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email not working

terry7
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎14-05-2020

email not working

I had an email/netname service from freenetname. That was taken over by Madasafish and everything still worked. Now it is plusnet and over the last few days webmail has not been showing my emails, just a blank window. Also it isn't working on Thunderbird, I get multiple errors if I try to send an email using Thunderbird. So, I can't receive or send emails on the address all my contacts know me by. I tried the phone helpline and eventually got to a message that told me that they weren't answering calls. There is nowhere on the website for email help so I have to resort to the forum. Why isn't there tech support at plusnet?

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dvorak
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Re: email not working


Moderators Note


This topic has been moved from chat to email 

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Townman
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Re: email not working

Hi @terry7 

A warm welcome to the forums.  There is tech support at Plusnet, but like many places at present staff resources are stretched.

You say that webmail is just blank ... but do not indicate if there is an error message indicating a time out ... or a persistent wait timer.  This might help...

Slow webmail

There is a known gremlin in the third party Round Cube webmail program which can cause delays in listing emails - see the end user mitigation post at the top of the Email board here. It somewhat appears that any sorting or filtering on a large mailbox cripples the performance of RC webmail, where as the 'basic' webmail program (Squirrel Mail) is not affected. Using Squirrel Mail can be an effective way of accessing a mail box which is running slow with RC.

 

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

terry7
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎14-05-2020

Re: email not working

nope - made no difference, still not fixed.

terry7
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎14-05-2020

Re: email not working

Round Cube? SquirrelMail?

Had never heard of either. Search SquirrelMail and just get very confusing webpage. I'm not even sure if it is supposed to be a webmail system or an email client on my PC. I have Thunderbird which is also throwing errors on sending emails although it does show them. All this stuff used to just work.

https://webmail.plus.net/?_task=mail&_mbox=INBOX periodically shows it is loading emails and I can force it but neither allow me to see my emails, just empty space where the emails are supposed to be

Tech info:

Browser - Firefox 76.0

OS Mint cinnamon 19.3

Email client Thunderbird 68.7.0

(note - I am NOT a tech wizard, just some guy who wants to use email, one of the oldest and simplest internet technologies)

Townman
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Re: email not working

Those are the webmail options which provide the Plusnet "standard" and "basic" webmail services on this page https://webmail.plus.net/

You can access your email either through webmail or via a PC based email program.  The use of webmail is very clean in that it eliminates a whole host of other technical possibilities when seeking to confirm that...

  1. You can access the email box (your credentials are correct)
  2. There is something in the mailbox to be viewed
  3. You can send from the email account

If there is a large volume of content Round Cube can exhibit issues, which the linked through topic advises how to mitigate.  The use of Squirrel Mail also avoids those issues if needing to delete a large volume of emails.

In respect of Thunder Bird "Throwing errors" is not too helpful in seeking to assist you - exactly what are the errors?

Problems in a number of areas can give rise to the apparently the same symptoms.  Checking that you can access the mailbox using one or the other webmail programs will eliminate (or confirm) a number of potential server issues.

As for a blank space where you expect to see emails, if your Thunder Bird email program is configured to use POP3 there is every possibility that there are no emails still on the server.

Again, connect via webmail and attempt to send an email to yourself.  (Make sure Thunder Bird is not running).

 

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

terry7
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎14-05-2020

Re: email not working

Mostly no error message, spinner showing downloading, indication of mails in inbox but no emails displayed. When I do see an error it disappears again before I can make a note of what it says but mostly I get no error message. Will post again if I get one I can read.

email.gif

Townman
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Re: email not working

That screenshot shows email sorted by SUBJECT which with large mailboxes can give rise the the symptoms described. Please follow the advice given in the slow webmail topic. Set sort sequence to none or use basic webmail.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

terry7
Hooked
Posts: 6
Registered: ‎14-05-2020

Re: email not working

Yes it does, I may have accidentally clicked there. However setting to none makes no difference. Nothing makes any difference. It still will not display my inbox. I can send without issue but nothing I do will show my inbox.

If I try and send messages using Thunderbird it can't save to sent folder. It just sits there with the 'Copying message to Sent folder...' window animation running continuously.

I have had error messages and if I get another one I will attempt to capture or read it and send it but so far I have failed to do this.

I have done what it said in Standard Webmail (Round Cube) slow performance mitigation which basically says what you have already said and it doesn't work. Nothing works

mailbox.giftbird.gif

terry7
Hooked
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Registered: ‎14-05-2020

Re: email not working

OK, It seems there is an issue with Firefox accessing your site. I have disabled all plugins and turned off Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection and it still doesn't work. However, I just installed Chromium (not my browser of choice!) and it seems to work there. I  don't think I can say this is fixed as what I have done is a workaround - I now have to have 2 browsers running which is inconvenient. I still don't seem to able to get it to work on Thunderbird which is how I normally deal with emails.

Townman
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Re: email not working

@JW 

Are you able to take look at this one please?

The "copying to sent folder" message looks like a new characteristic of IMAP folder contents not being displayed.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

MisterW
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Re: email not working

I still don't seem to able to get it to work on Thunderbird which is how I normally deal with emails.

@terry7 Im assuming you're using IMAP on Thunderbird. Have you tried reselecting the Sent folder in the Copies and Folders section of the Settings for the email account. I've seen problems where the email client has a different default name for its sent folder , to that of the email server. It then cant write to the folder , because the one its trying to use dosent exist. Reselecting one from the 'other' dropdown sometimes works.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Townman
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Re: email not working

... but it looks as though webmail has a problem writing to the sent items folder ... and (apparently) reading other IMAP folders.  I think we need to be confident that there is no server side / account issue before seeking to look at the TB end of the issue.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

JW
Plusnet Staff
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Re: email not working

I've not been able to replicate the issue with writing to the sent folder via webmail. It is possible that a large number of messages in that folder could cause timeouts when attempting to do that.

Though, for a client, the advice from @MisterW is what I'd suggest at first. This can also impact webmail, if the client you normally use doesn't use the existing Sent folder and it's not been mapped correctly in webmail through the Manage Folders option.

 Jon W
 Plusnet
Townman
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Re: email not working

Its rather a matter of which end we try to fix first. Seeing emails in either TB or Webmail or being able to send from either.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.