To anyone using a Virginmedia email address!

[jeallen01]

You may have noticed that, yesterday (Mon 19th June) your VM email wasn't working and that VM didn't seem to have offered any explanation.

Well, nothing from VM showed up in the normal email streams on my PCs - but when looking at the VM account on my phone in far more detail than normal this morning, I discovered a VM email just before midnight last night saying that the email services had been restored after being absent most of yesterday. However, it also said that all previous emails into Inboxes would not show up but should be accessible "sometime" in the future because VM staff were working to restore them (but on an undefined timescale).

In the meantime, customers were advised to contact the senders of missing emails if they needed to find out what was in them!! Catch 22 maybe? !!

All very odd!!!

PS: It seems like it was a good job that, over a year ago, I moved almost all of my internet accounts away from using VM as the route to contact me!

OTOH, it does highlight that using a single email address can be a risky business if something like this VM saga can and does happen - and will likely happen again in the near future with all those hackers and ransomware pirates in play!

 

[John]

You may have noticed that, yesterday (Mon 19th June) your VM email wasn't working and that VM didn't seem to have offered any explanation.

Well, nothing from VM showed up in the normal email streams on my PCs - but when looking at the VM account on my phone in far more detail than normal this morning, I discovered a VM email just before midnight last night saying that the email services had been restored after being absent most of yesterday. However, it also said that all previous emails into Inboxes would not show up but should be accessible "sometime" in the future because VM staff were working to restore them (but on an undefined timescale).

In the meantime, customers were advised to contact the senders of missing emails if they needed to find out what was in them!! Catch 22 maybe? !!

All very odd!!!

PS: It seems like it was a good job that, over a year ago, I moved almost all of my internet accounts away from using VM as the route to contact me!

OTOH, it does highlight that using a single email address can be a risky business if something like this VM saga can and does happen - and will likely happen again in the near future with all those hackers and ransomware pirates in play!

It would seem to be happening here as well, North Nottinghamshire - no email traffic for me since 3am this morning up to present time 11.45am which is very not normal for me and no explanation messages from VM.

 

[jeallen01]

Looks like "they" fixed one area (we are Area 14) and f**ked another

 

[jeallen01]

FWIW, here is the text of that message that VM sent to my @VM email account late last night:

"On 19 Jun 2023, at 23:28, no-reply@virginmedia.com wrote:

Hi,

This is Virgin Media. We are getting in touch with you to provide an update in relation to your Virgin Media email service.

What has happened?

Due to a technical issue, Virgin Media email services were disrupted for most of the day on 19 June. We want to sincerely apologise for the frustration and inconvenience this may have caused you.

While our teams have been able to fully restore most email services, work is still underway to completely resolve the issue for some accounts which includes yours.

What does this mean for me?

You are now able to send and receive emails as you normally would. However, you will have noticed that any emails received on or before 19 June will not be appearing in your inbox, sent items or any other folders.

We want to reassure you that your emails and data are safe and secure; there is currently nothing to suggest your account has been compromised; and that all emails will be fully restored once the relevant system repair has been completed. Any emails sent to you on 19 June when this problem occurred, but not received, will also be delivered to your inbox once this issue has been fully fixed.

For any urgent emails you are waiting to receive, we suggest that you contact the original senders while we move all your backed up data to your mailbox.

What are you doing to fix this?

Our focus now is on working around the clock to ensure your emails are restored as quickly as possible. You do not need to take any further action and we will provide further updates as soon as we can. If you do need further assistance then our customer service teams are on hand to help wherever they can.

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Kind regards,
The Virgin Media team"

My/Our "patience and understanding" is now being stretched VERY thin - and mine would break completely if I didn't have to take into account a probably forthcoming change of location and ISP and thus not wanting to lock us into a multi-month/year broadband contract at this time!

 

[Burnham Beech]

VM email is down here again. Worked for a few hours this morning.

 

[jeallen01]

VM email is down here again. Worked for a few hours this morning.

Which Area are you in ? (it shows on your bills)

 

[jeallen01]

Update at 22.00 BST UK time:
Well, that email finally showed up in my normal email stream on the PC's late this afternoon - some 16 or so hours after VM sent it last night
PS: I also monitor my wife's VM email address because she often doesn't, and it hasn't even turned up in her's so far - and an another routine email from a different sender - that generally comes out very early on Monday mornings - only arrived just after 8pm THIS (Tuesday) evening!

Safe to say that this fiasco has strengthened my resolve to ditch the VM email system as soon as practicably possible!

 

[Burnham Beech]

My area code is 22. From the email I was sent the problem affected all areas.

Through yesterday afternoon I was still get repeats of the emails that failed to arrive on Monday. Seems to be ok now.

 

[jeallen01]

.

..... Seems to be ok now.

Probably should read "Seems to be OK FOR now"!!!!

Won't change my plan to divest both of us of VM email addresses as I've been having multiple problems with the service for years!!

 

[Captain Jack]

VM has generally been pretty awful. Not been with them for over 10 years and doesn't look like much has changed.

 

[jeallen01]

VM has generally been pretty awful. Not been with them for over 10 years and doesn't look like much has changed.

I'm pretty much with you on the email service, but the broadband is pretty good (currently on the M125 service) if expensive, and so I'm waiting until we (hopefully!) move to a bungalow in the Worthing area to be near my stepson and his partner's family (we have virtually no close family in London) until I change IP. Don't want to lock us into another IP contract with the "wrong" IP for that area (we are well out of contract with VM!).

I've moved virtually all my internet a/cs away from reference to VM email addresses, but unfortunately SWMBO is reluctant to do that until "forced" to - but she will have to when we move!

 

[jeallen01]

Update on 30th June, and it's not good !

Last night vm email users got a message to say that the service would be off-line from minight to 6am, but it's been far worse than that: (taken from my posts on the Facebook page for the Hillingdon u3a Computer Club page (that "Private" so you should not be able to find it!!):
"
Virginmedia email still doesn't seem to be working at 11am on Friday 30th - even though, last night, they said that the "essential work" should be finished by 6am this morning!

Edited at 11.45
PS: then sent a test email from my @vm a/c back to the same a/c and also to one of my @gmail a/cs - it took 15 mins for the email to leave that a/c and it still has not arrived in either of the target a/cs!

Edited at 12.10
The test email arrived in the @gmail a/c at 10.59, but has still not arrived in the @vm a/c.

Edited at 15.15:
Well, having checked my vm email fairly regularly since 12.10, the test email finally showed up in that account just now, but showng a delivery time of 11.24 - VERY "odd"!

Just confirms that I (and probably most other people) should be wary of using @vm email for anything that is time-critical at the moment (or better not use it at all!)

Edited at 20.30:
Here we go again! : neither my or my wife's @vm email accounts can connect to the VM server - wondering when that will be sorted???"

Need I say more about this "service"??
(except to say that, obviously, this disaster is far from over!)

 

[jeallen01]

And it's still definitely "far from over" - been "on & off" since post#12 and still is; currently "off"

 

[jeallen01]

Update on Sunday: surfice to say that the situation is little if any better today - although the main problems seem to be:
- not every @vm email user can send/receive emails - very variable during the day/night
- VM sent a this morning message to say that they aim to retrieve users "historical" email "sometime" this coming week!
- not every a@vm email user is even getting those VM update messages (I am, my wife is not!) .

 

[Burnham Beech]

In case it helps with anyone still having problems with missing emails - this is the latest statement I received from VM on 6 July 2023.

"Our teams have been continuing to work on restoring historic emails into your inbox. Unfortunately, this is taking longer than we first anticipated. This means that, based on the information we have, your historic emails will be restored by Monday 17 July at the latest, most likely earlier. We will contact you individually as soon as your mailbox is restored."

 

[jeallen01]

I've been updating the private Hu3a page over the last week or so, and posted that message there yesterday. In general, the situation is considerably "better" and "current" emails seem to be sent and received OK, but it's the historic ones that people seem to be having problems with.

OTOH, for a long time, I've been moving all of my incoming "important" @vm emails to local personal folders on a PC disk - and, where possible, changing as many of my online accounts where I was registered using that address to another of my email addresses, so I've not had that problem with "historic" emails.

OTOH2, SWMBO uses her @vm address for quite a few online accounts, but even she now understands that she'll have to move those elsewhere (I set up several other email addresses for her, but she's reluctant to use them)

Anyway, I'd advise anyone with an @vm email address to ditch it for something else ASAP because the current issue is only the latest of many that I/we have experienced over the last few years with the VM email services.

 

[jeallen01]

Update:
Some @vm email users (including myself, but strangely not my wife ) got an email from them yesterday to say that they had successfully "merged" the current email streams with the older "historic" streams, and that does seem to be the case - but ONLY after the service hadn't worked properly for almost 2 weeks!

Nevertheless, as I said previously, this is probably a good time to ditch vm as an email provider for GOOD before something like the same thing happens again (as it almost certainly will ).