BT Webmail Feedback v2 (post 16th April release)

[pgarriock]

This is happening most of the time when I'm searching for specific emails....

I am guessing this is a server-side timeout and there isn't anything that can be set on my side to increase the timeout duration.

[Stephen5000]

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@pgarriockwrote:

This is happening most of the time when I'm searching for specific emails....

I am guessing this is a server-side timeout and there isn't anything that can be set on my side to increase the timeout duration.

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I get that too. Sadly, I fear this whole thread has turned into a whinging forum for actual users of WebMail. I've a feeling that no one from BT monitors it to actually illicit feedback on fault finding to 'fix' the email program.

As said many times now, if you are of a persuasion to use an email client (like Thunderbird or similar), all these pathetic faults are gone instantly. It's just a shame that BT just accept now that their WebMal is sub standard, and are just prepared to go along with it. There's probably one tech who has a massive 'to do' list, and WebMail, is about 100th down on that list!

[ShaunOM]

You are correct @pgarriock , that this is a server side problem. Through webmail you are connected to a server. If your volume of e-mails is huge and/or the back-end systems are very busy then an occasional message of that kind may occur but it should be rare. I've just done a little testing against an Inbox with around 7,000 messages searching for different words and didn't see the time-out messages. However, as others have surmised, perhaps different servers are in operation for different e-mail addresses and perhaps there are performance problems with some of them which would explain why some see problems (such as long delays seeing characters on the display when typing an e-mail) while others, including me, don't. 

An annoyance I certainly do see with searching is seeing the number of results. Nowhere that I can see is the number shown so that I know if, say, many hundreds have been found, I may need to refine the search criteria. Clicking the little box at the top of the list does not select them all - only up to the first 50! There is no 'Select All' option. And, using the usual method to select a range of items by selecting one of them, scrolling down, holding down the shift key and selecting the last, is flaky to say the least. It seems to work as long as I don't try to select more than around 200 - 300. If I do, the shift and click action does nothing i.e., clicking the last e-mail with the shift key held down has no effect! This, I should say, is a general long standing problem with trying to select large numbers of e-mails in order to, for example, delete or move them.

[LondonJohn]

My Inbox das stopped synching on my PC. Spam, Trash, Deleted synch perfectly.

The email app works fine on my iPad and Android phone.

It would be handy if it worker on my desktop also, despite the irritating "improvements".

[ShaunOM]

As a follow up to my previous reply @pgarriock , after initiating a search which elicited probably around 700 results (since BT deem not to tell us how many messages matched my search string, it's difficult to know for sure), I used the mouse to quickly scroll down and, like you, I got the error message "This search request took longer than expected and timed out." several times.  But today, early on a Sunday morning, I tried a similar search and the time out message did not appear.

Bearing in mind, that the webmail page has to interact with the back-end database of e-mails to fetch the records and display them via a web browser (and so there's a lot going on under the bonnet), it may not be surprising to see messages of this kind from time to time particularly if the e-mail system is under a heavy load i.e., it's very busy. 

However, this, combined with other reported problems such as delays when simply typing characters into an e-mail, suggests that the hardware/software infra-structure of the BT e-mail servers needs attention.

[LondonJohn]

Thanks. I have had no access to my BT Mail Inbox via my PC since Wednesday night, although Spam is receiving the usual stuff. Mail from my BT Internet address continues to arrive perfectly on my iPad and Android phone. A bit complicated to send documents etc from my desktop PC storage devices.

[licquorice]

Just install Thunderbird on your PC

[Meg-27]

I have basic mail therefore don't think I can use an email client.

[Stephen5000]

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@Meg-27wrote:

I have basic mail therefore don't think I can use an email client.

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You're correct, you need, 'premium' before you can use an email client. Sadly, you're stuck with BTs WebMail...

[gg30340]

@Meg-27 

If you have a relative or trusted friend with BT Broadband and a BTMail account you could affiliate your email account to their BT account.

This would allow you to use your BTMail with an email client.

Your relative/friend would not be able to manage or access your email account, you would still do that through your MyBT but they could delete the account from their BT account.

See link

https://www.bt.com/help/email/can-i-move-my-bt-email-address-to-another-account-#:~:text=Once%20you%....