Iphone no longer displays contents of Mailbox

[Flowerpower11]

My email address ends in virginmedia.com. I have successfully used this email address for years without any problems on my iphone. A few days ago my iphone stopped showing new emails in the inbox with an error message “imap.virginmedia.com” is not responding. Verify that you have entered the correct account info in mail settings. So I checked this and ensured that the email address is correct and re-keyed the encrypted password in just in case. ( Even though I did not change any mail settings in the first place for this to happen). The mail settings on my phone are as follows:

Incoming Mail Server = imap.virginmedia.com, username = my email address and my encrypted password

Advanced, Incoming Setting = Use SSL is set to “On”,  Authentication is set to “Password”, Imap Path Prefix is set to “/“, Server port is set to “993”,

S/MME is set to “No”, Encrypt to Default is set to “No”

Outgoing Mail Server is set to smtp.virginmedia.com (primary) which is set to “On” + shows my email address and encrypted password, use SSL is set to “On”, Authentication is set to “Password”, Server Port is set to 587, OtherSmpt Servers “smtp.ntlworld.com” is set to “Off”.

I can view the contents of my mail box on my iPad - this also shows new received mails and lets me send and receive mail between mail boxes - so there are no connection issues to my mail box on iPad.

My iphone is updated to the latest software iOS 17.5.1 and has sufficient free storage capacity to receive emails. I have good internet connection but tried to use mobile data but still get same error message. I also shut my phone down completely to reboot software - still same error message. I deleted my email account and then tried to re-add it with the result that I now even can’t see any of the previous mail content on the mail box, on the general mail box page it shows me 28 unread items as a total number against the mail box, but still shows same error message and won’t let me view contents. I honestly don’t know what else I can try to rectify the problem. Have you got any suggestions please? Please let me know.

Thank you

[Steven_L]

Hello Flowerpower11,

Welcome to the community and thanks for taking the time to post here on the forums. I’m sorry to hear of the issues that you’re having with your email account at the moment. 

Are you able to login to your email account via our webmail service? This can help us to determine were the issues lie.

What email application, are you using to view emails on your iPhone? Are you able to check for issues on any other devices? 

Kind Regards,

Steven_L

[Flowerpower11]

Hi Steven,

many thanks for your response. Please accept my apologies for my late response. I have only just been able to check my emails on my iPad and noticed you sent me a reply notification.

 I am a Virgin Media Customer and so I logged into my account on PC. I don’t normally access emails via my account so I have added it to try and view the contents. The result is that the mailbox and its contents are displayed without any problems. For your information - I also use another mailbox and this ends in @ntlworld.com. Again I have no problems accessing this mailbox on my PC via my Virginmedia Account. I can also view both mailboxes on my iPad. 
Up until several days ago my iPhone displayed both mailboxes without any issues. Now I can still view the up to date ntlworld.com mailbox contents but when I try to view my virginmedia.com mailbox I keep getting the same error message as before and can’t view contents. Even though it looks as though my phone tried to connect to your server and at that point there must have been 28 new items in the inbox (but it wouldn’t download them or any of the previous contents from before). From my iPhone  I have sent a test email from ntlworld.com mailbox to my virginmedia.com mailbox and I can successfully view this new email in my virginmedia.com mailbox on my PC. 
I use an iPhone SE and use the mail app which comes with the phone.

I really appreciate your time in looking into what could be the cause of my issue and look forward to your response in due course.

Thank you and kind regards

[Tom_W1]

Hi @Flowerpower11 thanks for your reply, it does sound like you may need to set up your phone's mailbox again by creating a new password - please follow these steps:

We've recently updated our email policy and there are a few steps you can follow which will automatically unlock the email address.

Please log in to My Virgin Media here  > Click on Account settings > Virgin Media Mail settings > scroll down to the App password section and click the Generate new App password button.

You should get a pop up message asking you to verify your email address and you'll need to use a 3rd party email address to continue. You'll be sent a one time passcode to enter on the next page to verify it's you. Once verified you'll then be given an app password which will look something similar to: mail-horse-yellow-panda and you should note this down.

To get things working on an email client or app again, you will need to enter the new mail password in the settings. This will allow your emails to load again. In some cases, you may need to remove the email account from the mail client or app completely and re-set it up as fresh. If this is the case for you, please ensure you use your VM email address as the username and the newly generated app password.

These changes have been put in place as Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is now required. Just as a side note, when logging in to My VM, you will need to use the third party email address as the username and your original My VM password.

Give that a try and let us know how you get on.

[Flowerpower11]

Hi there Tom & Team,

many thanks for your latest response. Unfortunately your advice doesn’t work with my account settings on my VM account. I logged into my VM account and went into Account Settings > VM Mail Settings > Manage your VM Mail App Password. Unfortunately only my @ntlworld.com email address is shown there and the field cannot be edited from my end for me to type in my virginmedia.com email address - so I cannot generate a new password for it.
I went into my Account details and my @virginmedia.com email address is shown under  manage other My VM accounts as an additional account. But other than deleting this account (which I don’t want to do as I want to keep both email addresses going) and creating new account the page doesn’t allow me to do anything else. So not sure what I can do from my end to rectify the issue. Please advise further.

Thank you & kind regards

[Graham_A]

@Flowerpower11  You need to sign out of your Ntlworld account and the return to the My Virgin Media account page and sign in with your Virginmedia.com email address and password.  

Each email address now has its own My VM account

Secondary accounts changes now have to be made via the My Virgin Media account for the secondary email.

Sign into the account here: https://www.virginmedia.com/my-virgin-media using the email address concerned and the current password. Once logged in click on Account Settings then Account details. You should now see the options to change password etc.

If that isn't available try https://www.virginmedia.com/my-virgin-media/forgotten-details/password

If no security answers have been set for the email address concerned then you will need to call in for support and select technical issues> email

[Flowerpower11]

Hi Graham, 

Thank you for taking the time in attempting to help me to resolve the issue. I have now lost access to both my VM email boxes on my iPhone after having generated a new App password in my VM account. I telephoned VM’s Customer Support Team this afternoon and although the person I spoke to was very polite and listened to my issue he was unable to help me or put me through to their IT Department as apparently a customer cannot directly speak to them!!! Apparently their IT did attempt to ring me unsuccessfully on my landline some days ago but it isn’t their policy to leave messages to tell the customer they have done so as the customer can’t phone them back! Instead customer services have to raise a request for their IT to contact me and that they will do so within 3 days!!! In a polite way I told the customer servives person that I find it wholly unacceptable that a paying customer has to wait up to 3 days in order to access advice. Just something to be aware of if ever you are thinking of contacting them. I wasn’t aware of this policy but it will certainly influence who I give my business to when my contract comes up for renewal later in the year.

A very unhappy VM Customer

Thanks again Graham and best wishes

[Carley_S]

Our apologies that you feel this way @Flowerpower11 

We do advise that second line faults team do have 5 working days to look into a raised ticket. These tickets are raised when customer services have tried the troubleshooting steps but this has not resolved the issue. 

Please do keep us updated when the team have been in touched and if you need any further assistance, we can support again here if needed. 

[Flowerpower11]

Hi Carley & Team

thanks for getting in touch. Technical Support Team did phone me back yesterday. I was on the phone almost 2 hrs, spoke to 4 agents, my issue is still the same that I cannot connect to your imap server with any of my 2 email boxes on my iphone although I can still view them fine on my iPad so they are definitely operational. Despite the best efforts of technical support they could not get me reconnected and I was advised that the problem is therefore at my end. As I said before, one of my mailboxes stopped working on my iphone whilst the other one carried on working fine until I generated an App Password (as I was advised to do by your colleges). Once I had generated the password the remaining email box also stopped working. How can this be explained? I did not make any setup changes on my iphone to cause this so I am at a complete loss to understand why this has happened. My theory is that changes made at your end to deal with security issues for users of 3rd party devices such as mine has somehow caused the issues at my end. One of the 4 colleagues I spoke to yesterday was from your gadget homeworks service (didn’t even know you have this service). He wanted to sell me remote gadget support for my devices at almost £10 per month to be added to my usual bill. I found this quite insulting. I am not IT illiterate, up until this event I never had any issues with being able to access emails on my iphone before and I have used an iphone for years. I do not require gadget support. To top things up - my broadband connection to your server went down after I finished my almost 2 hour conversation. So I had to telephone your customer support team again. My broadband issues seem to have been resolved but I still cannot connect to your imap server so I can’t access my 2 email boxes - I have tried again several times today without success.  I am not happy as you can well appreciate. I have no issues with any of your staff, they were very helpful & polite. 
So thanks for your offer of further support but I don’t know what else you can offer? If you can think of anything then please let me know.

Thank you & kind regards

[Gareth_L]

Hello Flowerpower11

Thank you for your reply. Sorry t hear you're still having difficulty with the email accounts.

The 2 email boxes you are having issues with on your iPhone can you try adding the following settings. First though delete everything and start again as a brand new setup.

Account type: POP3

Incoming mail server: pop3.virginmedia.com

Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.virginmedia.com

Outgoing server: requires authentication (tick) Use same settings

Advanced Server Port Numbers:

Incoming server 995 Tick SSL Outgoing server (SMTP) 465 encrypted connection SS

Plus each password and email address.

Gareth_L