NTL World mail not working

[ricjen]

I am a current Virgin broadband customer.  I have been a Virgin internet customer for many years with no gaps.

I have not altered anything in the account settings and have several NTL world accounts.

I have received no messages about spam being sent from my account. 

I have McAffee Total Protection.

Recently, sending has been a problem from my accounts.  Stuff sits in the outbox for hours – and may, or may not go eventually.  Incoming is fine.

The error message says “Your NTL account settings are out of date”, but I have altered nothing. 

I use three NTL accounts regularly, at least 3 times per week – sometimes daily.

Any ideas please?

Thank you.

[coenoby]

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@ricjen wrote:

Stuff sits in the outbox for hours – and may, or may not go eventually. Incoming is fine.

The error message says “Your NTL account settings are out of date”, but I have altered nothing. 

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That error message looks like it is coming from an email app, possibly Microsoft's Mail or Outlook.

Sadly email apps do not report the full error message that is coming from the VM email server. If you have a Windows 10 or 11 computer you could try running a Curl command to get the actual error is that VM are reporting.

At a time when Outlook is unable to send you emails follow these steps:

1) Copy the following line of command text and then paste it into a MS Word document (or which ever text editor you prefer)  so that you can edit it.

curl -v smtps://smtp.virginmedia.com -u username:password

2) Once you have pasted it into Word, replace Username with your full Virgin Media / Ntlworld email address,  and   Password  with your current email account password.  So that part should now say something like     "youremailaddy@ntlworld.com:dhtyG15793Wj"      It is important to keep the colon  :  and the spaces before that piece of text exactly as per the original line of text in step 1).

3) Type cmd into the Windows 10 or 11 search bar, press Enter and then open the Command Prompt app.

4) Copy the full line of text that you just amended in step 2 from the Word document and paste it where the cursor is blinking in the Command Prompt. Then press Enter.

That will generate many lines of output but all you need to look for towards the end of the output is either:

235 2.7.0 SMTP350 Authentication successful            - which means that your laptop can successfully access and authenticate with the VM server even if Outlook  cannot.

Or an error message such

535 5.7.8 Authentication Credentials Invalid (VM300) 

5) Post back here to say either that authentication was successful or, if not, just post the error message line as per the example above. The VMNNN code is the key thing)

Don't post the full output from the Curl command. That output includes your password in a form that can easily be decrypted.

Try that and see how you get on.

Coenoby

[ricjen]

Thank you.  Tried it and Authentication was successful.  OMG, does that mean Microsoft has an "undocumented feature" in the mail programme???  Oh well, at least I know where the problem is now even if I don't know how to fix it.  Thank you so much for your help.

[coenoby]

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@ricjen wrote:

Thank you.  Tried it and Authentication was successful. 

Oh well, at least I know where the problem is now even if I don't know how to fix it. 

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Thanks for coming back with that update.

So is Outlook still giving you that error message or is it now sending emails?

Coenoby

[David_Bn]

Thanks for coming back to the thread @ricjen.

Are you possibly able to address the question posted by @coenoby?

Can you please confirm if you experience this issue with our webmail service, or is it just when using third party applications?

Kindest regards,

David_Bn

[ricjen]

Sometimes it sends, sometimes it won't send unless I log out of the app then back in again.  No pattern I can discern.  If its urgent I log into mail via a browser and ignore the mail programme. Seems random, and, I think, since windows 11 but I couldn't swear to that.

Thank you for your help.

[Akua_A]

Thank you for letting us know. Can you confirm if you are using the latest version of the email app? Also, have you tried reinstalling the app to see if the issue persists? 

Thanks,

[ricjen]

Thanks.  I'll keep a close eye on my mail before trying a reinstall - things have improved immensely since Virgin set about fixing their email problems!

[ricjen]

Well, here we are again!  I'm now locked out of all my email accounts on the windows mail programme (there's nothing wrong with Microsoft ware- gmail works just fine) - my virgin mail was fine on Monday, now nothing unless I go in from a web browser.

I've tried changing the passwords - but that doesn't work.  Judging by the traffic in the forum, many people are suffering the same issues with virgin's email.

Chatter on the forums says to go into the app and change password.  What app???  I'm on windows 11 and according to every search I've done there is no app for windows, only apple or android.

I also read that virgin is trying to edge out of email.  I've heard it suggested that the problems are a deliberate ploy on the part of Virgin to offload mail customers.  Should I be moving my mail accounts onto something else, like gmail? Surely Virgin realise that this will cost them customers in the long run?  I still use my NTL mail accounts!

just to add - I tried the curl command as previously suggested on all my accounts - each returned the error "535 5.7.8 Authentication Credentials Invalid (VM300)"

[Natalie_L]

Hello ricjen 

Thank you for reaching out to us here on the community. 

We are very sorry to hear of the issues you have been experiencing with the mail service. 

Is it possible to remove the email account from the app or the app itself and then re-add it?

We would always recommend backing up any important emails.

Thanks,