403 Forbidden on webmail (Again)

[heliart]

Hello,

I'm posting this on behalf of a close family friend I'm trying to help. Last Friday (9th June 2023) they could no longer access their virgin email via the webmail interface.

They get a redirect to a forbidden message, and Chrome seems to think it needs translating from Luxembourgish!!!

This exact issue has been reported by others on this forum, namely:-
https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/403-Forbidden-on-webmail/td-p/5206671

This issue has nothing to do with their local setup, or browser as I see the exact same issue loggin into webmail using their account on my PC's. Clearing caches etc makes no difference, nor does Incognito mode. See the same with Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

Looks like some backend server issue? Related to email inbox overlimt perhaps? But there's no way to log in to check.

Any ideas?

Steve

[John_GS]

Hi @Eleni2 

I'll send you a PM now to assist further.

Best wishes.

[HW811]

Sorry, I've just got the same issue, however, using Outlook work OK, it's just that I purely can't get on to web mail without getting the forbidden page.  My question is (sorry if I'm being stupid) but where do do step 3?  When I do  account settings I get four options - Account details, WiFi hotspots, device authentication and vergin media mail settings.  Where do I paste the new password, is it in account settings>account details>password edit or account settings>Virgin media mail settings>then what?  Neither would seem to fit the bill of copying and pasting a password.  First time posting to a forum, so go easy on me!!

[lesley74]

EyesSquared, this did help me, but what I did was bit different as the steps just didn't match up. Maybe it has changed. I'll try explain what I did in case it helps someone else. 

I got to step 4 and it says to repeat 1 to 3. 

During steps 1 to 3, it made me enter a backup email account. So when I went to sign in again at step 4, I couldn't log in as my ntlworld account, and had to put in my new email address, with the password I'd just reset to. This then allowed me to access my emails. It's quite bizarre and not sure why it's so trickly.

On my phone, I entered the 'app password' which was letters and dashes aaaa-aaaa-aaaa something like that, instead of password on my email app. Bingo, I got in. 

[landryangelica]

Hi,

Please can you help me with this as I'm totally confused. As I posted yesterday, I can't log in to my Virgin email on the server - I don't mean in an app. It keeps saying Forbidden. I tried to follow the instructions above but this is giving me the PW that consists of 4 words. That is the PW needed in order to access mail on a third party app, right? This is not what I'm trying to do. 

I can't imagine that changing this 4-word PW is going to help me access my mail on the Virgin website as I used to do before it all stopped working. Do I need to change the other PW (I mean the one that relates to the Virgin account, not the one for third party one)? I only recently changed that one; the whole thing took about 3 days - that's how long it took to find a Virgin advisor who knew what they were talking about. I'm reluctant to go through this process again. Please can you help. First, is that what I need to do and second, how do I change that other PW. 
I hope this is clear enough. The whole thing is a nightmare. Thanks in advance.

[landryangelica]

Which PW are you referring to, please? There seem to be two.

[landryangelica]

I'm copying my post above to you, in the hope you can help. It's not great we have to consult people who don't even work for Virgin. Please help me. This is incredibly time-consuming and frustrating.
"

Hi,

Please can you help me with this as I'm totally confused. As I posted yesterday, I can't log in to my Virgin email on the server - I don't mean in an app. It keeps saying Forbidden. I tried to follow the instructions above but this is giving me the PW that consists of 4 words. That is the PW needed in order to access mail on a third party app, right? This is not what I'm trying to do. 

I can't imagine that changing this 4-word PW is going to help me access my mail on the Virgin website as I used to do before it all stopped working. Do I need to change the other PW (I mean the one that relates to the Virgin account, not the one for third party one)? I only recently changed that one; the whole thing took about 3 days - that's how long it took to find a Virgin advisor who knew what they were talking about. I'm reluctant to go through this process again. Please can you help. First, is that what I need to do and second, how do I change that other PW. 
I hope this is clear enough. The whole thing is a nightmare. Thanks in advance."

[Reece_MH]

Hi landryangelica,

The 403 Forbidden error message can display when there has been an issue authenticating your email details, between your device and our servers. This can sometimes be a single-device issue, but can also affect other devices too.

The best way to resolve this issue is to perform a password reset for your Email(s) (via My Virgin Media Settings) and then, after an hour, the error should be gone and you should be able to access the service as normal.

You can reset the password by following the instructions below:

1. Sign in to My Virgin Media
2. Go to My Profile and/or Manage Accounts
3. Select the relevant email and then click on Change to the right of Password

Let us know how you get on.

Thanks,

[Mart888]

Hi EyeSquared.

I have the same issue as heliart. I can't access my mail via the VM website from any device. I'm trying to follow your workaround but wondering why I need to change the App PW. I'm not using a 3rd party app, only trying to use webmail as I'd been doing successfully for quite some time until it all went **bleep** up in November. Hope you see this and might be able to help. Thanks.

[Mart888]

Did you have any success, please? This situation is such a damned waste of our time, it's sickening. I can't get my emails via the VM website on any device and have little confidence it's going to be solved.

[Mart888]

Hi Graham, sorry to bother you with this but I'm getting pretty desperate.

I can't access my emails via the VM website on any device at all. I've tried changing the main PW numerous times, to no avail. I'm actually finding it very confusing to navigate the pages on this forum and to keep up with the messages I've posted.

I'm asking you just in case you happen to know the answer. One of the "Solutions" seemed to be to change our App PW - and to repeat the process several times. I can't see what that's got to do with it as I'm not using a 3rd party app. I did try it anyway and it didn't work but perhaps I didn't understand the instructions properly. Do you have any reason to believe that changing the App PW would make any difference.

Apologies for reaching out in desperation but having no email is absolutely no joke. Thanks in advance.