Email Problem and CM Dropping Out Occasionally

cmk · 30-03-2005, 20:54

Around lunch today I noticed a lack of emails so I started doing a few tests. It seems I can receive them fine usually within minutes, at worse, of them being sent. I can send ok but the delivery is looking around the two hour mark which is absolutely shocking. I've tried to determine where the fault lies and I'm struggling a bit. All my emails are acting as above which includes my main NTL one, my additional ones, my forwarded to my NTL ones, full third party (external POP and SMTP servers but over the NTL service) ones and half ones (external POP server but using the NTL SMTP server). I've tested sending to mailing lists I'm on and going to their site to check and the mails aren't arriving their until about two hours later either so I'm thinking more and more it's an NTL issue.

Also my CM seems to be dropping out for a split second every so often as I've been getting alot of "currently offline" messages when in IE but I'm not sure that's part and parcel of this problem.

The fun carried on when I contacted tech support. Now I know this has been covered in other threads and I don't want to make a massive issue but why have it in India when it's so hard to understand what they're trying to tell you, have limited powers to help and are probably reading off a crib sheet anyway. I've nothing against them whatsoever. I just feel it makes more sense to have your support staff bases in the same country.

Anyway, my mail issue is ongoing and I wasn't happy with what tech support told me as it sounded like a standard response (there's been some work on the lines in your area on the 29th and it takes 24 hours for them to get back to normal. I was close to telling him he was lying but felt it might not be his fault and was told to say that via his crib sheet or list of work being/been done).

So I'm no better off by spending the afternoon checking my settings (I did find an issue with my third party POP and SMTP settings but correcting it made no difference), testing my various email accounts and talking to tech support.

Any ideas anyone as I'm getting close to shouting at someone in an NTL direction.

cmk · 31-03-2005, 08:14

Anyone any ideas before I take the plunge and call CS again?

Croker · 31-03-2005, 08:29

MY advice is to get a yahoo account. That way you won't be bombarded with spam and will have a working e-mail account

cmk · 31-03-2005, 08:37

I have a Yahoo account. I can send from it to my 'proper' accounts and it's fine but if I send from my 'proper' accounts it takes ages or doesn't arrive at all. That was one of the tests I was doing yesterday and still the messages haven't arrived in my Yahoo inbox as haven't the messages to the lists I'm on (I tell a lie. Two arrived after around two hours but the rest sent yesterday are still to show up on the list).

Someone somewhere must be able to sort something. CS is painful though so this place is close on my last hope. Incidentally did anyone see the call centre programme last night? Christ how they played them up to be the best thing ever. Given them there dues though I could understand what they were saying. It's a shame the same can't be said for NTL (Not being racist there just factual).

*ADDITION**
Just spoke to South Wales and did some testing. Line and CM are ok as far as they can see. Receiving is fine. They've suggested that it's my machine and to turn off my AV and Firewall and test it again. I'm not best happy about that at all but what else can I do. I've looked at the settings AVG and ZA and they look fine. In fact nothing has changed since before the problems occured (apart from the obvious regular updates).

He also suggested it could be OE throwing the fit. There's no indication at all that OE, AVG and/or ZA are playing up so I'm completely lost.

Ideas?

Croker · 31-03-2005, 09:36

Are they straighfrorward messages? Are you trying to send a massive attatchment on them or do something unusual? (I don't know why the ntl mails get the assignment "proper" but each to his own I suppose)

Sometime if you delete the email account and recreate it again in Outlook or OE etc it will sort out mysterious problems. Make sure you take a note of settings etc if you are unsure about what you are upto

cmk · 31-03-2005, 09:44

Aye nothing special about them. Straightforward, common or garden, as you are, text emails. The only reason I used 'proper' is because I've some POP accounts which use the hosting companies servers (POP and SMTP) and the same thing is happening to them. In fact it's all my outgoing mail from OE. The guy in Wales was struggling a bit towards the end as nothing pointed towards a problem at their end. He did suggest creating a new identity and/or trying a different client which I may do also.

For the record I'm currently having a conversation over Yahoo mail which is sending and receiving quite happily.

Croker · 31-03-2005, 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmk

The guy in Wales was struggling a bit towards the end as nothing pointed towards a problem at their end. He did suggest creating a new identity and/or trying a different client which I may do also.

did you actually try doing that with a new identity etc? What happened etc

cmk · 31-03-2005, 12:49

No mate. No need to it would seem. It looks like AVG had seen it's backside and didn't like the view. I uninstalled it (turning it off still keeps the TSRs running) and it's work fine so far.

Now the big test is reinstalling it and seeing what happens.

Sorry NTL. I really thought you were mucking about again.

homealone · 31-03-2005, 12:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmk

No mate. No need to it would seem. It looks like AVG had seen it's backside and didn't like the view. I uninstalled it (turning it off still keeps the TSRs running) and it's work fine so far.

Now the big test is reinstalling it and seeing what happens.

Sorry NTL. I really thought you were mucking about again.

at least you came back & admitted it

cmk · 31-03-2005, 20:00

No problem there homealone. If I'm wrong I'll admit it. I've reinstalled AVG and all is looking well again. It's a rare thing to happen but we're the wiser for knowing should it pop up.