Forum Discussion

ChrisU's avatar
ChrisU
Tuning in
2 months ago

Emails blocked

Hi,

(I am a newby to this forum and, while I used to be chartered electronic engineer in my working life please assume I know nothing about the email system and you wan't be far wrong.)  

I discovered today that Virginmedia.com emails to all devices of mine and my wife (a mixture of Apple and Android) have been blocked since yesterday.  I had an alert (which has since vanished) on my Android phone along the lines that the email account has been temporarily blacklisted.  My Android phone has actually delivered 8 emails today, but the other devices have not delivered any.  My Apple desktop will not allow me to log into my email account, citing "Unable to verify account name or password", my wife's iPhone says it's a "Temporarily blacklisted IP address - try again later".

I can view my email online via mail.virginmedia.com so at least the mail server is working.  I haven't figured out how to do the same for my wife yet (we share a Virginmedia account with independent email addresses). 

I've tried ringing 150, but the robot at the end of that is clearly psychotic and I've given up trying to make it understand the term "email".

(1) Is it actually possible to talk (or chat) with a real, live person at Virgin on this topic?  How?

(2) Is this likely to be a Virgin problem that will mysteriously go away of its own accord (hence "try again later"), or have I done something (or failed to do something) to provoke this?   

(3) According to Google "Blacklisting" appears to imply some sort of email account compromise has occurred.  Can I verify that in some way?  (Brings me back to point 1).

Hoping for some help.

Chris

    

17 Replies

  • ChrisU's avatar
    ChrisU
    Tuning in
    5 hours ago

    Thank you Coenoby for a very interesting post, the most useful one I have seen so far.  FYI the problem has returned, and disappeared, several times in the intervening period, much as your post suggests it might.  

    I'm a bit confused, however.  When you say "smart device linked to your home network" do you mean physically, i.e. via home wifi, or remotely, via the internet, or simply because it is accessing my email address x.y@virginmedia.com?  The reason I ask is that the problem manifested itself 2 days ago while I was away from home on a trip (and then went away again, to return right now as I type at home) ; in that case the only devices at my home address that were turned on were Virgin's hub and V6 DVR - all other devices were either with me or switched off. 

    Similarly, which IP address is being blocked - one allocated by the Virgin hub, or one attached to my mobile devices, which presumably are allocated by whichever wifi or mobile network I am attached to at the time?  (It would be useful for diagnostics if the error stated the IP address that was blocked).  

    And why is Google mail immune from this - do they not do the checking that Virgin do? 

    TBH, I'm more inclined to think this is a Virgin/02 problem and nothing at all to do with malware.  However, I'll follow your advice about the Netreport, and in the meantime I'll selectively switch off my mobile devices for a while to see if I can isolate the offending one.  

    Thanks again,

    Chris

    • ChrisU's avatar
      ChrisU
      Tuning in
      2 hours ago

      I've just reported vaa Netreport and have received a very long email by return.   It will take me about a week to work through all the suggestions in there.      

  • coenoby's avatar
    coenoby
    Very Insightful Person
    11 days ago

    ChrisU​  "Temporarily blacklisted IP address - try again later".

    I have only just picked up on your 1/10/2025 post that the problem had returned. 

    If I had received that error message I would use VM's Netreport facility to request the IP be de-listed. If you want to give that a try:

    Go to https://netreport.virginmedia.com/netreport/ and:

    • select an abuse type of Email Sending Errors from drop down list
    • select an abuse form of Other from drop down list
    • paste the full and complete error message that includes the phrase "Temporarily blacklisted IP address"  (including your IP address) into the Log Evidence area
    • enter your name into My name field
    • enter your email address into Email address field
    • select Submit button

    As I understand it, that request will go straight to the relevant security team in VM that deal with such issues.

    The point to bear in mind is that blacklists / blocklists are dynamic. That means an IP address is blocked automatically after a period of suspicious traffic being detected coming from that IP address. 

    After a period without any suspicious traffic being detected the IP address is then de-listed automatically.   That's why the error says "Temporarily blacklisted" 😉

     The cause of the problem is likely to be  that there is malware on a smart device linked to your home network which could be generating suspicious traffic from time to time and results in your IP address being blacklisted.

    If that is the case, unless the malware is removed it could well result in your IP address being blocked again in due course.

    If you want to continue using VM email while your VM  IP address is blocked then the  work around options are:

    1. use the VM webmail service on the VM website rather than your email apps or clients to manage your email. Your emails are then coming direct from VM's servers rather than your home IP address so they will not be blocked
    2. use a VPN to "hide" your home IP address, VM will not be blocking the IP address provided by your VPN
    3. when using the email app on your mobile phone you should go online using your mobile provider's data service rather than your VM wifi. VM will not be blocking the IP address of your mobile data service.

    Coenoby

      • ChrisU's avatar
        ChrisU
        Tuning in
        12 days ago

        Well, you can stand down - the problem has gone away of its own accord, with absolutely no changes at my end.  I'll let you know if it comes back again.

        It's so reassuring being connected to such a reliable and robust system...  

  • ChrisU's avatar
    ChrisU
    Tuning in
    13 days ago

    Ha, I'm back.  No-one from Virgin bothered to contact me despite the "priority IT ticket", but mail eventually started working on its own (sort of, e.g. some emails didn't appear in one or more devices but did in others) after I went through the Virgin O2 ID / password shenanigans.  But now the problem is back as before - blacklisted IP address, no email apps are sending or receiving, webmail is working as far as I can tell.  Thank goodness Gmail seems bulletproof on my devices, and, hey, it's free!   

    Any ideas anyone?  

  • ChrisU's avatar
    ChrisU
    Tuning in
    2 months ago

    I should have added that Virgin's online mail system seems to be working, it's just the POP3 and IMAP interfaces to external devices that seem to be flaky.

    • Kath_P's avatar
      Kath_P
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
      2 months ago

      Hi ChrisU, 

      Thanks for taking the time to contact us via the Community. It's lovely having you on board with us in the Forums. ⭐

      We're sorry to hear you're having issues with accessing your mail through an app or mail device. As it's working via webmail, I assume you've been able to complete the VM O2 ID setup for the emails. 

      In order to use the mail apps, you'll need to generate an app password. Please log in to My Virgin Media here > Click on Account settings > Identity & Security Settings > Select Manage your products > Select Manage email app password > Click on the blue button 'Get New Password'. Once this is generated, pop this into the mail app under password and this should hopefully resolve your issues.

      Keep us posted on how you get on. 

      Many thanks, 

  • ChrisU's avatar
    ChrisU
    Tuning in
    2 months ago

    Amazingly, just got off the 150 line with "Shaaron", who was very helpful and, more to the point, seemed able to understand the issue, wasn't fazed by terms such as POP3 and IMAP, and didn't ask me to reboot all the equipment in my house.  (You can tell I've used 150 before).   The upshot is that this has been identified as a technical issue, and an "IT ticket" has been raised, with a nominal turnaround time of 5 working days - though Shaaron said she has put some sort of priority marking on it.  I'll let you know what happens.  

  • ChrisU's avatar
    ChrisU
    Tuning in
    2 months ago

    I'm on 150 again at the moment, as email has gone down once more, same error message.  As before, there is no email option on 150, so I'm currently on hold waiting to talk to someone about "a broadband issue" - Virgin, of course, are "extremely busy".  The rendlessly repeating recorded message mentions that it is "quick and easy to get through to an agent via our VM App"  - does anyone have experience of that?  

  • Adduxi's avatar
    Adduxi
    Very Insightful Person
    2 months ago

    +1 for jpeg1​  suggestion.  It may be a pain, but will be worth it.  Going on what’s presently happening with VM email, it’s only going one way.

  • Adduxi's avatar
    Adduxi
    Very Insightful Person
    2 months ago

    Both you and your wife will need to create VMO2ID’s as mailboxes are now separate, there are no longer primary and secondary accounts.

    • ChrisU's avatar
      ChrisU
      Tuning in
      2 months ago

      Thank you for the reply, but it doesn't seem to be totally correct.  After Googling some more I created a VMO2ID for me (only), and within a couple of hours all our mobile devices (including my wife's) had successfully logged in to mail with the existing (i.e. unchanged) mail passwords.  My desktop PC took a little longer, but this morning it's also working, again with the existing mail password.

      I've come to learn over the years that Virgin have created something that no-one quite understands fully, least of all them.

      I'm now mulling over the contents of an email just received (yay!) from Virgin about the VMO2ID, particularly the bit that I've bolded:

      To help keep your account secure (and make sure you don’t get locked out), it’s a good idea to add a few extra ways to sign in – just in case.  You’ve already set up a main and backup method, but we recommend adding more recovery options for peace of mind. A quick reminder: your Virgin Media O2 ID can only be managed online. If you lose access, we won’t be able to help recover your ID, mailbox, or its contents – so it’s worth taking a minute now.

      I don't understand - Virgin (or is it O2 ?) host the ID server, the mail server and the password server, and they are the ones that have created the "need" for a new VMO2ID.  They ought to at least share some responsibility when it goes wrong.  (Note, I didn't say "if").

      Chris

          

      • jpeg1's avatar
        jpeg1
        Alessandro Volta
        2 months ago

        The only safe solution is to create new email accounts with a dedicated provider, as many others have already done.

        VM stopped issuing new email addresses a few years ago, and as you have discovered they are not concerned with the customer experience of the remaining users.