Is there currently a problem with POP mail? (11/3/15 13:45)

[#1]

Great, many thanks - sorted by taking these steps.
Still not clear why this happened, and what effect it has by switching SSL off......?
Many thanks again

[#2]

Mad Moggies, you get the other 5 stars that I promised as my email has been behaving perfectly for more than 24 hours and hasn't been ticking boxes on its own accord anymore. Thanks for your help!

[#3]

Thanks to everyone above. This has been a frustrating few days on our Macs, wondering why none of the plusnet inbound accounts were working, but all the manual Advanced tweaks seem to have done the trick.

[#4]

Thanks chaswick! Glad it worked for you too.

[#5]

Quote from: GE90

Still not clear why this happened, and what effect it has by switching SSL off......?

This happened because the Apple update unilaterally changed the email server configuration details without informing or asking you irrespective of the facilities provided by your email provider - whoever they are.
Switching SSL off simply sets the configuration back to how it was before Apple dicked around with it.  Using SSL would be ideal, but at present PlusNET do not support this.  Apple's unilateral action was quite inappropriate.
Speaking as an iDevice user I suggest that what Apple nirmally do - test to see if SSL will work when configuring an email account - is ideal and sufficient.  Unilaterally reconfiguring something which was working, invisible to the user is unforgivable.

[#6]

Quote from: Mad

Thanks chaswick! Glad it worked for you too.

Worked for me as well - many thanks for the solution.

[#7]

Many thanks, the fix worked, for now! I wonder what will be in the next Yosemite update, will they fix this as well as the bluetooth issue!
Here's hoping 

[#8]

Problem solved after doing the following:
Go to: Mail - Preferences - Accounts - Advanced

• Use SSL (untick)


• Automatically detect and maintain account settings (untick)


• Allow insecure authentication (tick)

PlusNet's support on this issue has been very poor. It took me two days for them to come up with untick 'Use SSL' step, then when that wasn't working, another day to suggest step 2. When that failed to solve the problem I was told to approach Apple. I got step 3 from this forum. It also turned out that their advice on passwords was incorrect. The password used to access my mail is NOT the same as the one I use to log-on to the PlusNet site.
For PlusNet to tell (presumably hundreds of) individual customers to approach Apple for support rather than provide their own coherent advice is ridiculous. I feel like they've given me the finger.
Criticising Apple for attempting to strengthen mail security is also weak. What are they meant to do? Match the standards of the most unsecure ISP?
I'm now going through all my logins and contacts to replace my Plusnet POP account with my previously unused iCloud IMAP account. The hassle involved in doing this was one of the main reasons I've stuck with PlusNet for so long. Once it's done, I might look elsewhere.

[#9]

First place I came was here as from experience I know Plusnet customers generally sort these things out quickly. As you can read here, between us we did so in under a day!
The problem was Apple changing to automatically detecting and changing Mail settings and having that option switched on as the default. The last part of that must have happened with the security update the previous day as we hadn't had this happen previously (the relevant Apple Support page I found was updated early last month so it must have been an option then, just not switched on by default). https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19201?locale=en_GB&viewlocale=en_US
Of course that has made Plusnet customers aware of their email accounts being less secure than many of us realised and that does need addressing. I use a mixture of Apple and Plusnet email addresses for different things (and so does my husband) and it would be just too much hassle changing them and contacting everyone. As it is, Plusnet appears to be far more secure than yahoo and gmail so I'm not too bothered!

BTW, what Plusnet support probably meant re passwords was the password to access your mail account in webmail rather than the one for the Member Centre.

[#10]

Quote from: SteveEnfield

PlusNet's support on this issue has been very poor. ... When that failed to solve the problem I was told to approach Apple. It also turned out that their advice on passwords was incorrect. For PlusNet to tell (presumably hundreds of) individual customers to approach Apple for support rather than provide their own coherent advice is ridiculous. I feel like they've given me the finger. Criticising Apple for attempting to strengthen mail security is also weak. What are they meant to do? Match the standards of the most unsecure ISP?

Hi Steve,
Welcome to the forums.
I rather think you have totally got the wrong end of the stick here.  You had a configuration which was working perfectly fine without issues, using established standards.  The fact that there are other standards available is an irrelevance here.
Apple has come along and without asking you or informing you (their customer), their OS upgrade goes and silently change existing configured items, the consequence of which is that your previously working email no longer works.
Why do you expect PlusNet to sort out Apple's inconsiderate actions?
Why do you expect PlusNet to know that Apple OS upgrade does this?  They have no insider info on Apple, they do not support Apple devices.
The blame here is fairly and squarely in Apple's court.  No system upgrade should leave things which were working, now not working.  Making users aware of alternative configuration options is one thing, but going and implementing them without informing users and indeed warning them that the changes might not work is gross negligence.
As for the passwords being wrong, well for the default email box, the (default) password is the same as that with which you logon on to the portal and that you use to connect to the internet.  If you are using secondary email boxes did you indicate such to the support guy?

I've had over 35 years experience in supporting IT; I would never have sanctioned for relapse a system upgrade which had the potential to cause the problems people have encountered here.  What Apple has done here is simply unacceptable - it is professionally wrong, it is inconsiderate to users and to the support functions of other service providers.
Kevin

[#11]

Just to say that the latest Apple security update 2015-003, which was available today, despite saying at the bottom of this page https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204563 that it includes the content from the last update 2015-002 (which, from timing, appeared to cause all the problems with Mail), did not switch back on the 'Automatically detect and maintain account settings' Advanced Mail option this time. Phew! 

[#12]

One might therefore conclude that a lesson has been learnt and things are being done differently.
Apple "security" updates are getting nearly as regular as Microsoft's... I rather recall Apple fans telling me that their OS is better, more secure than Microsoft's and therefore does not need regular security patching.  Seems like someone was wrong!