Virgin Media Community

[1234Google]

This is my first post so I apologise if I don't get everything right first time

Just over a week ago one of my email addresses stopped getting emails I then checked on the server a few days later and there were quite a few stacked up maybe twenty or so. Sending email isn't a problem. I checked the auto forward settings on the server and that's fine.

I checked on Spamhouse and no problems there either.

I then sent email using test email option on Outlook 2016 settings and it sent OK and and also sent via the other two VM email addresses and all worked and the other two arrived in my Outlook but this one still sits on the server.I have repeated several times but no luck. Rechecked settings and these were the same in other VM email accounts and again that is fine too.

This account is an IMAP secondary account the other two are

Primary account is a POP VM account and the other secondary account is an IMAP account.

This has happened once before a few months back but only lasted about 24-48 hours.My system is a PC with Windows 10 Pro and is bang up to date and am using Windows Defender antivirus.

Any help on what to do next would be appreciated as my two calls to Virgin have resulted in lines too busy please ring back and also the other one calls could take up to an hour to respond.

thanks Keith

[coenoby]

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@1234Google wrote:

Any help on what to do next would be appreciated

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You have given a lot of information there so thanks for that, but just to clarify, this is my interpretation of what you are saying:

"one of my email addresses stopped getting emails I then checked on the server a few days later and there were quite a few stacked up one of my email addresses stopped getting emails I then checked on the server a few days later and there were quite a few stacked up"

1) So the emails are definitely arriving in your Virgin Media account because you can see them when you sign in to the VM Webmail  Service https://my.virginmedia.com but Outlook is not picking them up. 

"I checked the auto forward settings on the server and that's fine."

2) By that I am assuming you have no auto forward set in your VM Webmail account.

"I then sent email using test email ....... also sent via the other two VM email addresses and all worked and the other two arrived in my Outlook but this one still sits on the server"

3) So, it is only one of your VM addresses where Outlook is not working correctly and that is set up to use IMAP.

However you have confused me when you say "Rechecked settings and these were the same in other VM email accounts and again that is fine too." The reason I am confused is that you go on to say that the problem account and one other use IMAP and the other one uses POP3.  However, those 2 protocols (IMAPand POP3) use completely different settings so your addresses that use IMAP cannot have the same settings as the POP3 account. 🤔

The correct settings for both protocols are given here: https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-mail-update-settings-in-microsoft-outlook so check that yours match them.

Based on 1),  2) and 3)  and that the settings for the problem account match those specified by VM in the link, then the first thing I would ask is whether you are seeing any error messages in Outlook when you use the Start/Receive  function to get Outlook to synchronise with your VM addresses?

You should see evidence of that as below where I forced Outlook to generate errors by setting it offline:

Once we know what errors you are seeing that will give a clue to why Outlook is not picking up emails from that account.

Coenoby

[1234Google]

Thank you for replying

agreed on your points 1 and 2

with regard to point 3 I meant the two IMAP accounts have the same settings and the two POP accounts have the same settings they are for sure correct and the the other three accounts are fine and have been tested and receive and send just fine. Its the one account only that has a problem.

There are no errors at all when sending and receiving so no clues there.

I have changed passwords on all accounts in case there has been hacking but still no difference. So, I don't really know what is left to look at

Could the router be hacked?

Could there be a server issue on this account only?

Thanks again for your response

[coenoby]

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@1234Google

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Thanks for clarifying things.

"There are no errors at all when sending and receiving so no clues there."

That is very strange. If you are seeing emails in the Inbox (rather than a different folder) when you view the account in VM Webmail  I would expect that if Outlook is not picking them it would report an error basically saying that it is unable to reach the server for some reason. That error might be along the lines of "server could not be found", "server reported errror 0x800nnnnn" or even just an email / username issue.

"Could the router be hacked?"

To disrupt you from downloading emails from one account? I don't think so. 😉

"Could there be a server issue on this account only?"

If so it would most likely affect both incoming and outgoing emails.

To be honest the most likely issue is that the account settings in Outlook are not quite right. I know you have said that you have checked them but it is surprisingly easy to miss something.

Assuming the problem account is an IMAP account here are what my incoming settings look like in Outlook:

Before going any further I would double check that the incoming settings in your account look like that. The boxes I have ringed in red are just as important as the server name in order for Outlook to download incoming emails successfully. By the way, the username is the full email address.

Coenoby

[1234Google]

Thanks for your suggestions but the settings are just fine no problems on all my other accounts only this one.

Outlook was asking for delivery but Virgin was not giving was my take.

However, last night suddenly problem solved over 40 emails came into the inbox.

so i don't know what the issue was but it's now sorted

thanks for help

[coenoby]

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@1234Google wrote:

so i don't know what the issue was but it's now sorted

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Great news.................for now at least.  Thanks for letting us know.

"Outlook was asking for delivery but Virgin was not giving was my take."

No, not so. If Virgin "was not giving" for some reason as you suggest, then Outlook would have been reporting an error or errors. You said you were not seeing errors.

We never got on to the other reasons why Outlook can have problems with incoming messages and not be displaying errors, but just to give you an idea these include:

1) Outlook does actual download the messages but you cannot see them

Messages are going to the Junk folder or some other folder rather than the Inbox,possibly because they are being caught by a rule that you have set in Outlook

Messages are not being displayed in the inbox because a filter has been applied to the Inbox (for example to only display emails that have been flagged as important)

2) Issues with Outlook itself

Outlook has a "Profile" which determines how it handles each email account you use and that profile can become corrupted. Creating a new Outlook profile is something that many experts will recommend as the first step to fixing a whole range of problems, including problems receiving email.

Sometimes incoming emails get stuck within Outlook and clearing the cache usually resolves the problem. That's tricky because the cache is a hidden folder in Windows. However,as you have had intermittent issues before with incoming emails this may be what is happening  with your installation of Outlook.

Anyway, lets hope you don't see the problem again.

Cheers

Coenoby