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Message 1 of 11

Email issue - today 21 June 2024

My apologies if this has been asked already today, but I failed to find anything related to the here-and-now date ...

BT WebMail is fine, yup, I log in and can see ( and send ) mail.   However, webmail is not my preferred mail client - having multiple mail accounts ( gmail etc ) I use a 3rd Party client (currently Thunderbird, but I have others installed, and all exhibit the same issue ) - which is/are - the different mail clients all ( in their own different ways ) - pop up notifications such as "The mail server is unreachable" / "Mail, server cannot be contacted" / "Server may be down" etc - yup, I know what that means.

My 'question' here and now, 21 Jun 2024  - does anyone know if there is, or is not an actual issue with BT mail ( NOT webmail ) - sadly, one of the clients suggested it was a password problem, and I thought I just needed to update it in the client - LOLOL - nah, actually it redirected me to the BT site and, pointlessly - I changed my password - but that's fine - following the "un-necessary" change, I can sill successfully log in to webmail...

Anyone know, or heard anything about current mail-server side issues?

Thanks in advance folks !

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Message 2 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

No problems here with Outlook 2010.

Are you a BT broadband customer or alternatively paying for premium mail? If neither, your account will have been downgraded to Basic mail which is only accessible via webmail.

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Message 3 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

Unless there is a mass outage of their email system BT generally to not post any information about whether or not the email system is working. You may get some information on the "Downdetector" website that will possibly reflect a problem.

It is not unknown for the BT email servers to have a "glitch". The error codes/messages thrown up by email clients are generally as much use as a chocolate tea pot.

The best advice if you have an unexpected problem ie it did not happen after an update to your email client or you changed your pass word etc, is to do nothing.

If you can still access your email account using webmail (using a web browser) then there is obviously nothing wrong with you password or email account. Hence the advice to do nothing and especially do not change your password as this can cause more problems with your email client.

The advice is to leave things as they are and the problem usually resolves its self in a day or two or even less.

If you are wanting to try something you could try turning your router/hub off for about 30 mins during which you will probably be issued with a new IP address and hopefully connected to a different email server.

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Message 4 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

Thanks @licquorice - but yes, just to confirm, been a broadband customer, since, well since BT provided such services! Even from dial-up days... LOL
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Message 5 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

Thanks @gg30340 - as it happens, more and more has come to light, a bit much to explain in the "Quick Reply" - I'll just continue the original post.....
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Message 6 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

More info on this, having observed more closely what's happening.  Let me walk through this (slowly LOL)

OK, so, been a BT services user since the days of dial up.  

My original email account with BT was, let's call it xxx@btinternet.com, and it was then under the auspices of Yahoo mail, subject to all the various changes that have gone on over time.

[ An aside - my primary email client is Thunderbird, handling 6 mail accounts - 3 with BT and 3 with gmail.  In my original post, all I saw (I didn't investigate deeply enough at the time) was the flagged failure, which, as I mentioned, also failed on a couple of other 'more basic' mail clients.  On closer inspection of the sequence of mail fetching, TB will regularly 'fire up' and try to do a collection of mail from all known accounts registered with it.  It appears  that in fact all other 5 accounts it knows about, happily received incoming mail, it was only on the xxx@btinternet.com that it failed!  ]

Now, a tad more background - way back around 2012/14 I recall receiving a number of messages from BT saying that I (well, everyone in the same boat) would be transitioned to a BT Mail account.  As far as I can see - well - yes - it can't be Yahoo any more, but I have never to this day been able to see it within webmail.  Following the arrival of BT Mail, I DID create a new BT mail address, call it bill.xxx@btinternet.com - now this one is clearly accessible via web mail (and of course TB client)

The truth of the matter is that the original xxx@btinternet.com is largely irrelevant by now, but it does contain messages going back to mid 2012 - which contain interesting accounts of my contracting work in the later years of  my active employment, and now being 71 and retired, I had hoped to revisit them - well yes, I should have archived them before now (as I did with all earlier stuff!)

Now with the knowledge of what's going on in TB (and other clients) I've tried repeatedly over the last day to specifically force TB to read the Inbox, with no success - while all other 5 attached accounts work fine (well, TB does get in the way as it occasionally dives off to try to access all accounts' inboxes in turn)

It also appears (from Chrome as it happens) that several passwords "have been compromised" - well, oddly enough, yes, they are all members of the original xxx.btinternet.com mail account - BUT - I don't believe that is anything directly to do with BT - back in the day, you'ld put together a quick, simple website for a local B&B or small business, and (stupidly now, but never thought about back then) - yup, like so many early-days site implementers, yep, posted right at the foot of the page were "contact details" i.e. the xxx.btinternet.com address - ha!  - so I'm not surprised it has "leaked"

Anyway, as I say, I'm keen to restore access to the original, just to archive what I want, and then I'll happily delete it.

I know, a bit TL:DR there, but any thoughts at all are appreciated - I'm kind of reluctant to even attempt to change the password, but, well, maybe worth a try....

Thanks in advance,

Bill

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Message 7 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

Have you been using your original BT email account xxxbtinternet.com on a regular basis? If you have not been using it for 150 days it will have been deleted.

See link

Why has my email address been suspended or deleted? | BT Help

If you go to your MyBT are you able to log on and  go to "Your Products" then "Email, Manage" is your email account showing there and is it showing as active. If it is there whet "Account Type" is it showing as.

 

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Message 8 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

Thanks @gg30340 - the answers to your two questions/suggestions - (1) Usage of the xxx a/c - the last two emails sent (I still see the message 'header' in TB, but can't open the email, obviously, given the situation) were on 4th Feb and 11 June this year.
- (2) In MyBT, yes, I am able to log on - but as indicated earlier only as the new a/c the bill.xxx one - and the only accounts shown in email/manage are the two created via BT Mail, the bill.xxx and a.n.other.xxx@etc ... the original plain old xxx@etc (supposedly transferred from the Yahoo days) is not present. The two that are shown,are marked Active. - extracted text from web page "Active email addresses (2), These are all the mailboxes you can view, send and receive emails from right now."
There is no indication of what the "Account Type" you requested might be - it just shows the "Active" green label. Cheers, Bill
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Message 9 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

If your email account is not showing in your MyBT it may well be "unattached" to your BT Broadband package and as a result is not being abel to be manged by you. 

I doubt there is anything that the forum users will be able to do to sort this out for you so I have notified the moderators of the forum about your problem. Once they have read this they may be able to help. They will advise you by posting on this thread.

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Message 10 of 11

Re: Email issue - today 21 June 2024

Ahhh "unattached" - now THAT would make sense!
Awesome, that sounds like a real possibility - and thanks for notifying the moderators to see if anything can be done, much appreciated
Thanks, and cheers
Bill
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