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Email disappears before being read.

cyrilclark1
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Posts: 230
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Registered: ‎22-01-2012

Email disappears before being read.

Using Webmail I clicked on to an email from a friend. Before I had a chance to read it the had email disappeared.

I checked junk and deleted items files but there was no trace of the email.

I have had this happen once before - in that case I had not even opened the email before it disappeared.

I have not recently changed any of my email settings.

Is this just an occasional fault?  - I shall be grateful for any advice.

16 REPLIES 16
MisterW
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Re: Email disappears before being read.

@cyrilclark1 have you got another email client running somewhere using POP3 to download the email ?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Townman
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Re: Email disappears before being read.

@cyrilclark1 

If you do not have knowledge of another email client accessing your mailbox, then you should change the password on the mail box (if it is a secondary one) or the password on you PN account if it is the primary email address.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

cyrilclark1
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Registered: ‎22-01-2012

Re: Email disappears before being read.

Thank you for your response. I have not got another email client but we have two PCs that can receive emails to my account.

Yes, I will change the password on my PN account just in case somerthing has gone wrong; however Firefox Monitor has not flagged up any know data breaches to any of my email accounts.

With kind regards.

 

Townman
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Re: Email disappears before being read.


@cyrilclark1 wrote:

I have not got another email client but we have two PCs that can receive emails to my account.

 


Are you 100% certain that neither are configured as POP3 email clients?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

cyrilclark1
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Posts: 230
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Registered: ‎22-01-2012

Re: Email disappears before being read.

Many thanks for your reply - I can confirm that both PCs are configured POP3/IMAP. We usually have no trouble accessing and reading Webmail from either system.

The problem of the disappearing emails has only happened twice to my knowledge.

A few years ago I caught one in the act of disappearing. As I noted earlier I saw the subject pop up in the in box - it then disappeared complectely.

Thanks again for your advice.

ps As suggested I have changed my Plusnet password.

 

 

adam945
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Posts: 2,319
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Registered: ‎01-12-2020

Re: Email disappears before being read.

Hi @cyrilclark1

 

Thank you for reaching out and I'm sorry to hear that you're having problems with your mailbox. In order for me to have this raised to the relevant department on our end, please can you inform me of the following:

 

1. Please specify the mailbox that you're using in which these problems are occurring on - feel free to send me a Private Message with the full address

 

2. Are you aware of any error codes which are appearing on your webmail portal?

 

3. Are you aware of any error codes that the sender is seeing when they're sending emails to the specified address at all?

 

4. Do you give our NetOps team to create a temporary password to the account while they investigate the matter?

 

-Adam - Plusnet Leeds

 Adam
 Plusnet Help Team - Leeds
Townman
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Re: Email disappears before being read.

It is unwise using POP3 on any device where access to the same mailbox is required on multiple devices.

Your reference to POP3/IMAP suggests you are using both. All devices should use IMAP which leaves the emails on the server so that they can be seen on all / any devices. A POP3 configured client will remove emails from the server when it does the next Poll for new mail. If at that time you are also looking at the mailbox with an IMAP client ... you will see it disappear!

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

cyrilclark1
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Posts: 230
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Registered: ‎22-01-2012

Re: Email disappears before being read.

Many thanks for your response and apologies for not having replied sooner.

Yes, I will change settings on both PCs to IMAP.

With kind regards and thanks again.

 

Townman
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Re: Email disappears before being read.

Just to be certain that your mail is not being harvested by a third party due to mailbox name / password compromise you might also consider changing the password to the mailbox.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

cyrilclark1
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Re: Email disappears before being read.

Yes, I changed my password just a few days ago as advised.

I'm still trying to change from POP3 to IMAP but with no success so far.

Server settings doesn't give me the option - is there anywhere else I should look.

Thanks.

Townman
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Re: Email disappears before being read.

Sorry "change" should be read as "take a change of approach" not "change the existing settings".

An email "account" in an email application is configured at its inception for either POP3 or IMAP - they cannot be "changed" afterwards.

What email application are you using?  Some email applications do not care if you have the same email address configured more than once, others will not allow this.  However in principle, you simply create the same email address account again, choosing IMAP instead of POP3.

WARNING: DO NOT DELETE the POP3 address in your email application - that is the only repository of your historic emails.

You might need hand holding through this journey - do not hesitate to ask for help.  Do a Google search for "outlook change from pop3 to imap" and take a look at some of the guides, such as Changing an account from POP to IMAP in Outlook (hostpapa.co.uk)

"Switching from a POP3 connection to an IMAP account could delete your existing emails. To avoid losing anything important, you should create a backup of your mailboxes.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

cyrilclark1
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Posts: 230
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Registered: ‎22-01-2012

Re: Email disappears before being read.

Many thanks again for all your advice.

I am using Plusnet Webmail. If I reconfigure my address to IMAP on just one PC will that be all that is necessary?

Until I do that we are making sure that the Plusnet email app is only open on one PC.

With kind regards.

 

 

Townman
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Re: Email disappears before being read.

Hi Cyril,


@cyrilclark1 wrote:

I am using Plusnet Webmail.



I fear that we might be getting confused with terminology!

Some people use the term "webmail" incorrectly to refer to Plusnet's email service as a whole irrespective of how they access their emails.  To be precise, "webmail" should only be used to refer to accessing the Plusnet email service via the web based (IMAP) email client found here - https://webmail.plus.net - even Plusnet staff have been known to get this confused!

 


@cyrilclark1 wrote:

If I reconfigure my address to IMAP on just one PC will that be all that is necessary?


You might indeed want to go one PC at a time, but if both have an email client configured for POP operation, then the other one could still harvest emails and you will see the same issue which you first reported.  Leaving one switched off might mitigate that but might not be overly helpful.

 

It might help to step back...

  1. Which email client are you using on your PCs?
  2. When / Where / How do you access your emails using Webmail?

Where might be better ways of delivering what you seek to do here.  If you have devices with their own email applications, there is no real need to use webmail at all to access your Plusnet email services.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

cyrilclark1
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Posts: 230
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Registered: ‎22-01-2012

Re: Email disappears before being read.

I think you have answered the question for me.

In a few weeks my wife will be changing her rather ancient PC for a tablet.

Until then we shall make sure that our shared email address is only accessed on my PC.

When her new tablet arrives she may consider just using her Gmail account or get her own Plusnet address.

I think that will probably solve the problem for the future.

Thank you again for all your wisdom! It is very much appreciated.