POP3 mail client redownloading old emails from plusnet mail servers

[SilverE]

I have downloaded all, deleted all, turned off mirroring (leave on server option) and it's calmed down, nothing left on servers. If I really needed them left on the server I'd use IMAP instead of POP3.

[SilverE]

Let's not make too much fuss, PlusNet want to shut the whole email service down anyway. Getting it all twice is better than not at all.

[PhilipHeyes]

Just called Plusnet and reported having this problem of the entire content of the server being re-delivered via POP3,
quite surprised to have the chap on the phone talking to me about Plusnet withdrawing the email service.

[tarencapel]

"Plusnet withdrawing the email service" - say whaaaat? 

What's this all about?

TC

[breslaw]

Every time there's a problem with the email service, there's a long conversation about PlusNet doing away with email for good. This is usually accompanied on this forum by much harrumphing from customers (including myself), and solemn warnings from the tech gurus who may or may not be echoing the company's future strategy.

And here we are again ... 

[Stuart22]

My K-9 client on Android first of all deleted all messages in my inbox that had downloaded and I'd not deleted, then went back to 2017 and re-downloaded everything I hadn't deleted from the server. Perhaps a duplicate detector in there?

My Windows Mail program kept all the messages I hadn't deleted then also re-downloaded everything back to 2017. As that was the only mail program that was set to delete from the server once I deleted from my Inbox deleted items, I now have 2 copies of every email on that client.

Now, I wonder what will happen if I delete the newly downloaded duplicates from the client. Will it delete them all from the server too, which I don't want.....

Testing, it seems that if I delete the newly duplicated email, it's deleted off the server, but if I delete the original, it's not.

On my wife's account on the Windows it seems like there are now 3 versions of every email.

What a mess

[jab1]

I'm not aware of this issue, but my Thunderbird client is set to delete mail from the server as soon as I download it, as it has been for all the time (20 years?). This with multiple addresses, using POP3.

[Lakin]

I had the same issue. Luckily Thunderbird has an add-on that can delete duplicate emails. You can find it by going to the add-ons manager and then searching for 'duplicates' in the Find more add-ons search box

[breslaw]

@Lakin Thanks for the mention of the Thunderbird add-on. Very useful.

[AlanH2]

My incoming mail items have been arriving into my Outlook mailbox normally again today but,on viewing my Plusnet Webmail Inbox, items are still disappearing. It seems to be that , for every new item arriving, the oldest one is being deleted. I can't see anything in my Webmail settings that would be causing this. The only boxes currently ticked in the Server Settings area are "Mark the message as read on delete" and "Compact inbox on logout". Not sure what to do to stop this happening. Any advice?

[breslaw]

I raised a ticket about this yesterday afternoon, and have just received the following reply:-

The issue is related to your pop3 mail client set up. As our database was reset your client is now redownloading your emails again. Normally with a pop3 once your client has downloaded your emails we no longer hold copys of your emails but some email clients do have settings that prevent them from been removed from our end.  If you wish to keep a back up of your emails on our end i would suggest changing your client to a imap set up as this would prevent this issue from happening.

https://www.plus.net/help/email-guides/how-to-set-up-plusnet-email/

Why this never happened before yesterday remains unexplained. But as with most PlusNet email problems, they change something, our service suffers some hiccup, a dialogue ensues, and in the end it's the customer's fault.  At least, that's the way it seems to me.

[AlanH2]

Thanks. That's interesting. The reply seems to be saying that the answer lies somewhere in our client settings. As you say, it was bound to be our fault, wasn't it. Jeez!

[SilverE]

They are actually saying that POP3 should not be relied on for keeping mail on their server, and if you need that then use IMAP. I have stuck with my old email client which only runs POP3 and not IMAP, but I have to accept that's pretty old-fashioned and risks problems like this, which have happened before. If I was using more a modern client like Thunderbird or Outlook I would (probably) use IMAP.

[Townman]

I think more to the point they are saying it’s bad kama to use POP3 whilst leaving everything on the server. You go one or the other - doing both leads to complications.

POP3 will download what appears to be new on the server. I do not know what makes something look “new” but I have asked. POP3 does not look to see if it has been downloaded already, it just downloads what looks “new” which is why there are now duplicates.

If you want to access a mailbox from multiple devices then use IMAP on all of them and do proper archiving / housekeeping on one device.

If you only look at email on one device and want local backup, then use POP3 with delete from server after downloading.

[Champnet]

I use POP3 with delete from server set to 7 days, just in case.