Problems with Webmail

[#1]

Report as of this morning - first thing (08:30 onwards) it was possible, given time, to read, delete and respond to emails.  However later, approx 12:00, loading the inbox was much slower, and we tried to reply to an email, sending an attachment (about 1MB single page PDF) and after the send screen showed 'sending request to webmail' for some time, we got the message "Failed to send.  File not attached."   Tried again, same result.  Gave up.  So I used an alternative email service, having to copy all the thread and addresses from webmail (this was successful but took some time) and was then able to attach the file and send without problems.   So there is yet another problem, this time with modest attachments.  A new fault, or just a timeout problem?  Either way, webmail practically useless.

[#2]

Don't need to change anything just leave off "Proud"

[#3]

As per most of the past week I managed to view my emails at 6.30 am then for the rest of the day nothing. I didn't even get "Service Unavailable" but just constantly trying to connect with no success. I tried again when I got home at 5.30 and was able to view emails again albeit very slowly.

[#4]

this is what is strange ??  for me this morning was snappy as usual , but later i just got the slow spinner

[#5]

vanessen   we're definiteley not know-it-all's on here, & definitely not being condescending but............. the attachment issues you've had aren't new, it's part of this overall shoddy shambles that's still going on for over a year, with no progress, no plan, no schedule, no appearance of "safe hands" Nick Silverwood, who makes this statement on this/PN's website "They're what separates us from other providers and that gives me a huge level of comfort. I know you'll be in safe hands", when speaking of "our most skilled staff" at PN  -   that's PN customer support staff if you're a little confused.

He also makes this statement 

"We won't stop until we fix your issue

We pride ourselves on our superb levels of support, fast call answer rates and fixing problems quickly. That means you can spend less time calling us and more time focusing on your business."

As said before on here, or the other thread closed off by PN , I can't remember it's all so long ago, a number of PN staff/representatives encountered on here appear to be serious contenders for comedy sketch writers. They're in the wrong career & could be making a fortune with a little planning & application...........hmmm not going to happen then. 

[#6]

Hi Bazzer

Since reporting last week that a chap from customer services rang to say that Andy Baker was well aware of the anger and frustration of Webmail users etc, I received a further call the following evening from the same fellow who said that `by an amazing coincidence' the platform had that day `stabilised considerably' but was still `rather slow'..  While I was talking to him I quickly opened my Outlook programme and, sure enough, within seconds the latest emails began to load up. This has been the case ever since, so I would (reluctantly) advise others to take the trouble to set up this or another (some have recommended Thunderbird) so-called client account.  I think there is a link to instructions on how to do this under PlusNet's Help and Support topics. I initially loaded it with great trepidation last November when the service was as bad as it has been recently, and I am so glad now that I did.

[#7]

@Scooterman999 yes i agree that a Email client may work better , BUT that will not FIX the web mail issue !

all it does is to make less Customers come here and Post , so PN looks better

[#8]

As said above, it does not fix Webmail.

Ironically I received 4 emails alerting me to the same post. Is it any wonder PN servers are under load when experiencing such repetition.

My use of Webmail is to act as a filter to enable me to delete all the rubbish mails (and there are hundreds) before I download those I want onto my MAC.

Hence my Webmail Inbox is relatively light and I have nothing in the other folders yet PN cannot handle this.

[#9]

rongtw wrote:

yes i agree that a Email client may work better , BUT that will not FIX the web mail issue

We've never advised it would fix the issue, we're just advising that customers are reporting a better experience when using mail clients.

all it does is to make less Customers come here and Post , so PN looks better

It's not about making us look better, we know there is a problem and we're working on it. I've said numerous times that we don't want you to stop posting here. In fact we want the opposite posting here is helpful as it gives our engineers useful information.

[#10]

I only set up a Thunderbird account because I was expecting Plusnet to lose all my emails (they've done it before). I am now able to archive all emails to my PC (which is backed up daily). It is now much more reliable and certainly worth setting up a test mailbox.

It seems obvious that the web server is not really communicating with the mail server.

[#11]

---

@JonoH wrote:

It's not about making us look better, we know there is a problem and we're working on it.

---

The frightening thing is that you have been saying that for years and it is still not fixed.

I don't know why you don't say it will be fixed by April 1st, but don't mention which year.

[#12]

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@VileReynard wrote:

I see the automatic drop down "feature".

Unfortunately, it includes a couple of "test" mailboxes that were deleted several weeks ago. :cry

One thing that I'm noticing at the moment and is incredibly annoying is I keep getting the above message over and over and over again! At first I thought @VileReynard was just being annoying by posting the same message but it seems the fault lies with PN. To date I've received this same message via email somewhere in the region of 15 - 20 times. What the heck is going on? Likewise when people edit posts I'm still receiving all the edited changes which is filling my inbox too quickly. 

The other night I noticed PN took the servers off-line, was there any reason for this? Were they working on the Webmail issue? Were we notified of this closure or was it just tucked away again in some obscure location where we don't normally visit daily?

Oh and BTW, wasn't it mentioned recently that we will never take the server off-line to fix this problem? Clearly they did so seems like we're being told one thing and PN are doing the exact opposite! 

On 19/03/17 - 03:49 hrs

Like many people here I've been very patient with PN heck I've even made light of it and even cracked the odd joke but that patients is wearing very thin lately. Moreover PN's insistence that we keep posting here to help their engineers is pretty annoying given I keep getting email updates every time I check my mail.

I don't know what action any of you have taken personally to share your grievances about PN but I've now started regularly giving them a low rating each month on the Thinkbroadband website, at least people can make up their own minds if they want to join. I used this site myself before joining and back then public opinion was quite high, I doubt that's the case lately sadly.

[#13]

@MKSlinky at the end of the day no matter what @JonoH posts here or which ever PN staff , we are no nearer to a fix than we were last year

Ok they made it look a bit better .

In all honesty i cannot believe in the  present day  Plusnet cannot fix this

when i was working as a field  service engineer  , if there was a problem i couldn't fix they would get someone who could !! not make the customer wait 8 months , So why cant Plusnet get someone who can fix this mess

[#14]

Someone mentioned somewhere recently that Plusnet are now owned by BT so that might explain a few things, I left BT long ago, I hated the service they provided. Expensive too!!

I'm not knocking the PN staff who frequent these forums, they have a job to do like anyone else and trying to answer queries here can't be an easy job with so much animosity amongst their customers. None of us can really predict what is or isn't happening and since PN still refuse to come clean on the full extent of the problem all we can do is keep guessing.

It might be useful if one of the engineers tasked with fixing the problem spoke up, if we knew what the problem was exactly, maybe we could be more understanding perhaps. Having worked on the railways for a number of years I can say this, a lack of information is a bad thing! Customers need to be informed and they need to be told the truth. Painting the picture any other way doesn't wash in this day and age. Keeping your customers in the dark leads to resentment and with that comes loss of sales. People here are already talking of leaving PN and some have already done so, I've even considered it myself lately but as the problem is only affecting my mail I'm prepared to see what happens. Whether I'll feel the same way in another months time remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, the longer this problem exists the worse these complaints will get.

[#15]

PN have been owned by BT since 2007 and I have certainly seen the change for the worse. Something I anticipated would happen.

So many times you see the big boys take over and then witness the decline in service. This is no different.

As for getting an engineer on here to speak up I'll think you'll find they are way to busy sorting out this issue!! Then again, I'm  not so sure there actually is any engineer dealing with this.

There probably isn't any engineer.

I agree with your comment re staff. I don't like to knock them but the whole thing is ridiculous and we're being taken for mugs.

It has to be nearly a year since this issue has been ongoing.

I raised the previous thread (Webmail Extremely Slow) in May 2016 which was subsequently closed and merged with this and I only raised that after several weeks of noticeably declining service so, yes, it is over a year now and the issue is even worse.

PN used to be the best ISP and I wholeheartedly recommended. Not any more.