Password Not Recognised (Again)

[Mr_Crabbit]

Hello,

My primary email account, a virgin.net one, stopped working again last night. I use the Outlook for Microsoft 365 email client to manage a number of email accounts. When Outlook was performing its "Send/Receive All Folders" routine I got a pop up asking me to "Enter your user name and password for the following server." The server, user name and password hadn't been changed so I left all settings as they were and clicked "OK". It appears I am locked out.

I tried to access the same account using my mobile phone without success. Next, I tried logging into web mail via My Virgin Media to be met with "We didn't recognise the username or password you entered. Please try again" As far as I am concerned, the details entered are/were correct, so next I tried to reset my password as if it had been forgotten. This brings up a new "Reset your password" tab. I enter the email address that is having the issue and that brings up a new page that asks for my date of birth and the answer to my security question. I enter the details as requested and press the "Continue" button. Nothing happens. I press it any number of times and nothing happens. The foot of the page says "Having trouble? Please contact us and one of the team will help reset your password." I click on the link and I am taken to a page that suggests I call for support.

With a low expectation that this will resolve things, I pick up the phone and jump through the push button option hoops until I get to speak to someone. I describe the issue I am having and get a distinct feeling of deja vu when, as I mention virgin.net, the helper suggests I contact Talk-Talk(!) I mention that I'd had a similar conversation last October, the last time I had this issue, and tried to point out the futility of such an action. While hanging on the line as my helper tried to escalate my case, I eventually rediscovered this community forum via Google. I cannot find a link to here on the Virgin Media help and support page. Eventually my helper tells me that my case has been escalated to another member of the support team and someone will be in touch with me within the next five working days. This does not strike me as being very helpful, particularly as this account alone seems to me to have been blocked at Virgin Media's end. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can rectify this situation ASAP please?

Regards

[jpeg1]

Hi Mr_Crabbit,

It's very clear how inportant your email addresses are to you, after being in use for so long, But as you have experienced, the Virgin email service is falling to pieces and even if you get your mail fixed now there is no guarantee that it will remain so.  Just a quick browse down the page will show how many people are losing contact with their emails for a variety of reasons.  In addition there are hints of changes to reduce the number of addresses they will support.

I very much hope that you can recover your emails and contacts list.  But I would strongly advise you to follow the advice from @jem101 to start a new email account with another provider and begin to use it.  If you can get your Virgin email back, set an automatic forward to the new address and let ask your contacts to use it in future.

I do know this is not what you want to hear.    

[Mr_Crabbit]

Hi jpeg1,

Thank you for your advice, even although as you correctly state, it is not what I want to hear.

Confession time. When I had this issue last October, I did not make a note of the new password I created. I knew that I did not change it when my current problem began and hoped that by using the forgotten password option, things would be put right again. It was when the page shown in my previous post failed to work that I called the help line. In view of yesterday's lack of progress I persisted in trying to login to Virgin Media with my primary virgin.net email address and stabs at what I may have changed my password to. I was successful and got to this page...

Account Home Page

Clicking on "Check emails" got me to here...

Mailbox not available

Knowing that the forgotten password page doesn't help, I went back to the account home page and clicked on "Account settings", this brought up...

Account settings

Clicking on "Account details" brings up...

Oops

Pressing "Try again" is pointless as it doesn't seem to work either. In contrast, if I login to Virgin Media using a secondary virgin.net email address, I get this...

Secondary Home Page

I click on "Check emails" and it works fine. If I click on "Update settings", I get this...

Secondary Account settings

Clicking on "Account details" gets me here...

Secondary Account details

As you say, the system seems to be falling to pieces. I maintain that more should be done and would appreciate help to access my primary email inbox. The servers are clearly still switched on and my inbox still receiving inbound messages. If Virgin Media want to save server capacity and electricity by closing legacy email addresses, can they not inform customers that this is the case? I'd pay for a separate email service if it was hived off and I was allowed to keep my existing addresses, provided of course that timely support was there. Thank you again, Mr_Crabbit.

[Alex_RM]

Hi Mr_Crabbit,

Just so I can go through some more details with you regarding this I'll need to send you a private message (purple envelope, top right hand corner)

Alex_Rm

[Mr_Crabbit]

This is getting beyond a joke now! All of a sudden the password of my primary @ntlworld.com email address is not recognised as well as my @virgin.net one. The secondary @ntlworld address password works but I am unable to change the primary one due to the ongoing issue with the change password page. Someone at VM please get a grip and sort this out ASAP. 

[ped55]

Just a few words in response to your posts...unfortunately I can't provide any solutions,though.

Thank you for posting all the relevant details,plus the screen shots.

I have also gone through a similar proceedure and got nowhere.

Although we can access a second account holder details....we can't log into the main account at all.

The log in details have remained the same for many years,but now isn't recoginised.

Phone call help can be very longwinded and awkward,only used as a last resort,but usually non productive.

We tend to use Thunderbird client for all emails,but has now stopped working properly.

We are currently changing over to gmail instead,but that also can present problems and is clumbersome to use.

No longer has Thunderbird support,neither.

This means we need to go the long route for email access,each time.

Being of age (that means "old"...lol)....Today's technology is so dissapointing for many end users whenever it fails.

Best Wishes to All.

[ped55]

Forgive the typos on previous post....don't know how to edit following sending...??

I meant to say Thunderbird support for gmail has been withdrawn.

[ped55]

As an update to my situation.

Called virginmedia again yesterday(Friday) and got a much better response compared to a previous call on Wednesday.

This time it was to someone in UK as opposed to overseas,which resulted in a solution within minutes.                                                                              

Without communication difficulties,by comparison,no long wait times and kept on hold while they searched for answers etc...which were not forthcoming anyway on Wednesday.

Following a few security questions / answers with the UK helper on Friday,he simply provided me with a temporary password that would allow access to the account.              

It worked fine and I was able to replace the password with ones of my own choice.                                                                                                                                                     

Also changed passwords with my other email accounts as well...a little longwinded,but the system finally worked .

It may have been coincidental that there was a possible outage regarding the initial problem of changing passwords,which could have affected the system  account access,or not....??

However,I'm satisfied things are now working... the Thunderbird client also works following a straighforward method of adding email details due to having new passwords that were set up via the virginmedia system.

I convey my thanks to whoever helped me with this (didn't get his name,unfortunately).

Simple,straightforwrd,quick,efficient and effective service !!

Best Wishes to All.

[Kath_F]

Hi Mr_Crabbit, 

Thanks for coming back to us in the Community on this one. I am really sorry to hear that you are having further issues. 

I can see you are already in a conversation with Alex via private message and she is looking in to these issues for you. 

While they are ongoing, please stick with the private message  so we can keep all the information with one agent to avoid there being several agents working on the same thing. 

Once Alex has an update on things, she will be back in touch to help further 🙂 

Apologies once again for any inconvenience and many thanks. 

[Kath_F]

Hi ped55, 

Thanks for taking the time to post about your experience. I'm sorry to hear you were having issues but am glad they have been resolved by the team now. 

If you have any further issues, don't hesitate to pop a post in the Community about them. Where possible we will help and provide a solution for you. If we're unable to help then we will tell you where to go to get the help you need 🙂

Take care, 

[Mr_Crabbit]

Hi Kath_F,

FYI, I tried sending Alex a message about my ongoing email access issue but was asked by the "ModTeam" not to send an "Unsolicited PM". It was suggested "If you have not already done so, could you please post a new thread in the Forums and we'll respond as soon as we can. In the meantime other members of the community may be able to provide assistance."

I posted a new thread, albeit on the same subject, and have had no reply from VM support. This reply is a blatant attempt to get this thread on the front page again, for what it's worth.

Regards,

Mr_Crabbit