Metronet inbox disappeared

[#1]

So, yesterday afternoon, my metronet inbox suddenly went from very full to nothing at all.  No content on webmail either but sent items are still there.

Any ideas?  (and no, I didn't delete them!)

[#2]

I have the same issue ... have you got to the bottom of it?

[#3]

@ChrisA1  @latchy9     According to posts today at the end of this thread some Metronet Accounts have been migrated to Greenby.

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Plusnet-email-moving-to-Greenby/td-p/2005987/page/15 

This may have something to do with your problems.🙄

[#4]

I'm unaware of any issues, but if you want to PM me your usernames, I will check further for you. 

Out of interest, have you had confirmation from Greenby about your mail moving over to them? 

[#5]

I'm using Outlook 2019 so apologies if this isn't your email client.

I looked for the .pst file, copied it to another location, renamed it to new.pst and then imported it back into outlook.

This recovered my emails but there was still a gap.

I installed Thunderbird and used that to connect to my account and it recovered all the emails.

Hope these work for you!

[#6]

This sounds rather convoluted and possibly suspect.

Is there an additional email client involved here configured as POP3?  That is likely remove the content of the inbox ... whilst leaving the sent items folder untouched.

Your round the houses approach will have "restored" the server content by a 'push' from the client, which is not the same as a server recovery.

[#7]

I haven't used POP3 in years and I had no other email client so it's unlikely.  I do accept your premise however as I can't think of any other way the webamail would be empty.  

This was a 'desperation' option as it would at least get most emails back versus nothing at all.

[#8]

...unless the mail box was hacked and the content 'stolen'.  You might want to consider changing the password.

[#9]

Sorry, this is all a bit technical for me.

First, how do I "PM" Plusnettony!

To clarify my position further ....

With Thunderbird on my laptop, the Sent folder is empty as well as the Inbox.  

On my iPad, the Sent folder is still visible but the Inbox remains empty.  An account error is showing which reads "Network error (POSIX 96)".  It further states "The mail server - mail.metronet.co.uk" is not responding.  Verify that you have entered the correct account info in Mail settings."  But I have not changed any settings and everything has been working fine until a day or two ago.

I have had no notification from Greenby about being migrated ... but then I have not been able to pick up e mails for a couple of days!

[#10]

---

@ChrisA1 wrote:

Sorry, this is all a bit technical for me.

First, how do I "PM" Plusnettony!

---

Click on his avatar - top left of his post, a new window will open with 'Send Private Message' in a box on the right. 

[#11]

Right ... rants incoming ...
Rant 1: I have now managed to get in to webmail and can see there that I have in fact been migrated but the e mail informing me of this only arrived after my mail box had been emptied which was unhelpful ... and so much for the 30 / 60 day warnings.
Rant 2: I guess I am now in the capable(?) hands of Greenby but suffice to say that re-locating my e mails is proving to be a nightmare and is still to be resolved.  Furthermore, I tried to pay the £15 for my "upgrade" and had two perfectly good card payments rejected by Greenby even though one has actually been charged to my bank account ... this too is still to be resolved.

As I say, I think the Plusnet community can do nothing more for me (please say if I am wrong) ... but hopefully this might be of assistance to others.

[#12]

The community can certainly learn from your experience.

I would suspect that you caught the migration in-flight.  I do not know the micro details of the migration, but the following is probably reasonable …

1. You are with Plusnet all is fine
2. There Is an advance notice of migration 
3. Your migration starts
4. Your emails are moved (over done period of time) from Plusnet to Greenby’s services
5. Your mailbox on the Plusnet service is gradually emptied 
6. when it’s all done and dusted - an email is sent by Greenby 
7. Finally the email server front ends are advised that the mail service has moved over

Until (7) happens the connecting clients continue to be routed to the Plusnet servers thereby there is some possibility of seeing empty folders.

@plusnettony is that a reasonable summary of the journey?

[#13]

Yes, that's a reasonable summary. 

[#14]

In the SU discussion space, @MisterW  has also reported third party experience of using mail service IMAP migration tools, which notes that after the migration has essentially completed, end user email clients can then take an age to resync folders, especially if they are large.

This might give the appearance of a mailbox being empty for a while.  That reminded me of a large mailbox on some other platform taking hours to sync on an iPhone, when the account was added.

That took a lot of “don’t panic carry on” encouragement of the panicked user!

[#15]

• Your mailbox on the Plusnet service is gradually emptied 

Surely , there's no need for it to be emptied UNTIL the migration is complete and the proxy is updated to map the account to Greenby ?