I have been getting the message "the connection has timed out" on Virgin Mail (blueyonder) several times a day for the past few weeks. Each time I have to wait a few minutes before I can use my email again. What is going on? And will normal service ever be restored?

mikes2400 wrote:Several different Forum Team members have now commented briefly with routine questions but not offered anything more.Just a thought, have you run a Traceroute (tracert) when you you get the "connection timed out" error?That might provide a clue as to where the problem is.In Windows 10 or 11, open the Command Prompt (CMD), type "tracert mail2virginmedia.com" after the > symbol and hit enter.To give you an idea here's what I have just got when I tried - it shows the satisfactory connection to VM webmail service at step 10.As I said, try that the next time you get the timed out error message and take a screen shot of the result.Coenoby

mikes2400 The other thing I was going to suggest was to try accessing webmail using a mobile data network when you get that error message using your VM network. Then I noticed you had previously said that you don't have any mobile devices.In the past people have reported that they could still access webmail using a mobile data service but obviously you cannot check if that applies in your case.Coenoby

mikes2400 wrote:I've done as suggested and these are the results:-Tracing route to mail2virginmedia.com [95.211.219.65] over a maximum of 30 hops:My sincere apologies that was completely my fault. The command should be"tracert mail2.virginmedia.com" that's with a dot between "mail2" and "virgin media". The screen shot I posted has the correct command but I made that unfortunate typo when I typed the command in my post.The first line of the output should then be:"Tracing route to mail2-virginmedia-com.edge.unified.services [84.116.6.19]"When I run a Traceroute to the incorrect "mail2virginmedia.com" without the dot I get the same result as you but I can still access VM webmail with no problem.So that does not help us at all.I'm really sorry I wasted your time there.Try it again with that dot after "mail2".Coenoby

mikes2400 wrote: 3 13 ms 14 ms 9 ms croy-core-2a-ae78-650.network.virginmedia.net [81.96.225.13] 4 * * * Request timed out. 5 15 ms 13 ms 12 ms aor.uk-lon03a-ri1.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.42.174] 6 to 16 * * * Request timed ouWhat that seems to be showing is that it's timing out at the hop from VM's UK servers to the servers in the Netherlands (84.116.xxx.xxx etc) that run VM's email service.The Forum Team (VM staff who support this forum) are best placed to get this checked for you. I have escalated your post to them so they should be contacting you soon via this thread, Some of the conversation with them will need to be via the private message (PM) facility of this forum rather than on the open forum itself.For what it's worth, the regular timing of the problem (11.30 to 12.30) seems very odd to me. I am sure there is a simple explanation for that but I cannot think of it.Coenoby

Hi Mike2400, Thanks for coming back to us about your perplexing email issue! Thanks coenoby for your help here too, I'm thinking maybe the issue is related to a blacklisted IP address. If it's not that I still have different avenues to follow though. I'm going to send you a PM mikes2400 so we can run through some checks on our side and hopefully get this resolved 🤗 Speak soon! Thanks, Meg

email connection timed out | Virgin Media Community

coenoby
Very Insightful Person
8 months ago
mikes2400 wrote:
I have been getting the message "the connection has timed out" on Virgin Mail (blueyonder) several times a day for the past few weeks.
Just to clarify.
I see from your previous posts that you use Thunderbird, so are you seeing that message when you try to check your VM email accounts there? The error message may well be more along the lines of "connection to the server imap.virginmedia.com timed out"
However it sounds as if you are getting that error from your browser when trying to use the VM webmail service because that may well give the error message which you quoted "The connection has timed out..........The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy..........try again later........."
For what it's worth I have not been seeing such issues with either Thunderbird or VM webmail over the last few days and it does not seem to be a hot topic on this forum at the moment. Most current email issues seem to be account related rather than connectivity issues.
Are you seeing similar errors with other websites?
You could try checking here https://www.virginmedia.com/help/service-status to see if there are any reported issues in your area.
Coenoby
- mikes2400
  Fibre optic
  8 months ago
  Thanks for your reply. I no longer use Thunderbird, just using Virgin webmail. I have no problems with any other websites so was thinking it must be a local VM fault. But since nobody else has reported it, probably not.
  It's behaving itself today so maybe it will be OK. I will post again if it reoccurs.
  - coenoby
    Very Insightful Person
    8 months ago
    mikes2400
    Thanks for that update. I hope you don't see a recurrence of the problem.
    For what it's worth, Thunderbird is probably a more reliable way of operating your VM email account but obviously that's your choice.
    It would still be worth using the link I posted to see if there any any VM issues in your local area.
    Coenoby
lenrmr1
Joining in
5 months ago
Same for me. It's clearly a Windows issue as it works perfectly on my Android tablet.

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