Blueyonder Email

[Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10,888
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For well over a week now their service has been constantly affected by authentication issues, time outs and extended downtime. It's very shoddy, and I would have expected them to have fixed it by now.. but I'm just getting constant time outs. :rolleyes:
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  • BlofeldBlofeld Posts: 8,233
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    I had this problem for 1 day, and I got an email saying it has been fixed now. It has been working fine for me since yesterday lunch time. Does this have anything to do with the broadband speed update?
  • epsilonepsilon Posts: 4,583
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    Worse than this, on the 22nd I received an email from Blueyonder support informing me:


    Dear Customer,

    A problem with the blueyonder email storage system has unfortunately affected a number of blueyonder customer mailboxes including yours.

    In order to correct this we have had to restore the content of your mailbox using the most recent backup, taken at 4:00am on Tuesday 18 May. Regrettably this means any emails sent to you between that time and noon today that you have not already opened will not be recoverable.

    We are taking all necessary steps to make sure this problem does not happen again and would like to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience or difficulties you may have been caused.

    regards,



    The team at blueyonder

    To call that shoddy is being generous. Never in all my years on the internet have I known an ISP lose 4 days worth of emails. It is negligent and the question has to be asked.. why was the most recent backup 4 days old. In most IT departments such negligence would inevitably lead to staff dismissal.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10,888
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    Well I have Outlook running 24/7 on this machine anyway, but due to the problems I've had to turn off automatic checking of my BY accounts frequently. Blueyonder don't seem very on the ball at the moment...
  • epsilonepsilon Posts: 4,583
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    I pick up email at least once a day, so fortunately didn't lose the entire 4 to 5 days worth. With the volume of email I receive and the amount of spam I have to filter out and delete, it would be totally impractical to leave an email program running 24/7.

    That doesn't change the fact that this is totally inexcusable, we pay for the service after all. If I had been on holiday, as I was recently, the email would have been lost. Some of it would have been important, I wouldn't have known the email had been sent. Worse than that the sender wouldn't realise the email had arrived safely. As Blueyonder HAD received and LOST the emails, the email wouldn't be bounced back to the sender.

    As I said previously, this is nothing short of negligence by Blueyonder.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 59
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    ive had the same trouble tonight generally you can access email through the webmail and theres no problem!

    but tonight webmail is unavailabe thats why i have a yahoo site don't bother complaining because when i did i was just told email is a free service!!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10,888
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    It's down. Again :mad:
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,801
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    When it was down a few days ago only one out of three of my email boxes were not working so I think only some of the email boxes are down at a time with this fault.

    It does seem that they do not have any redundancy. I read somewhere that this round of faults was caused by one machine going down.

    We get problems like this a several times a year. I guess if you want your email to work 100% then don't use Blueyonder.
  • meatonmeaton Posts: 248
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    This has been going on for over a week now and is totally unacceptable, i've just spoke to tech support, he said the issue should be resolved by 9.30pm tonight, what damn use is that?! the ticket says eta: 4hrs, thats almost 4 hours ago, i want an apology! i rely on this email for day to day use, as it doesnt usualy recieve much spam, most of which i ask for, over the last few days they just keep saying theres a problem blah blah, but no word of WHY it keeps going down, keeping us in the dark.. we deserve to know why our isp cant keep a mail server running for more than 24 consectutive hours!

    Just my lil bit..

    Michael
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10,888
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    r2d2d3d4d5 wrote:
    When it was down a few days ago only one out of three of my email boxes were not working so I think only some of the email boxes are down at a time with this fault.

    It does seem that they do not have any redundancy. I read somewhere that this round of faults was caused by one machine going down.

    We get problems like this a several times a year. I guess if you want your email to work 100% then don't use Blueyonder.
    I've been using Blueyonder for nearly 4 years now, since the days of Cable iNet, and this is the worst performance I've seen from them. They've had the odd blip here and there, but it's usually back to normal in a few hours.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,801
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    The one email box that was broken for a few days and was now working is now broken again. Thank you Telewest. Thankfully it's the only email box that we don't really use. I hope the others don't start going down.
  • dslrocksdslrocks Posts: 7,207
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    Perhaps they're preparing for the long awaited merger with ntl: ;)
  • carl.waringcarl.waring Posts: 35,579
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    r2d2d3d4d5 wrote:
    I read somewhere that this round of faults was caused by one machine going down.
    Which can happen to anyone at any time!
    I guess if you want your email to work 100% then don't use Blueyonder.
    No. If you have a need for mssion-critical, 100% email access 24/7 then pay for it, professionally; ie BY Workwise. You get SLAs and stuff like that.

    BY is for personal use only and, like all other ISPs are prone to problems now and again.
  • stevebrownstevebrown Posts: 1,943
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    cwaring wrote:
    Which can happen to anyone at any time!

    No. If you have a need for mssion-critical, 100% email access 24/7 then pay for it, professionally; ie BY Workwise. You get SLAs and stuff like that.

    BY is for personal use only and, like all other ISPs are prone to problems now and again.
    I agree

    Going back to the email from by regarding backups, who's to say the backup system(s) aren't to blame, thereby taking out 4 days worth of backups? I work in IT - nowhere near as big as by's network - but it's true that what seems to be one little problem can lead very quickly to a major one - which in turn causes other problems.

    For example, our Exchange server crashed out of the blue for no apparent reason, so I rebooted - it refused to reboot - turned out the motherboard had died which in turn knocked out our email for 36 hours. Now I know this was nowhere near as critical as blueyonder email, but it highlights how a seemingly small trivial problem (a server crashing) can cause major issues (no emails for 36 hours).

    As cwaring quite rightly points out, if you require 100% uptime then you have to pay for it.

    And IMHO, no system - no matter how much redundancy and disaster recovery procedures you have in place - is 100% reliable.
  • meatonmeaton Posts: 248
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    cwaring wrote:
    No. If you have a need for mssion-critical, 100% email access 24/7 then pay for it, professionally; ie BY Workwise. You get SLAs and stuff like that.

    BY is for personal use only and, like all other ISPs are prone to problems now and again.


    Um, correct me if im wrong, but i'm sure i pay for it, i mean email is part of the service which i pay for.. yes ok downtime happens, but at least once for at least 3 hours per day over the last 6 days is a bit much, wouldnt you agree?

    Basically your saying we have to give yet more money to telewest/blueyonder, for an email service we can rely on?

    Michael
  • epsilonepsilon Posts: 4,583
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    First of all, let's stop all this nonsense about email being a free service. Just because it isn't optional and isn't individually priced doesn't mean it is free. It is part of the service we pay for from Blueyonder. Blueyonder are falling far short of providing an acceptable service because of the excessive amount of extended downtime, that's before we even consider the fact that some people with have lost most of a weeks email because of Blueyonder's failure to provide adequate backup facilities.

    The service at the moment is nothing short of shoddy and please, be realistic, if this is all Blueyonder can come up with, who is likely to pay extra? Email isn't rocket science, the technology has been around for quite some time now. There's no reason why Blueyonder can't fall into line with just about every other ISP and provide a reliable email service for their customers.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,801
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    cwaring wrote:
    Which can happen to anyone at any time!
    That is why everyone should have several backup procedures in place for such an event. You are just waiting for the next time everything goes down, as things always do, if you don't have appropriate procedures in place.
    cwaring wrote:
    No. If you have a need for mssion-critical, 100% email access 24/7 then pay for it, professionally; ie BY Workwise. You get SLAs and stuff like that.

    BY is for personal use only and, like all other ISPs are prone to problems now and again.
    Everyone’s email is missions critical. It is as mission critical as the post office or the telephone system. I don't use the email system for a business so I don't see the point of having a business account. I don't think I use my email for anything that I don't expect the majority of people who have email accounts do. For example things like online shopping, personal correspondence, applying for jobs and reading newsletters.

    Just because things are of a personal nature does not mean they are not important. If you can't guarantee 100% email reliability then there is no point in having email. I can’t think of anyone who would not want 100% of their email to reach them except perhaps people who only receive spam.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 20
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    I also have been unable to access my mail through Exchange since Monday, again I assume authentication errors. I do concur with other posters that this is unacceptable, but also very unusual for Blueyonder.

    However, don't forget that you can also see your mail (and reply)through the Web Mail browser, which whilst not ideal, does at least provide some functionality.

    Hope this helps.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 31
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    So whats the latest with the breakdown of Blueyonder email. Are you back in action??
    The mood of this thread seems to be saying that there will be no compensation from Telewest for their failure to deliver a satisfactory service.
    What are your findings ???
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10,888
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    It seems to be OK now, I've just turned checking on for it for the first time sine Wednesday...
  • stevebrownstevebrown Posts: 1,943
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    Pingu wrote:
    It seems to be OK now, I've just turned checking on for it for the first time sine Wednesday...

    My email on the whole has been fine throughout these problems. Apart from the occasional authentication failure which after trying again about 10 mins later resolved itself.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,036
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    It's still very slow in accessing my main mailbox, I've been having problems for a week as well. Very annoying, so BY please pull your finger out and sort this!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 131
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    To be honest since they gave us an extra 50% speed increase that's when i've had more problems than before! Mail is now working or its not, internet is slow at times and well......BY news group server...absolutely crap.

    Only thing that seems ok is the download speeds. But I'm sure that isn't regional. :rolleyes:
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 20
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    Sorry to say but i have given up on blueyonder email as there is so much spam on it, it is unreal. Yes its been down for so long etc it is really unacceptable :mad:
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10,888
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    minka2325 wrote:
    Sorry to say but i have given up on blueyonder email as there is so much spam on it, it is unreal. Yes its been down for so long etc it is really unacceptable :mad:
    Haven't had a single piece of spam to mine, ever.
  • stevebrownstevebrown Posts: 1,943
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    minka2325 wrote:
    Sorry to say but i have given up on blueyonder email as there is so much spam on it, it is unreal. Yes its been down for so long etc it is really unacceptable :mad:

    I've had very little spam either.

    I'm sure some people won't like me saying this but you can't always hold the ISP responsible for spam; a lot of spam is self-induced. If you register with some service (or whatever) on the net that may not be 100% trustworthy then you have to expect spam coming your way. I use my Hotmail account when I have to 'register to download' or join some site just to view something. I only use my BY account for trustworthy sites like this, Tesco's or play.com etc.

    A good tip when registering your details on websites is make sure you read the small print regarding them or 3rd party companies sending stuff you your email address - tick or de-tick the option that gives them the OK to do this.
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