked)

Therefore, where did the duplicates reappear from ?  

It looks like even after I deleted from my Outlook Inbox (and emptied the Deleted folder)

they should still have been in the Plusnet webmail for 14 days ...

[#9]

POP was designed to download all messages from the server to local storage and delete them from server. When the 'leave messages on server...' option is used , the POP client has to 'remember' which mesages it had already downloaded to avoid duplicating them. The server generates a UID (unique identifier) for each message on the server, and the POP client remembers which was the last it downloaded. Now the problem is, that if the mail server is reset for any reason, then the UIDs can get changed and so the POP client will download again any messages that are on the server.

An IMAP client doesnt have this problem since it doesnt retain any local copies and thus just resynchronises and presents all mail existing on the server.

Webmail is just an IMAP client that runs remotely and renders the details via a browser. 

[#10]

Fine

I've been using POP for the past 20+ years with Plusnet and Outlook and this has only happened since the move to Greenby was announced

[#11]

---

@irritablegit wrote:

Fine

I've been using POP for the past 20+ years with Plusnet and Outlook and this has only happened since the move to Greenby was announced

---

Which tells you a lot about how this fiasco has meant the mail server has had to be reset many times 🙄

[#12]

@MisterW  Guilty as charged, but agreeing with @irritablegit , this has only happened since the move to greenby. 

Adding to my ever growing 'to-do' list courtesy of greenby, I will revise my settings and maybe delete some emails from the server. 

It's a bummer because they're there in case I need to refer to one when I'm out and about. At home, all emails are downloaded to my pc. 

Oh well, if it placates greenby and stops them creating extra work for me, I'll have to go with housekeeping. Ugh! 

Thank you all

[#13]

"POP was designed to download all messages from the server to local storage and delete them from server."

Yes. Quite probably.

"The server generates a UID (unique identifier) for each message on the server, and the POP client remembers which was the last it downloaded."

Sounds about right.

"Now the problem is, that if the mail server is reset for any reason, then the UIDs can get changed"

Which makes it a "server-side" problem.

[#14]

Which makes it a "server-side" problem.

Yes, its a problem caused by the unreliability of the Greenby servers. In the last few weeks they've been up and down like the proverbial...

However, I cant see the basic flaw in the POP protocol being fixed and so in circumstances where a mail server is reset, the problem will likely happen.

[#15]

I'll openly admit that I've never used the "leave on server" option (it causes irritations, especially when the mailbox is being accessed from multiple devices).

I'm still trying to get my head properly around why this option was implemented in clients.