Forum Discussion

Alan_Barclay's avatar
Alan_Barclay
Joining in
2 years ago

Broken E-Mail

Weird or What!

Microsoft's insistence for installing the (new) Outlook against my wishes, has caused me untold misery over the past few weeks. Once it becomes apparent it's installed I uninstall it and switch back to Microsoft Mail and set it as my preferred viewer. as annoying as this is, I persevered uninstalling it continuously until Monday 10 April when after I uninstalled it. Microsoft Mail couldn't download any e-mails as it had lost all it's settings. searching through the virgin website I found these settings...

*** IMAP settings (recommended) ************************************************
Host name: imap.virginmedia.com
Username: your full Virgin Media email address
Password: your Virgin Media email app password
Advanced: SSL encryption Enabled (TLS)
Port: 993 (this may be automatically chosen by selecting SSL encryption)

*** POP3 settings ************************************************************** USE
Host name: pop3.virginmedia.com
Username: your full Virgin Media email address
Password: your Virgin Media email app password
Advanced: SSL encryption Enabled (TLS)
Port: 995 (this may be automatically chosen by selecting SSL encryption)

*** SMTP settings ************************************************************** USE
Host name: smtp.virginmedia.com
Username: your full Virgin Media email address
Password: your Virgin Media email app password
Advanced: SSL encryption Enabled (TLS)
Port: 465 (this might not be selected automating by enabling SSL, so please check)

So I entered these, and nothing... still no emails, re-entered several times changed incoming between POP3 & IMAP, I prefer POP3 as I want to keep a copy of my emails on the server.

The weird thing is, Virgin aren't my only Mail Provider, my other email provider account appears to be working without any issue, so I can only guess there is a problem at Virgin?

1 Reply

Sort By
  • coenoby's avatar
    coenoby
    Very Insightful Person
    2 years ago
    Alan_Barclay wrote:

    o I can only guess there is a problem at Virgin?

    I use IMAP and that's working fine for me.   Just to check I quickly set up a pop3 account for one of my VM email accounts and that's working fine for me as well. I have also checked the VM Service Status page and that's not showing any broadband/email issues in my area. You could try entering your details here https://www.virginmedia.com/help/service-status to check your area.

    However, are you aware that VM have made quite a few fundamental changes to the security of their email accounts over the as few weeks and months? They may well be what is catching you out.

    You now have to generate a "Mail App" password from your My Virgin Media" account and use that in the settings of mail apps such as MS Outlook and Mail instead of the password you use to access your webmail account on the VM website.

    Also, in order to do that you now need to specify a non VM email account  (such as Gmail - but any non VM email account will do) for each of your VM email accounts. That's where VM will send the verification emails to allow you to change your password and generate a Mail App password for any apps you use to.manage your VM emails.

    Here are the steps you need to follow to do that:  https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/locked-out-of-ntlworld-email 

    Once you have generated a Mail App password try setting the account up again in Mail. This time use your VM email address as the username as before, but enter the Mail App password as the password.

    Try that and see how it goes.

    Coenoby