Cannot send emails from virgin.net account in Thunderbird

[br1anstorm]

I have had a virgin.net account for many years.  I normally access it using Thunderbird, where I set it up a long time ago using POP server(s), and occasionally I access it as webmail on the Virgin media site.

I have just set up that same email account on a new laptop - again in Thunderbird, and again using POP servers.

Inward emails to my virgin.net address appear (as usual) on the webmail page, and also arrive into the Inbox in Thunderbird.

BUT - and here is the issue - I cannot send outward messages from my virgin.net account using Thunderbird on my laptop - not even when replying to an inward message. I get an error popup which says "Sending of the message failed. Unable to authenticate to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.virginmedia.com. Please check the password and verify the 'Authentication method' in 'Account Settings | Outgoing server (SMTP)'.  The popup also suggests putting in new (?!) password.

I have double-checked the server details, the authentication method, the port and the password in the "account settings" in Thunderbird.   All are correct. 

There's more.  I have my Gmail account - on my Android mobile phone - set up to "fetch" emails from my Virgin.net account (so I can deal with them when I don't have my laptop).  I continue to receive my inward virgin.net emails into the Gmail inbox.  But if I try to reply from that Gmail account, I get a Mail Delivery Subsystem message back [from Google?]saying "You no longer have access to brianxxxxxxx@virgin.net. To send this email choose a different "from" address and try again. Learn more at https://support.google.com".

What's going on?  Why am I apparently unable to access my own email account at virgin.net or send emails from either my laptop via Thunderbird or my Android phone via Gmail?  I am still logged in to virgin webmail via my browser and - I have checked - I can receive and send messages from the webmail page.  So my password is evidently correct and valid, and I still have access to the account via the Virgin Media email/webmail website page.

I'd appreciate any advice and help.  This is proving a real headache.

[jem101]

@br1anstorm the answer to your question is 'yes' to use any of the VM-branded email addresses (virgin.net, ntlworld.com etc.) then it is absolutely conditional on you being a current active VM broadband customer. 

Now the history of the virgin.net addresses is somewhat complicated by there once being a similarly named dial-up internet service. As long as you regularly connected then you were allowed to use the address, VM taking a small cut of the cost of dealing in. This service was withdrawn back in 2015'ish and all users then were, or should have been, informed that unless they took up a broadband subscription with VM, then the email address itself would be deleted after a period of time - generally 90 days.

In practice this didn't always happen and these addresses sometime carried on for, as we can see here, years but being 'orphaned' addresses, they were always liable to being caught in a periodic clean up and unceremoniously deleted.

The fact that you still have partial access would indicate that the process of disabling the login account to the mailbox has begun and eventually it will be deleted in its entirety.

There is a slim chance that the forum team may be able to temporarily suspend the deletion process if it hasn't progressed too far, but this will be only a temporary stay of execution. My advice would be to assume that the mailbox and email address could vanish completely at any time but while you still have access to it via webmail, set yourself up with an alternative email provider with a different email address and start the process of migrating contact information across to it.

[br1anstorm]

Thanks, @jem101.  You have shed a great deal of light on a situation that was largely a mystery to me, and offered explanations of Virgin's policy which I had not had from them directly.  I have received no information, notification or advice from Virgin in the many years I have had this account - and certainly not in, or since, 2015 when they seem to have "moved the goalposts".

No doubt there is something in the Ts and Cs which enables Virgin to block, suspend or delete accounts as and when they choose. But I am disappointed that - on this evidence - they do so without any notice, alert or warning.

When, as in this case, the email address and account are mission-critical to my online activity including banking, registration with official organisations, online shopping, and communication with colleagues and others, I would have expected, and hoped for, proper and timely explanation rather than what seems to be random and arbitrary action.  Perhaps @Hayley_S might care to answer that point?

It may be a side issue, but I still don't quite "get" the webmail angle.  Is it indeed the case that no-one can - or should - have a Virgin.net webmail account unless and so long as they are Virgin broadband subscribers?

Migration to a new email address and provider is a huge undertaking for a private individual.  I have no corporate business or employer who might provide email services.  The advice to make a start on that while the webmail route is still open is wise and helpful.  If it has to be done, it has to be done.  I would however hope and request (via this post) that the Forum Team and Virgin staff will, as you suggest, be able to arrange a reasonable stay of execution and sufficient time for me to make contingency plans and set up alternative arrangements to ensure continuity.  After 20 years or more with Virgin, I would like to think that they would be prepared to facilitate the changes that they are apparently now imposing.  I shall look for a helpful response from Virgin on that particular point.

[jem101]

As regard to the 'webmail' account, there isn't actually any such thing. What you have is a mailbox containing your emails which is stored on a server somewhere. There are a number of ways in which that mail can be accessed and read by you, one way is via a client application such as Thunderbird or Outlook which can 'copy' emails from that mailbox to a local store on the PC where they can be read. An alternative way is via webmail, which is simply a way of 'reading' the contents of the mailbox using a web browser - the email remains on the server and nothing gets copied down to your machine.

This is all a bit of an oversimplification but imagine it like this, you have a 'post box' in the local post office to which all of your letters are delivered. Periodically you wander down and pick new letters up, you then have the letters with you and the post office doesn't - alternatively you might photocopy all of the new letters, leave the originals there and take the copies home (OK no idea why anyone would do that but bear with me - it's the closest analogy I could think of!)

This is the equivalent of the email application method.

An alternative though is that you have a powerful telescope, and with it you can 'see' and read your letters in the post box in the post office, without having to go there. This way you never get a copy of them but no need to go outside and it's convenient (no need to install any email software, just use a web browser).

One day the post office decides that as you haven't paid them for the privilege of them looking after and handling your mail for a time, they are going to stop doing it for you. They might start by barring you from going into the post office, so you can't pick up any new mail but the telescope method still works, later they might lockup the mailbox completely so you can't see it any more - of course it still might accept new mail coming in, you just can't get to it anymore. Eventually they throw out the post box and burn all the letters within it. No more can be received and any letters you haven't been able to access are gone for good.

OK it's bit of a convoluted analogy but sort of explains it.

John

[br1anstorm]

Thanks, John @jem101.  I had to smile at your post box and telescope analogies, and in fact they explain that particular aspect very well, so much appreciated.

I can understand the "commercial" point that Virgin (in this case) is not inclined to provide the "post office" facility to look after and store your emails when it's not getting paid for doing so.  But if and when they do decide to block entry/suspend access/burn all my mail, then I would hope and expect them first to give warning and to engage in some sort of dialogue about when and how this would be implemented.  So shall await a further response from the Virgin Forum staff on that.

It is a separate matter and I don't want to prolong this part of the discussion or go off down a side track.... But I can't help but wonder.  Given the scenario you outline, what exactly is the rationale behind the existence of all the other 'free' email account providers - from AOL back in the day, to those like GMX, mail.com and indeed Google with gmail?   Is this (with the latter) a matter simply of securing access to harvest personal data, and with the others, maybe a 'free' service as bait or loss-leader to persuade people then to upgrade to a paid email subscription with more storage etc?

Meanwhile I'm going to have to read up on how to set up one's own personal domain, since that seems almost the only way to avoid the kind of hassle I am currently facing...

[br1anstorm]

Hmmmmm....

I don't want to tempt fate, but it looks as if the problem wasn't as drastic as I had been fearing, or somehow it has gone away.

In my ongoing efforts to figure out the problem, I have just sent a couple of test emails from my main virgin account to my wife's email account, using Thunderbird. I got a popup asking me to enter my virgin account password. I did so...and then hit Send. It went, via the virgin outgoing server as programmed in the T'bird account settings

And ... it arrived as normal. No error message saying I didn't have access to the outgoing virgin smtp server. No <spam> label in the message subject line when it was delivered.

So - do I conclude that Virgin may not have actually blocked my access to the server, but that for some reason the password or authentication had failed on previous attempts in recent days and somehow (maybe because I was prompted to enter the password) it has now cleared?

If that's so, the glitch was less serious.  If it was simply a technical issue, and apparently password/authentication related, then maybe it has been resolved and I don't need to fear the apocalypse of account-closure [yet?].  Or maybe the folk at Virgin are more benign than I thought and have unblocked whatever was preventing my use of the outgoing server.  If so, thanks!

I'm now keeping my fingers crossed that I can again send and receive messages.  But this has been a wake-up call.  I'd be reluctant to cut my ties with Virgin after all these years.  But it does look as if I ought to be looking at managing my emails in a different way because I may be in an "orphan" situation.  More research needed.  But thanks to those who have offered advice so far.