WebMail problems

[Antonio_f2s]

Hi all,

After some users reporting issues with our WebMail platform I have updated our status page with the statement below:

We are currently experiencing intermittent issues with our Webmail platform affecting a very small number of users. Affected users will find that it takes a long time to access Webmail or they will receive authentication errors.

Our engineers are investigating this issue and we will provide further information as soon as this is available.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

[prys]

Webmail has been miserable all day for me, too. But also, I'm now home and IMAP is erratic as well . same thing as webmail really - v. slow, losing authentication periodically, timing out dah-di-dah-di-dah...

[Justin]

It's working for for me now. Webmail uses IMAP so it's not really a surprise.

IMP 3.23 that F2S are running is now over five years old. Hopefully when the talktalk takeover goes through someone will at least be bothered to upgrade it as the newer version really is a big improvement.

IMP 4 has been avaliable for years as well and is now on 4.3. It really is criminal that nobody has upgraded it, especially when originally this was planned to happen in Late 2005 / Early 2006, but the Pipex takeover obviously put paid to that.

Not that I blame Antonio or any of the front line staff - not down to them. But it really is criminal to see how the likes of webmail etc is maintained - it would never have happened in Chris' day.

[anna]

webmail is what I fallback on when my email isn't working as it should. However, since last night and up till the time of typing I cannot log in to my webmail - it's either taking too long or it is telling me i'm using the wrong username or password - which I ain't

What's the problem folks?

Just checked my email again it says it's receiving 1 or 88 messages - only problem is 'it' might be, but nothing's coming into my inbox - this is serious!!

[mmmjaycee]

got problems with webmail here as well. Slow to log in if it does at all then can disconnect when you try to look at email....

[Antonio_f2s]

Originally Posted by anna

Just checked my email again it says it's receiving 1 or 88 messages - only problem is 'it' might be, but nothing's coming into my inbox

Hi Anna, we still investigating what is causing this intermittent issue but unfortunatelly, I am not able to give you any more information at this time...

I can see that you have 89 messages in the server waiting for you. You say that you are having issues getting them to your mail client, do you use a pop3 or imap in your settings for the incoming server?

[anna]

Antionio I use POP3

[Antonio_f2s]

Anna, you shouldnt have any problems if you use a pop3 client... I am going to a meeting right now but one of my senior engineers will give you a call in the next 15 minutes...

[anna]

Hi Antonio

One of your engineers rang me and has been extremely helpful - thinking it is actually something stuck in my inmail which has caused the problem, due to my virus protection. I did as much as I could to disable that part of my virus checking, he said he would ring me back which he did.

Talked me through some other things, then made sure I was back to normal - slowly 1 of 109 emails are now coming in - looks like a message was jammed on the server and was preventing the rest from getting through.

As I sit watching, I can see that a great deal of the messages have now been downloaded.

This exercise was to prove that the problem was at my end and not at Freedom2surf - which indeed seems to be the case. The webmail problem, I understand to be a known fault which engineers are still working on.

So, Thank you for your help and that of your engineer who was very patient with me.

[mmmjaycee]

Oh great,

Webmail is still not working and now my pop3 connection is failing as well !

Any suggestions ???

[kmount]

Any suggestions ???

Take your important email provision somewhere where it matters.

Not knocking Antonio but he's just one man, he can't stop the sinking ship.

[Antonio_f2s]

You shouldnt have any problems with a pop3 client.... If you do please PM me the error that you get, the email address and the password and I'll have a look for you.

[mmmjaycee]

Originally Posted by Antonio_f2s

You shouldnt have any problems with a pop3 client.... If you do please PM me the error that you get, the email address and the password and I'll have a look for you.

about 5 minutes later they came through.. so pop3 was very temporary blip.. cheers.
I'm assuming the webmail is still under investigation as it still seems to be limping along. ?

[Antonio_f2s]

Unfortunately, the intermittent issue with webmail still being investigated... Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused

[Antonio_f2s]

I just created a new post advising of planned maintenance in our webmail server

http://www.tiscaliuser.net/forums/e-mail/10042-webmail-server-maintenance.html

Unfortunatelly, until this work is completed, a number of users will still experiencing intermittent issues with our Webmail platform...

You can see the same message in the status page in our Website. You will also listen to the same message if you call support. Also, an email will be received with the same statement by all customers that did not un-subscribe from our mailing list.

Sorry to onceupon if you receive this email too....

[kmount]

Will this be carried out throughout a normal working day or started in the evening and through the night?

[Antonio_f2s]

Originally Posted by kmount

Will this be carried out throughout a normal working day or started in the evening and through the night?

The work will be carried out throughout both days.... same work will be done during the normal working hours and some will be done in the evening and through the night.

[Justin]

Curious it would take so long if it was just webmail, although I would suspect the underlying cause is the IMAP servers that webmail interfaces with rather than webmail itself, as IMAP has been abysmal whenever webmail has problems.

Hopefully they will upgrade webmail to a newer version - although that hasn't happened in several years so I don't hold my breath.

[mmmjaycee]

So are we allowed to know what the improvements are going to be? Can we look forward to an exciting new webmail interface or just the same old thing, but actualy working properly!!!

[Justin]

The new version of IMP is really good, much better than the version F2S are currently running. The one that F2S had now was excellent when it was implemented, but now is badly in need of an upgrade. Although it's better than the useless crap Nildram have which is quite frankly an embrassment.

The current webmail one dates back to 2004/5, and since then there have been quite vast improvements, HTML message composer, vastly improved address book, much better calendar and better filtering options, AJAX Support (Via the dIMP interface) decent calendar and quite a lot more, I've attached a screenshot from the IMP site of the latest versio

I think IMP is a great webmail application. From a personal point of view the big draw for me was the way it interfaces with IMAP like a mirror - absloutely great to be able to use Outlook and webmail and everything keeps in sync with each other from multiiple machines if needbe as well as the webmail inteface. There's a fairly nifty mobile version of it as well.

So if anyone is reading this, a new version of IMP with Ingo for filtering, Turba for contacts management would be most welcome

[Antonio_f2s]

Originally Posted by Justin

So if anyone is reading this, a new version of IMP with Ingo for filtering, Turba for contacts management would be most welcome

I am reading... now, where did I left my magic wand...

Joking apart, I am afraid that during the maintenance period there are not going to be any upgrades to the webmail version.... sorry.

[Justin]

Oh don't worry - I'm not blaming you at all - I'm sure there is nothing you can do about it either. I know from being in exactly your shoes when I supervised and coached my support team there can be so many things you want to happen, and you'll try your best but can't always achieve them.

From a personal point of view what frustrates me so much from someone who founded this site and being an F2S user right from almost 10 years ago now, is the fact that things have been allowed to get so far out of date, so many good plans which were around at the time of takeover four years ago were either cancelled or aborted and pretty much since that day happened F2S, which at the time of buyout was the fastest growing ISP and the 22nd fastest growing tech company overall with a reputation for technical excellence, innovations and constant improvements has become anything but that.

I could use many examples. The members area is still in the old design of site which was decomissioned in March 2005. There were plans at this point to upgrade the members area later in the year. and to implement a new version of webmail as well. But as we know the takeover then happened and I presume these plans either got cancelled or they were dropped. Nothing has happened since

What we have seen though is gradual removal of features offered, alongside lack of development of current features. Just look at the press releases section of the f2s website and look how much happened before November 2005, as opposed to what happened later. All we seem to have to thank Pipex for is a pointless 500MB a month ADSL Package,, replacing Connect products with almost identical Cascade ones, breaking the email system, dropping bonded DSL, dropping SDSL, Business accounts, and deal for Russian Online TV which never happened as the company behind it went bust.

It's particuarly ironic that F2S has now placed a case studies section from businesses on the website, when they no longer offer any business packages! There are is also a plethora of out of date information and broken parts of the website that have been like it for quite a long time now - The fact one of the bugs has been there for nearly a year now says it all - though as long as we have a new google search, then I'm sure thats much more important than fixing whats broke