Resolved
Hi,
We are aware that some customers are experiencing issues with their email service and are very sorry for the inconvenience this is causing. Our teams are working flat out to fully restore all emails as soon as possible.
ModTeam
Update 13/07/23 - This has now been resolved. If you are still having issues, please make your own separate post giving as much detail as possible.
I was told my folders would be back by 23.6.23 13:00!!! Still no folders after 5 days. When will this be sorted?
The 23/06/2023 update is still a lie. Neither my partner or myself are able to send or receive. Stop claiming this part of the problem is fixed!!!!!
VM, why create so much hate, contempt and reputational damage to yourselves by continuing to issue blatant lies. Explain what the issues are and actually resolve them.
Hi, any idea when historical emails with be restored please. I have around 30 email folders and cant see any of them on my account. There are documents that I really need to access, thanks
Not only have all my archived and important emails disappeared but also the notes stored on my iPad and iPhone have gone as well. Are we going to get these back?
I hadn’t noticed that. I do hope so, in my case I had more important details in there than in any of the emails. Blimey what a mess.
Can you actually get into your email box though? I keep getting 'forbidden'.
Is there an expected timeframe for restoring our historic emails to our inboxes? - we are still missing ours and it’s caused a lot of issues.
all my old emails before 29/6/23 are still missing I would very much like to get them back asap as they contain important info.teachme to print it off in future
Hi, Why can't I access my ntlworld emails through my phone or microsoft mail? I have to log in directly through Virgin Media, and I still haven't got any historical emails, just multiple copies of the same ones received since sunday 18th June 2023?
Currently not receiving emails from gmail addresses, all of which were working before the outage??
Also, talktalk mail is patchy, sometimes not getting emails at all, other times they arrive hours later.
Come on VM, sort it out!
While commiserating with IMAP users who still cannot see their folders or Emails, was there no way for them to be taking their own personal backups periodically? I still use the older POP3 interface and, although the VM Email outage was annoying, I still had all my Emails since the 1990s stored in *.PST files on my PC.
I have raised this question before on this thread but haven't seen an answer. Were IMAP users taking their own backups or simply relying on VM not to go wrong?
The answer is Henry there is far more likelihood that storage on a personal PC would be lost than on a cloud server. There are also implications in storing any kind of business data on a personal PC.
I like the flexibility that IMAP provides in allowing me to access a Master Source via multiple devices; each of which updates and reflects the single state once synched.
However, I also recognise that this is a Single Point of Failure, so mitigate that risk by taking periodic backups, stored in multiple places, locally and remotely. A good rule to have is: never (ever) rely on other people, organisations, equipment, hardware, systems, etc., to look after the data you hold dear. Always build in some redundancy suitable to your level of acceptable risk.
Additionally, I regularly (probably daily) synchronise each device with the Server which, in this particular instance, highlighted the issue with one device, allowing me to take decisive action with the other devices – i.e. backing up the data on them and deferring accessing the server until the issue has been resolved. As such, I have a recent backup from my regular process, together with more up-to-date versions on the, currently email-dormant devices.
All that said, I am fairly tech-savvy, aware of the client-server architecture of IMAP and, thus, appreciate the inherent risks of 'relying' on that server-based source of master data. Reading the messages of the many frustrated peeps on this board makes me think that some thought the data on their device(s) was the master copy. That's through no fault of their own; perhaps organisations like VM, providing such services, should be much more forthright in highlighting such risks as well as suggesting ways to mitigate them. At the end of the day it helps both customers and organisations to be so proactive...
It is more difficult to backup emails with IMAP than with POP3. To do so you have to create a .pst file yourself. There is no way of automating that process (that I can find) so that it is continuous or even happens regularly e.g. every day. You just have to remember to do it and to include the .pst file in whatever backup system you use - external hard drive, cloud etc. IMAP uses .ost files to store emails locally but these are synched to the server just as your local inbox is e.g. in Outlook. Therefore if your emails on the server are lost the synching process removes your local information as well.
