george57l
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Re: Sigh. Cannot connect via Gmail "blacklisted IP Address"
Someone is messing with this thread. There was a reply to my post above, and I replied to that. Neither are visible, now. Refreshing the page randomly generated a 'you are not authorised to access that or it does not exist' message several times until it came back. I cannot imagine that anything in either post contained anything offensive or in need of moderating (although it was not complimentary about VM management). Rather reduces the level of trust one can place in anything posted anywhere in the Community.14Views0likes0CommentsRe: Sigh. Cannot connect via Gmail "blacklisted IP Address"
Anonymous wrote: the system is working exactly as VM’s senior managers intend it to! Yes. Those are the incompetent clowns I am talking about. If this is what they intended, it shows their contempt for their customers. Having worked with mergers and legacy systems I understand how awful their back-end systems may be and how challenging integration may be and why it may be better to migrate to or superimpose a new system. And why, as a result, changes that impact or inconvenience customers may be unfortunately necessary. That is no excuse for insisting everyone needs a new VMO2 id/password without explaining how and why and without making sure there is a first line CS 'crib/script' note about where to direct the customer when they phone up with such an issue.19Views0likes0CommentsRe: Sigh. Cannot connect via Gmail "blacklisted IP Address"
I had a similar issue. My ntlworld.com emails stopped arriving in gmail as of 23/10/25. Authentication error. It took 30 minutes and two agents on the phone before someone was able to direct me to where in my VM account I needed to create a new email app password. Who on earth in VM thought it would be ok to change all this without providing any advance notice to users, let alone details of what was going to change and how to fix/update one's email app settings (i.e. create a new email app password)? They should certainly get a very stern talking to! (I'm being very polite there.) Especially as they seem not to have told first line customer services about any of this - I had to insist on getting transferred to someone who knew what they were talking about, to get the fix. First line CS had no clue when I kept asking 'what has VM changed re its email settings since 23/10?' And here's the really weird part. Gmail was always set to NOT leave a copy of email on the VM server when it pulled it. But before calling VM I did sign in to VM webmail and saw I had over 1000 emails, going back to 2021! How did that happen and where were they 'recovered' from? Having deleted over 1000 emails via webmail (very painful) because I did not want to risk 1000 old emails turning up in my Gmail inbox when I reconfigured it, I was left with 9 emails. I reconfigured Gmail with the newly-created 'email app password' and it pulled all 9 emails. But they are still sitting in the VM webmail inbox! So now I will, I guess, have to sign in to VM webmail from time to time to do a mass delete to avoid the email storage limit being reached and emails stopping arriving. What an incompetent bunch of clowns.42Views1like0CommentsRe: BBC One HD and BBC Four HD are moving channels. BBC Three HD launches.
@Vena8 I assume you mean "viewers will no longer have to change channels for their regional news - IN HD" - because regional news is on 101 already and always was. I never had to change channels from 101 to see regional news. If I was ever on BBC1 on 108 it would blank out and tell me it could not show regional news, sure. (And, frankly, is whether regional news is in SD or HD really any concern? It's a real "so what" for me.)503Views0likes0CommentsRe: BBC One HD and BBC Four HD are moving channels. BBC Three HD launches.
@Kei_M I note you have not come back either to reply to my comment on your last reply and answer the questions I posed there, nor to "post up the exact details of how this works when I find out." (Or is the FAQ statement all there is to say, now?) At the very least you could correct the sentence in the FAQ that is clearly missing a word, rendering it rather confusing. The FAQ says For series links you've setup on BBC One SD, customers with a Virgin TV 360 will have set these up again on BBC One HD (Eng only). All other boxes and regions are unaffected. This could be potentially misread as these customers will have their series links (re)set up for them, if the reader assumed the words these and set were typed in the wrong order. ( ...will have these set up again...) What that sentence should say, I expect, is For series links you've setup on BBC One SD, customers with a Virgin TV 360 will have TO set these up again on BBC One HD (Eng only). All other boxes and regions are unaffected. One carelessly omitted word and a lack of proof-reading/checking can be a cause of confusion. Forgive me for noting that this is typical of VM's lackadaisical approach to communications on this matter.6.5KViews1like0CommentsRe: BBC One HD and BBC Four HD are moving channels. BBC Three HD launches.
@Kei_M "we're relatively happy with how little queries have come in..." ...AS YET! (and how HAVE the 'little queries' come in? Hint: it's 'few') How many have fumbled around and figured something out for themselves? And maybe do not yet know their series links are broken? Or will come to watch something in a year's time and wonder why despite it being a recording it is not there? How many are still blissfully unaware? How many are aware only because they had to do their own tedious research? "you've been able to explain to me what the changes are which probably suggests we've managed to communicate the changes for the most part" It does not suggest anything of the sort! That is breathtaking in its ignorance and arrogance. I am only able to explain things to you because I noticed something wrong and then had to find out for myself, and everything I found out came from reading the whole of this thread! How many customers are even aware of there being a forum? Let alone likely to find this thread? You cannot infer ANYTHING AT ALL about VM's communications about this matter from my ability to summarise and replay to you the things I only learnt about on here. And as for not being able to communicate with everyone ... everyone gets a bill every month. How hard would it have been to add an addendum to December's bills explaining the change? (Yeah - probably very hard, knowing how behind-the-curve most VM systems and processes appear to be.) There are other ways you could have communicated this, too. The lack of effort or care by VM on this is reflected in your asinine comment above. By the way, I now realise that the statement at the top of this thread about "What will happen to Series Links' is confusing. And, by the way, I have no idea what Virgin TV 360 is. I assume it does not apply to me. For series links you've setup on BBC One SD, customers with a Virgin TV 360 will have set these up again on BBC One HD (Eng only). All other boxes and regions are unaffected. So if I do NOT have 360 my BBC1SD links will ... what? Disappear because BBC1SD no longer exists? Stay the same because what you meant to say was channel 101 (whatever is on it)? For BBC Four HD, Virgin TV 360 customers will have to setup series links again (Eng & NI). All other boxes and regions are unaffected. So, again, if I do not have 360 I do not have to set up a series link again? Series links set for 107 will automatically be moved to 108?6.8KViews1like0CommentsRe: BBC One HD and BBC Four HD are moving channels. BBC Three HD launches.
@Kei_M When you do find out "the exact details" perhaps you could persuade those further up the hierarchy to create and send an email to all customers with the following information: Because of the BBC's reintroduction of BBC 3 as a broadcast channel the following changes have taken place. 1. BBC 1 HD has moved from 108 to 101. There are no longer two channels for watching BBC 1. BBC 1 HD on 108 used to not show local news. BBC HD on 101 will show local news. 2. BBC 4 has moved from 107 to 108. 3. BBC3 is now on 107. - If you have any series links set for channels 108 or 107 you need to review these and update them with the correct channel number or you will miss scheduled recordings/episodes in series. - if you have recorded any programmes on 107 or 108 (whether as series links or as ad hoc one-off recordings) you have 12 months from (INSERT DATE) to view these, after which time they will not be available to you to watch as recorded programmes on your Virgin Media set-top box. (Note - not all programmes will still be available for streaming via iPlayer).) See? It's not hard to communicate! You have all our email addresses, after all. Sending something like the above will almost certainly head off a lot of complaints and disgruntled customers who, without this information and taking the action it suggests, will find in the coming days and months that things they had relied on being able to record and watch are not now there. @Kei_M if you are unable to do this, perhaps you can advise me who in senior management I need to write to to get this message to the right eyes. Thanks very much.6.8KViews1like0CommentsRe: BBC One HD and BBC Four HD are moving channels. BBC Three HD launches.
1. Why didn't they just put BBC 3 on channel 108? Would have been much less disruptive. No doubt the OCD guide people could not bear BBC 4 coming before BBC 3 on the guide. 2. The level of publicity / notification about this is woeful. I only found out because I noticed something was not recording. Then noticed 108 had disappeared. Then went online to Google. Ended up here. BBC (and Virgin) should be ashamed about the lack of publicity about actual channel number changes. 3. And now we have to review all our Series Links to see which will be affected? Good grief! 4. And no information about whether stuff already recorded on channels now removed will be watchable and if so whether there is no time limit. The level of competence shown in planning for this channel change is appalling. These people couldn't even organise a party in No.10.7.2KViews4likes0Comments