[benjamini]

Hi, I will start by saying I am a techno-phobe so any replies must be in wee words with instructions a six year old will understand, even then I may be baffled
Recently a strange thing began happening. All mail into my windows live mail box started arriving multiple times. I now recieve thousands of mail a week. Each e.mail arrives hundreds of times.
Is there anything I can do? Or should I take it to PC world. No insurance on it.
Help

[chrisjr]

Only a brain dead idiot would take a computer to PC World for fixing. You would be better off giving it to a three year old child with a hammer, it would come out working better

How exactly are you accessing your mailbox? There are two common methods, either using a dedicated bit of software to download the messages to your computer or using a web browser to read them directly from your mail provider.

If you use a web browser then the messages are not on your computer so if there are multiple versions there it is probably nothing you have done.

If you use some other software to read the messages then try using a web browser. It should be possible to log onto your mailbox that way. If that only shows one copy of each message then it is possibly your mail software that is at fault.

But first we need to know how you are reading your mail to offer more precise guidance.

[Brush Master]

Originally Posted by benjamini

Hi, I will start by saying I am a techno-phobe so any replies must be in wee words with instructions a six year old will understand, even then I may be baffled
Recently a strange thing began happening. All mail into my windows live mail box started arriving multiple times. I now recieve thousands of mail a week. Each e.mail arrives hundreds of times.
Is there anything I can do? Or should I take it to PC world. No insurance on it.
Help

One thing is easy: Don't take it to PC-whatnots. You'd be wasting time and money on people who know even less about computing than you.

Other that that - well, we'd need a few more details to work on here. Apart from Windows Lice Mail, do you have a way to access your email through a web browser such as Internet Explorer? Once there, do you see the same amount of duplicates?

What can you say about those duplicates? Do they appear to be identical (same subject, same "sent" date, etc)? I think you'd want to find out whether you actually receive many duplicates, or receive one message and see many duplicates.

That's the only way I can think of approaching this issue, it that suits a 6-year old ;-)

[benjamini]

Originally Posted by chrisjr

Only a brain dead idiot would take a computer to PC World for fixing. You would be better off giving it to a three year old child with a hammer, it would come out working better

How exactly are you accessing your mailbox? There are two common methods, either using a dedicated bit of software to download the messages to your computer or using a web browser to read them directly from your mail provider.

If you use a web browser then the messages are not on your computer so if there are multiple versions there it is probably nothing you have done.

If you use some other software to read the messages then try using a web browser. It should be possible to log onto your mailbox that way. If that only shows one copy of each message then it is possibly your mail software that is at fault.

But first we need to know how you are reading your mail to offer more precise guidance.

Ok, this is going to be very hard work for you, forgive me in advance.
I have not changed the settings since I got it. To access my mail I click on an icon, envelopes, with windows live mail. Worked ok for two years. Havnt changed anything, would not know how to

[benjamini]

Originally Posted by Brush Master

One thing is easy: Don't take it to PC-whatnots. You'd be wasting time and money on people who know even less about computing than you.

Other that that - well, we'd need a few more details to work on here. Apart from Windows Lice Mail, do you have a way to access your email through a web browser such as Internet Explorer? Once there, do you see the same amount of duplicates?

What can you say about those duplicates? Do they appear to be identical (same subject, same "sent" date, etc)? I think you'd want to find out whether you actually receive many duplicates, or receive one message and see many duplicates.

That's the only way I can think of approaching this issue, it that suits a 6-year old ;-)

I will recieve an e.mail , and for days the same e.mail keeps arriving hundreds of times. This week I probably recieved 30 e.mails but I have over 20 thousand in my inbox. It started of only ten or so duplicates arrived, now its hundreds.

[chrisjr]

But what e-mail service do you use? ie the bit after the @ in your e-mail address. It might be possible to access your e-mail service using a web browser in much the same way you are accessing Digital Spy.

This will give us some more info to go on. If there is only a single copy of your e-mail using this method then what may be happening is your Windows Live Mail is downloading the same message over and over again even though it has already got a copy. So you are not actually getting hundreds of different messages just hundreds of copies of the same message.

[benjamini]

Originally Posted by chrisjr

But what e-mail service do you use? ie the bit after the @ in your e-mail address. It might be possible to access your e-mail service using a web browser in much the same way you are accessing Digital Spy.

This will give us some more info to go on. If there is only a single copy of your e-mail using this method then what may be happening is your Windows Live Mail is downloading the same message over and over again even though it has already got a copy. So you are not actually getting hundreds of different messages just hundreds of copies of the same message.

Def the same e.mail over and over. Its btinternet.com

[chrisjr]

Assuming you know your BT username and password then enter bt.yahoo.com/webmail into your web browser and you will end up on a login page. Enter your username and password and that will lead to your mailbox.

If there is only a single copy of each message there then the problem is Windows Live Mail.

If the web mailbox has all your e-mails in it then I would suggest zapping Live Mail into oblivion and installing it again. If there is anything corrupt with the current installation that might sort it out. But if there are any important messages missing things might get a bit more complicated if you want to keep them.

[benjamini]

Originally Posted by chrisjr

Assuming you know your BT username and password then enter bt.yahoo.com/webmail into your web browser and you will end up on a login page. Enter your username and password and that will lead to your mailbox.

If there is only a single copy of each message there then the problem is Windows Live Mail.

If the web mailbox has all your e-mails in it then I would suggest zapping Live Mail into oblivion and installing it again. If there is anything corrupt with the current installation that might sort it out. But if there are any important messages missing things might get a bit more complicated if you want to keep them.

Ok, so what if I tell you I have not an idea what my username or password is. A Bt engineer did it all for me. He probably wrote something down which I have lost. OK I can see you are now tearing your hair out. Should I get BT back to look at it?

[chrisjr]

If you read this

http://www2.bt.com/static/i/btretail...il_basics.html

you will see a bit about user name and password. These should have been sent to you in an e-mail. Though it's probably going to be a nightmare to find on your system

There is an 0800 number given if you can't find the relevant details. Trouble is it would be fairly simple to find your username by going into the settings of your account from Live Mail. However it is likely the password will be obscured and you might not have a means to reveal it.

The BT guy should have told you what the details were when he set it up though.

[benjamini]

Ok Chris been to BT site, tried to reset password etc. They say my e.mail address is incorrect. They are telling me its not a valid address. Will have another go in the morning. Thanks

[max99]

You'll be better off phoning BT. One of their tech support staff should be able to take remote access of your PC and hopefully sort it out for you. Your username/email address and password will have appeared on the letter(s) you received when you joined BT.

Also, ensure you keep all your usernames and passwords written down safely (not stuck to a post-it note on your monitor), as not knowing them can make problems like this far more complicated and time consuming.

[platelet]

Originally Posted by benjamini

Ok Chris been to BT site, tried to reset password etc. They say my e.mail address is incorrect. They are telling me its not a valid address. Will have another go in the morning. Thanks

On the pasword reset screen you only enter the name part of your address, then click in the "hole" button next to @btinternet.com in other words you type
myname
not
myname@btinternet.com

That may be obvious but it has caught me out before when my browser helpfully suggested my full email address and I just accepted that



If you do get into the mail account via the website, I would check the following:

• There's a menu in the top left that goes something like Hi Benjamin | Sign Out | Options
  
• click on the Options. choose mail options from the menu and click on that
  
• The screen will now refresh. There will be a list of options down the left hand side, one of which is POP and Forwarding - click on that
  
• Two options will be displayed. One is Forward BT Yahoo! Mail to another email address:
  
• Is there an email address entered in the field here? If there is clear it out so the field is blank. then press the save button which is sort of in the middle of the screen

If that field contains your actual email address it would cause you just the issue you've been having. Every email that arrived would then be forwarded to you again, and when it arrive again etc.