Windows Live Mail not receiving VM Emails

What error message are you receiving?

There have been a couple of WLM topics on here recently.

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/Windows-Live-mail-problem/td-p/5546624

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/loss-of-email-service/td-p/5540604

There are also some general ongoing mentions of VM's servers not responding or being slow at the moment.

Also note the fact that support for Windows Essentials 2012 ended 10/1/17 so before starting a recovery operation you may want to consider putting time/effort into a current solution to replace WLM

caveman38 

"are VM ceasing their association with certain mail readers"

Simple answer - No.

All email apps and clients ("mail readers") such as WLM use the same POP3/IMAP/SMTP protocol to access email accounts. VM just check the email settings in the app or client, they don't care which email client you use.

However, quite a while ago VM did introduce the requirement to use what the call "a mail app password" rather than your normal account password  when accessing your email account via an email app/client. It may be that this has now caught up with your account. However, as Graham A has said, your out of date settings won't have helped.

For instructions on how to generate a mail app password for each of your VM accounts open this link   https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/manage-email-account and scroll down to the section "Setting your app password to use an email app".

"Is there an easy way to read the emails through Web Mail without having to log in via My VM and going through the process for each VM email address."

Yes, there is a function in VM webmail called Unified Mail that allows you  access multiple email accounts from within one webmail account. However you will still need to set up a mail app password for each of the additional accounts that you access via Unified Mail. That's because Webmail accesses these extra accounts in the same way as an email app. To see how to do that, open this link https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/manage-email-account and go to the section "How to use Unified mail".

I hope that's helpful.

Coenoby

When I do a screenshot to show my settings the box is small and blurred . How can I improve that, so that I can show my settings as there are many things different.

Thank you guys for all your patience with me. These are my settings for one of the accounts. They were working till 10 this morning. Also with no change of password.

Thanks all. GoSlow, I changed those settings and it's worked a dream. I haven't touched passwords and hope that doesn't become an issue later on. Enjoy you're summer all - thanks again

Good stuff. Glad to hear you got it working again.

However, take the temporary technical blip as a bit of a warning that WLM is defunct as is VM email (for reliable day-to-day use, that is)!

Now you have WLM working again, for the moment, it would very much be worth considering how/when you are going to replace it and your VM email accounts.

If it was me, I think I would set up some new email addresses with a third party provider and configure those on a new email client on your computer. Then start the process of gradually moving all of your contacts and logins which are associated with the VM email addresses to use the new email addresses.

It's a bit of chore to do (but manageable bit by bit over time) but, at the end, you will be running on a new/up-to-date email client and on a new email provider that actually works reliably!

Good luck! 👍

I shall take that advice on board. In fact, I already have gmail accounts for both myself and wife which we use for banking (after a security problem) and for our laptops and phones (for google photo storage). I shall make the transition for VM emails at some time. 

The shame is WLM is such a handy client for VM emails with 4 different addresses being checked simultaneously. Whereas gmail checked web based individually. I shall see if it can be configured to checkall 4 addresses at same time or perhaps third party software. 

Ironically I'm fussing over this and in a years time, I've got the problem of hardware. All our equipment PC and laptops all run W10 and will cease updates. W11 won't install as our CPU's are not generation 8. 

I have never used Gmail but I am pretty sure you can configure it to pick up other email accounts in the same user interface.

I am in the same boat with an end of life (as far a Microsoft is concerned, that is) computer on W10 come October 2025. I can't help but think that as that time approaches, the howls of protest will grow about scrapping millions of working PCs and MS might well grant an extension to W10. They did something like that for Win XP at the end of its life IIRC.