Yet Another Greenby e-mail/webspace Issue
My main PN A/C has apparently just been migrated to Greenby.
I can see that all incoming mail has been arriving via Greenby since late in the day on 28/01/2026 and have spent all day trying to sort the bl**dy mess out 
HOWEVER, outgoing mail is still being sent via PN relay 212.159.9.107
It would appear that a DNS error currently exists just like the ftp DNS errors existed following previous F9 A/C migrations.
Authentication is consequently, shall we say, somewhat confusing/difficult/impossible due to mailbox tweaks made at the Greenby end prior to finding out relay.plus.net hadn't actually been updated to the Greenby server(s).
I also note that non-authenticated SMTP via PN is often problematic due to some AVAS-out servers being exceedingly cranky in respect of rejecting test messages due to alleged attempts to send junk mail !
In addition, webspace for this A/C has definitely NOT been migrated correctly. This is 100% apparent because, amongst various other things, it still works. All sites migrated to Greenby are 100% broken due to known Apache server configuration issues. There is no web hosting product visible in the Greenby portal, only an email product.
HOWEVER, what Greenby do appear to have done is to migrate all my username.plus.com website data to my username.force9.co.uk A/C instead thus merging two somewhat similar sets of website data and making a complete mess of everything by over-writing various important files etc that were quite specific to each site 
So thank you PN/Greenby. I'm now going to be up all f**king night because I have absolutely no choice but to delete everything from the username.force9.co.uk Greenby server and upload the handy backup that, unlike some people, I always have available just in case.
I hate the morons responsible for this so much 
Unlike the force9 relay servers which did change to Greenby servers immediately after migration ?
This really is a complete abortion isn't it Seemless migration my /a/r/s/e !!!!!
Nope, I wasn't aware of any issues around August Bank Holiday. I regret to say that I now only ever come here when I find that I have absolutely no choice but to do so in an attempt to get some stupid problem fixed.
Even I know a lost cause when I see one so any spare time is best spent trying to find ways and means to unfasten the last remaining ties to PN I'm afraid. Although having said that, PN are doing a very good job of that themselves as well aren't they 
Guess I'll just have to wait until all my mail goes titsup again if/when they do change relay.plus.net to point to the Greenby servers. Everything will stop working again at some point because the mailboxes and passwords at Greenby are no longer identical to those at PN which are now inaccessible.
Regarding the webspace data screw-up:
Any suggestions for how I get PN to ensure that Greenby do add a web hosting and email product for each and every one of my existing PN and F9 A/Cs ? I have A/Cs which have the same username on plus.com and force9.net so they're fundamentally different. What's happened here is all of the website data for one PN A/C and one F9 A/C has been put in the Greenby F9 A/C leaving the Greenby PN A/C with no hosting product, no DNS and no migrated data. The same scenario applies to another PN A/C yet to be migrated - the same username also exists on F9 and has already been migrated to Greenby. I can live without an action replay of this gross stupidity !
PS: I think you might be needing a large bucket of popcorn for when I've sorted this and can get back to the #500 server error thread 
For those at PN/Greenby or indeed anyone else who doesn't quite 'get' the significance of this apparently incompetent personal/private data handling, just consider this for a moment:
- It is entirely possible that John Smith in Manchester has a Force9 A/C smith<dot>force9.co.uk and email john<at>smith<dot>force9.co.uk
- It is entirely possible that John Smith in London has a Plusnet A/C smith<dot>plus.com and email john<at>smith<dot>plus.com
- Neither John Smith is ever going to be in any way happy if/when they lose access to their personal and private data because PN/Greenby have handed it all over en-masse to their namesake
Please don't try telling me that "this quite simply could not happen" because it is EXACTLY what has happened sometime quite recently. Data from a plus.com A/C has without any doubt whatsoever been added to existing data from a force9.co.uk A/C. The data from two completely unique and totally unrelated A/Cs has been merged. I haven't bothered to check whether files with the same name but different content or date were over-written, skipped or concatenated. It must have been done 'locally' by PN/Greenby as well because the file dates appear to be non-recent and those which I've checked match the file dates on homepages.plus.net and homepages.force9.net as opposed to being a more current date due to having been recently uploaded or moved remotely via ftp.
Best be hoping that there aren't too many more John Smiths around the country who just so happen to have an A/C at metronet, madasafish, free-online, freenetname, johnlewis ...
But, hey-ho, I'm quite sure that PN must have the ICO on speed dial and are probably even on first name terms with them by now having been found with their grubby finger(s) in previous data breach pies
These data transfers are most unlikely to be being done manually. This would rather suggest that there is a badly written and/or untested script somewhere with little to nothing in the way of error/sanity checking. Particular with regards to the potential issue of unrelated duplicate usernames across the wider PN customer userbase. Some bottoms somewhere appear to be very much in need of a jolly good spanking
However, as a consequence of any automation, it is also perhaps quite unlikely that this is a one-off incident. Therefore, if anyone else has experienced losing their personal/private data or indeed gaining someone else's during their allegedly seamless migration from PN to Greenby then please add all relevant details to this thread.
If there are other more significant examples of this level of apparent incompetence in the handling of customers' personal/private data then this is quite clearly another job for ... ICOman ... or ICOwoman as the case may be
@Longliner wrote:
You get what you pay for and PN mail is free, so what are you moaning about?
F9/PN mail and webspace was NOT a free service as such for many customers. Whilst there were and still are are a good many free-loaders and PN indeed encouraged such activity and they even intentionally stopped charging certain customers, many of us were paying OTT rates for dial-up or BB connectivity INCLUDING static IP, email, webspace, SMTP mail, VOIP, FAX2email, blah, blah, blah.
Those such customers were clearly not only paying for their own service but covering the full costs of the services being provided by PN to an ever increasing number of free-loaders !
There no such thing as a free lunch ... someone ALWAYS has to pay for it in one way or another
As for all the alleged moaning, I'm 'moaning' about yet another f**k-up on services which to all intents and purposes are technically being paid for and which is not only par for the course ... but is also a mere gnats whisker away from being a data breach potentially requiring ICO involvement. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it
Sorry @Leanne_T, but sure doesn't look that 'resolved months ago' to me seeing as it's only just happened !
F9 migration took place on 24/11/2025, email received as below.
PN migration took place on 28/01/2026, email received as below.
Both A/Cs have exactly the same username which I will PM to you. Both A/Cs have email and webspace. The F9 A/C is circa 30 years old and the PN A/C is circa 25 years old. Both A/Cs have been in continual daily use since first being opened and a paid-for subscription service of one type or another has been in place with no breaks since 04/07/1997.
[QUOTE]
Hey username,
We're excited to welcome you to Greenby, the new home for your email service! The migration of your email has been successfully completed, and all of your existing messages, contacts, and settings are safely in place. With Greenby, you can continue to use your existing email address with the same login details.
If your Plusnet account included Domains, DNS, or Webspace, we've seamlessly migrated those too. You can now manage everything from your new Greenby dashboard.
Blah.Blah.Blah.
[/QUOTE]
Backup of homepages.force9.net made on 05/12/2025 = circa 227MB
Backup of homepages.plus.net made on 05/12/2025 = circa 175MB
Backup of Greenby (F9) made on 29/01/2026 = circa 400MB
Backup of Greenby (PN) = not possible as no web product or data exists
Any primary school child should quite easily be able to work out where the missing data is by doing some very simple maths ! but please ask mummy or daddy to help if you can't work it out for yourself
The apparent small shortfall in said maths is also quite easily explained. Firstly, the numbers above are just round numbers for convenience. Secondly, any file being copied which had the same name as an existing file was obviously either skipped or the existing file was over-written. Either way, the end result being 1 file lost hence a small decrease in the total amount of data is only to be expected.
Greenby (F9) data was backed up on 29/01/2026, deleted and replaced by the backup from homepages.force9.net made on 05/12/2025. This was necessary as part of attempts to investigate/resolve ongoing issues with the F9 webspace as documented below. However, as expected, it made no difference whatsoever but proved beyond doubt that corrupted webspace data due to being partly over-written by migrated PN webspace data was definitely not in any way responsible. It could easily have been due to something else which occurred during the migration process though, assuming that there wasn't simply a quite intentional system or Apache configuration change made by Greenby on 19/01/2026. With a complete absence of log files or any other relevant information, only PN/Greenby know what did actually happen and how both A/C migrations were totally screwed up ... everyone else is waiting with bated breath to read your fully detailed technical explanation needless to say
In addition, if there was indeed a known problem which was allegedly resolved in some way months ago ... why weren't customers who were directly affected by it informed accordingly and/or why weren't issues with incorrectly transferred data actually corrected ? It seems to me that data has been shared, whether it was this week or last year is totally irrelevant. But whilst you appear to say PN/Greenby know all about it, those affected do not and the data was still quite clearly in the 'wrong' place until I personally discovered it just recently, deleted it myself and then uploaded the correct data
How does that in any way constitute fully resolved, other than PN have hopefully prevented even more occurrences ?
OK. So it seems that as per usual, PN have demonstrated having little or no regard for customers' data privacy issues or any of the relevant legislation or for correcting serious and fundamental mistakes which have been made when handling customers' private data
Despite apparently knowing all about these issues, PN did absolutely nothing to advise customers involved or even make any effort to put the known problems right. Nor has any reasonable explanation ever been provided. PN simply ignored known issues and left customers to find out for themselves several weeks/months later after wondering why they were seeing quite so many inexplicable errors following their allegedly seamless migration of services to Greenby.
The lack of any relevant response, apart from the standard "we take security seriously" comment which counts for pretty much nothing I'm afraid as it's something which is always trotted out by everyone caught with their trousers very much in the down position, says all that needs to be said. I will now be seeking further advice and raising this issue with ICO. PN have been given every possible opportunity to deal with this matter in relative privacy and provide a full explanation but have obviously chosen not to do so.
It matters not who was actually responsible for sharing data. All that matters here is that data has potentially been shared. Greenby are PN's sub-contractor and/or partner. I and any other customers affected by this issue had no formal relationship of any kind with Greenby at the time the issue actually took place. I would therefore very much suggest that it is entirely down to PN to manage their sub-contractors and/or partners appropriately and take full responsibility for the handling of customers' private data. Something that PN have quite clearly completely failed to do.
Let's now see what ICO have to say about these blatant failures, find out exactly how PN can in any way justify their actions or lack thereof and establish how PN are intending to prevent any action replays going forwards.
This whole PN/Greenby fiasco is just one ongoing nightmare after another which isn't making any attempt to go away or resolve itself or get dealt with appropriately and I've more than had enough of it. BT/PN clearly need to learn to take their responsibilities seriously or be forced to.
Plusnet: Not so much #We'll.Do.You.Proud but very much more a case of
#We'll.Do.You.Over and/or #We'll.Do.Your.Head.In these days it seems