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.
im still waiting.... an apology isn't good enough. people are losing holidays, all receipts and contact details and address are lost........ its not on.
Hello. We left on holiday on 20 June when the VM email service was down. Got back last night, 27 June, and were pleased to see the service was available again: our Inbox, Sent box and Drafts were restored in full and all emails received in the last week were visible. However, at some point today all our emails sent and received before 20 June and the contents of our Drafts folder have disappeared entirely. Have we suddenly been locked out again and since last night? Or is this still part of the ongoing problem with VM email? We would be very grateful for any light anyone can shed. I've checked for similar messages from Community members but not seen one referring to a new and sudden loss today.
It's likely that as you hadn't viewed your email since you were away, you initially saw an offline copy of your mailbox which was intact. Unfortunately, as soon as your mail client syncd with the VM server which had lost your mail, your email client now reflects the missing mail. No way back unless 1) VM restores your mail which we're all holding our breath for or 2) You backed up to an offline copy of your mail before VM screwed up.
Thanks very much, Phil. That makes perfect sense of what seemed like a further worrying problem. Will just keep holding my breath then!
Still no old emails/folders, any update ?
MandsG wrote:Still no old emails/folders, any update ?
No.
See above
So here's an idea that may work for some. Like many, I sort my mail into subfolders. I use Outlook on my PC which always syncs all folders, hence lost emails.
I also have an android phone but don't use outlook for my email on the phone, I use the basic android mail app. This app allows me to chose which folders to sync with the server, by default when you set up the account, it only selects the inbox.
In theory, if you haven't manually syncd subfolders in your phone app, saved email in these folders may well be intact. A lot of mine was. Worth a look.
Just received this...
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This sounds promising in as much as the statement about restoring historic emails is still there. Not much new information but at least it's something. We wait expectantly!
still can't send or receive emails 😞 also my old emails still not restored
Tech companies rarely provide details on technical issues, partly because they do not wish to air their dirty laundry in public, so I don't think we will get further details on the problem.
They are still telling customers that historic emails will be restored, which is good.
I wonder if the reason for the delay is that they are having to transfer data between data centres over a relatively slow link?
I wonder if the reason for the delay is that they are having to transfer data between data centres over a relatively slow link?
No, not really buying it, if that was the case then copy the whole lot onto disk storage and ship them, there is no communication media faster than a motorcycle courier with a bag full of hard disks, barrelling down the motorway!
Omadawn wrote:I wonder if the reason for the delay is that they are having to transfer data between data centres over a relatively slow link?
No, not really buying it, if that was the case then copy the whole lot onto disk storage and ship them, there is no communication media faster than a motorcycle courier with a bag full of hard disks, barrelling down the motorway!
I'm not sure that would be considered a secure method of data transfer.
techwatcher wrote:I wonder if the reason for the delay is that they are having to transfer data between data centres over a relatively slow link?
Regardless of how slow the link may or not be, it will be a Known Known; as will the amount of data to transfer (presumably from a Disaster Recovery site, and not an inconsiderable amount I would imagine). As such, this is probably the most predictable aspect of the whole process, so unlikely to be the cause of any under-estimation of the task in hand by VM.
The delay would be the re-processing of the IMAP commands. Assuming all of the emails are there the directory needs to be rebuilt and it needs to be done in a way that newly issued commands by clients don't skupper their restoration. They should have used a couple of backups to test restoration and once it's working roll it out to a live server - "Flat out" working from really good database people should have taken a couple of days at most I think - I keep having a lot of my emails going "unread" and then "read" so either there's a 3rd party (hacker) on my account (again) or VM's systems are really doing something cheezy now processing data.
I never received one of these "we are sorry" emails, so I guess my system (Hacked on the day email goes to poop, hmmm) was not included in the "small group".
The Message below was emailed to me today.
What a surprise, it's taking longer than they thought, BUT he says he will be in touch before the end of the week to:
CONFIRM WHEN THEY WILL BE RESTORED. I Noticed the Folders were not mentioned.
I have absolute ZERO confidence in Virgin Media after dealings I have had with them this year and this just takes the biscuit. They should rename the company 'Mickey Mouse Media'.
-----------------
Hi,
Further to my email to you on Friday 23 June, I wanted to provide you with a brief update on your Virgin Media email service.
While you can still send and receive emails as normal, our teams are continuing to work on restoring historic emails into your inbox. Unfortunately, this is taking longer than we first anticipated.
We will be in touch before the end of this week to confirm when historic emails will be restored.
Our teams are working around the clock to fix this issue and we sincerely apologise that this is taking longer than expected.
Kind regards,
Axel Wehrle
Director of Customer Service, Virgin Media
No need to spam the forums:
https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/Loss-of-Email-F010762348/td-p/5345262
You'll notice that was dated the 23rd and no update since.
I'm assuming you haven't lost access to your historical emails for 11 days.
Axel Wehrle, Director of Customer Services.
OK sounds important, a ‘Director’ of the company, so presumably knows what they are talking about. Naturally then, this ‘person’ would be listed in Companies House as a bone-fide ‘director’ of the company, no?
So let’s check the official listing, shall we?
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02591237/officers
Oh dear, no mention of this Axel Wehrle as a ‘Director of Virgin Media’, how odd, I mean there are a couple of explanations for this, a) this person doesn’t actually exist and was just made up to fend-off criticism and buy them some time, b) This person does exist but the ‘Director of xxx’ is just some honorific and has about as much clout as ‘Senior Car Park Attendant’, or c) naturally VM have just been far too busy to update the Companies House records as, naturally, everyone has been working flat-out to restore emails!
Anyhow, irrelevant really, some entity, which legally, a reasonable person might construe as being a spokesperson or an agent for VM has made a comment/promise. End of the week, that might be Friday, or Saturday, or even Sunday, depending on which system you happen to believe as to which day is the first one of the week. But, worse case, as a ‘director’ has promised, by Monday 3rd July you will get a definitive promise as to when all of your lost email will be magically restored. Yes?
And what happens if that date comes and goes with no real timeline being revealed? Now what have VM said?
Your data has been backed up to another location and is ‘secure’ and ‘safe’, basically that only really means that they have some kind of copy of the data and it hasn’t been leaked to a third party - which is good. It doesn’t actually imply that this ‘backup’ is in a form that can be easily restored. Trust me, there are all sorts of reasons which might prevent this, without considerable expenditure by VM, which they might not want to do!
They are ‘working flat out’, good but actually meaningless, how many people have been allocated to do this?
Do VM’s senior management even know of the implications, are they being told xyz by the technical people - who secretly know that the chances of everyone’s email being restored is close to zero - that they just need some more time, because they are afraid to tell them the truth? Are VM fully aware of this but just don’t want to say anything in the hope that it all just dies away?
It’s really not looking too good is it?
Honestly, the longer this goes on, without there being any valid reports of a customer having had their missing, historic email restored, the more likely it is that it won’t actually ever happen, and VM are currently in ‘damage limitation mode’. Give it until Monday, if there are no real, concrete, firm updates, with actual timescales given, then, alas, it would be best to work on the basis that your historic emails are gone, permanently and won’t be coming back, and move on working on that basis.
Omadawn wrote:Axel Wehrle, Director of Customer Services.
OK sounds important, a ‘Director’ of the company, so presumably knows what they are talking about. Naturally then, this ‘person’ would be listed in Companies House as a bone-fide ‘director’ of the company, no?
So let’s check the official listing, shall we?
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02591237/officers
Oh dear, no mention of this Axel Wehrle as a ‘Director of Virgin Media’, how odd, I mean there are a couple of explanations for this, a) this person doesn’t actually exist and was just made up to fend-off criticism and buy them some time, b) This person does exist but the ‘Director of xxx’ is just some honorific and has about as much clout as ‘Senior Car Park Attendant’, or c) naturally VM have just been far too busy to update the Companies House records as, naturally, everyone has been working flat-out to restore emails!
Anyhow, irrelevant really, some entity, which legally, a reasonable person might construe as being a spokesperson or an agent for VM has made a comment/promise. End of the week, that might be Friday, or Saturday, or even Sunday, depending on which system you happen to believe as to which day is the first one of the week. But, worse case, as a ‘director’ has promised, by Monday 3rd July you will get a definitive promise as to when all of your lost email will be magically restored. Yes?
And what happens if that date comes and goes with no real timeline being revealed? Now what have VM said?
Your data has been backed up to another location and is ‘secure’ and ‘safe’, basically that only really means that they have some kind of copy of the data and it hasn’t been leaked to a third party - which is good. It doesn’t actually imply that this ‘backup’ is in a form that can be easily restored. Trust me, there are all sorts of reasons which might prevent this, without considerable expenditure by VM, which they might not want to do!
They are ‘working flat out’, good but actually meaningless, how many people have been allocated to do this?
Do VM’s senior management even know of the implications, are they being told xyz by the technical people - who secretly know that the chances of everyone’s email being restored is close to zero - that they just need some more time, because they are afraid to tell them the truth? Are VM fully aware of this but just don’t want to say anything in the hope that it all just dies away?
It’s really not looking too good is it?
Honestly, the longer this goes on, without there being any valid reports of a customer having had their missing, historic email restored, the more likely it is that it won’t actually ever happen, and VM are currently in ‘damage limitation mode’. Give it until Monday, if there are no real, concrete, firm updates, with actual timescales given, then, alas, it would be best to work on the basis that your historic emails are gone, permanently and won’t be coming back, and move on working on that basis.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/axelwehrle/?originalSubdomain=uk
Two, nearly, months on the job...
My wife's NTLworld.com email stopped working over 10 days ago, mine & my daughter's (both ntlworld.com) are working and haven't had any problems. She is now in Australia and the problem still hasn't been fixed, I spoke to the call centre at the beginning of the week, who talked me through changing her password, this till didn't fix the problem. It saying No password provided for "NTLworld" Please go to mail account settings and enter a password.
The call centre said they would put a ticket in to the tech dept, it would take 3-5 days. This would mean she will be without email for almost two weeks. she is due back in 3 weeks time, however if she can't get her emails she may miss any emails about her flight.
I got a letter today (29.06.2023) and a reply from a nice lady in the executive complaints team.
They are doing their best to restore historic emails and aim for the end of this week, however that is best endeavors and no guarantees so could be next week and was honest enough to just say she doesn't know, so hang in there y'all and it will be sorted but it is what it is.
