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Secondary email account "unavailable"

philsteer
Tuning in

Hello,

A secondary email account has suddenly become "unavailable" - both from the email client and from the Web (with the message "Your mailbox is not available at the moment. Please retry again in one hour and make sure you are using the correct password to access your email from all of your devices.")

I see from another message thread for the same problem that "this happens as a security measure when the account is flagged for spam activity - but can also be triggered by legitimate activity from time to time."

It is important that this email account is available as soon as possible - so I'd be very grateful if someone with the necessary access could resolve this (rather than us having to wait & hope that the account will be unlocked again).

Many thanks.

Best Regards,

Phil

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Graham_A
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Follow the instructions set out here to unlock the account:

/Email-accounts-locked-mailbox-unable-unable-to-access-email 

________________________________
Graham

I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media, I'm a VM customer. There are no guarantees that my advice will work. Please read the FAQs
Have I helped? Click Mark as Helpful Answer or use Kudos to say thanks

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

25 REPLIES 25

Graham_A
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Follow the instructions set out here to unlock the account:

/Email-accounts-locked-mailbox-unable-unable-to-access-email 

________________________________
Graham

I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media, I'm a VM customer. There are no guarantees that my advice will work. Please read the FAQs
Have I helped? Click Mark as Helpful Answer or use Kudos to say thanks

Many thanks for this suggestion,  but unfortunately it hasn't worked.

Graham_A
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

It can take up to an hour for the password change to filter through all the necessary databases.

________________________________
Graham

I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media, I'm a VM customer. There are no guarantees that my advice will work. Please read the FAQs
Have I helped? Click Mark as Helpful Answer or use Kudos to say thanks

Thanks, Graham - I'll let you know how things go...

Three hours later, and I still can't sign-in (via the Web) with the new password, and still can't access the account when I sign in with the old one 😞 Hopefully it's just a matter of time...  

Success! 😊 Thank you.

And now we have the same problem on the primary email account...

Thanks to Graham_A I already have the solution (which hopefully will work again) but I can't be the only person to get frustrated with Virgin Media's seemingly over-enthusiastic spam & abuse system.

These locked accounts are only the latest problem - I also have emails that never arrive, and many of those that do arrive incorrectly identified as SPAM.

I think the likely cause is the Virgin Media spam & abuse system being unable to cope with emails being forwarded from another account. For many years we have had our own personal email addresses, with emails sent to those addresses forwarded to our Virgin Media (actually NTLWorld) accounts.

This used to work without any issues, but more recently we have increasingly experienced the problems outlined above - to the extent that rather than just having emails forwarded from our personal email accounts, we now also retain the messages in those mailboxes, because of those forwarded messages that never arrive in our Virgin Media mailboxes.

So, we do at least have the option of working directly with our personal accounts (cutting out our Virgin Media accounts all together) - but that's not how things are set up (and have been for years) and it's not what we should have to do, if the spam & abuse system worked properly (it should be abundantly clear that the majority of so-called SPAM is no such thing).

This isn't really a question, so I'm not expecting a reply - but would nonetheless welcome any helpful comments or suggestions.     

Sorry to hear of the difficulties you've experienced with our E-Mail services @philsteer.

Can you please advise me if you now currently have access to all E-Mail accounts you have with us?

Kindest regards,

David_Bn

Thanks, David, for your reply.

Yes, I have access to all accounts - following another password change, as previously suggested by Graham_A - but nonetheless I do still feel that the spam & abuse filer is "over-enthusiastic" identifying spam where it doesn't exist.

Clealy there has to be some balance between allowing all spam through (at one end of the spectrum) and blocking all legitimate emails (at the other). I know it's not an easy task, but I think the system employed by Virgin Media errs to far on the side of caution (in blocking too much).

Personally, I'd happily put up with a bit more spam, if it meant I didn't miss legitimate emails (or worse still, have the account blocked altogether).

I'm not expecting a "solution" to this - just making a point.

Best Regards.

Phil