I have not been able to send emails since this time last night.
That is bad enough but the main problem is that I do not know if I am the only Orange user in the world who can't or whether there are thousands like me.
I spent money on phoning the help lines earlier today and was taken tediously through my Outlook Express settings only, eventually, when nothing worked, being put on hold and subsequently told that there was a server problem which was affecting large numbers of users. If that were true, it's either an inefficient way to investigate problems or a deliberate money-making scheme to keep people on the phone for as long as possible.
If Orange really cared about their customers, they would use their website to alert them to the fact that ringing the help lines won't do any good as the servers won't be fixed any faster. Leaving them in the dark is just not good enough.
Instead, I am hanging around, trying Outlook every half hour trying to find out whether the problem has cleared itself and not being sure that the new Outlook Express settings I was given might have created a new problem.
I have been able to use webmail today but even the browser connection has been unstable compared with normal and the webmail doesn't allow me to set receipt confirmations.
I am not having problems sending or receiving emails.
Using my fsmail account I can go to My Settings, then click on Saving Sent Messages, scroll down and then select Display The Confirmation page when sending messages, and click ok. T hen when I send an email, there is a check box at the bottom of the mail allowing me to set it for a Read Receipt Confirmation, however the receiver of the email can decline to send a read receipt.
_________________ The best & most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller
No I didn't have this specific probem - I lost connectivity completely, but to answer your question I don't think Orange care about any of their broadband customers.
I've been unable to send emails through smtp.orangehome.co.uk, and smtp.gmail.com since Thursday (28 Feb) too. I had one or two inexplicably go through on Friday (29 Feb) but most of the time Outlook is sitting there trying to send messages. No luck at all today (Saturday). The settings are definitely correct. I've been resorting to gmail's online mailer, and doing lots of cutting and pasting.
I was so disgusted with Orange's customer service a year or so ago, when I was cut off for over a month, that I will not bother ringing their costly help line any more. The only reason I'm staying is that when I rang them to ask for my MAC code they offered me six months free, and the next six months for £10 a month (cf. £17.99 a month). This meant another 12 month commitment, but I suggest £60 a year may be about right for the quality of service you receive. They are now doing their best to show that even this may be over the odds.
If you're paying full price for Orange, just give them a ring and say you're cancelling - it's the only call to Orange worth making.
I'm pleased to know that I am not alone, though that doesn't help my/our situation. I've had intermittent problems sending emails for weeks.
No difficulty browsing the net or receiving emails but there are long periods of time (sometimes a whole day) when I cannot connect to orangehome, wanadoo or freeserve servers - I try all Three when I get stuck, and occassionally one will let me in when the others don't.
It is so frustrating, and as others have commented here, phoning Orange Technical Support is no help. I am just taken through their same pre-programmed, time-wasting and therefore expensive routine and the problem is still not solved.
Are other ISPs any better? I'd love to get away from Orange when my present contract runs out.
I've been unable to send emails through smtp.orangehome.co.uk, and smtp.gmail.com since Thursday (28 Feb) too. I had one or two inexplicably go through on Friday (29 Feb) but most of the time Outlook is sitting there trying to send messages. No luck at all today (Saturday). The settings are definitely correct. I've been resorting to gmail's online mailer, and doing lots of cutting and pasting.
Bill
Not sure if I've found a real solution or not, but tonight I changed smtp.orangehome.co.uk to smtp.orange.co.uk in Outlook Express and upped the timeout to 5 mins and had success on two machines that were failing all day prior to the change.
Wierdly, I have been noticing that the failures start on Thursday each week and resolve themselves sometime on a Sunday. Is the the case for others??
Dave
Not sure if I've found a real solution or not, but tonight I changed smtp.orangehome.co.uk to smtp.orange.co.uk in Outlook Express and upped the timeout to 5 mins and had success on two machines that were failing all day prior to the change.
Wierdly, I have been noticing that the failures start on Thursday each week and resolve themselves sometime on a Sunday. Is the the case for others??
Hi
After weeks of having problems with sending emails I followed your advice & changed to smtp.orange.co.uk, I set the timeout to 2 mins & so far it works beautifully! So thank you for that.
I've had similar problems as everyone else with sending e-mails and technical support but I've got my e-mail working again now (more about that later).
I had two e-mail accounts set up in outlook with pop and smtp addresses, freeserve.co.uk and wanadoo.co.uk - both had been working perfectly together for over 3 years until a fortnight ago when I started to get intermittent send failures. I have contacted Technical Support numerous times since then.
First time I was asked to reset the livebox but nothing improved. Second time they admitted there had been a problem with the server but it had been fixed and I went through various diagnostics including livebox reset until I eventually lost all remote connections, all e-mail and web access for about 5 days. Even though they were escalating my problem to the front desk!
When I eventually reset my live box for the third time I got connection but it was intermittent again!
I was then told that only my wanadoo account was valid and not my freeserve account even though both were working intermittently. After further diagnostics I was told that the problem couldn't be at their server but must be in my outlook account settings (which I hadn't changed for 3 years) and that they didn't support outlook or give advice because of Microsoft.
I was however advised to change my wanadoo account to orangehome.co.uk. Which I did with no effect, but by this time my freeserve.co.uk account started to work again. When I went back to Technical support and spoke to a "supervisor" I was again told it must be my account settings which had become "corrupt" and I should set them up again but they could not offer any support.
After retiring to the pub, I had a brainwave and set both accounts to freeserve.co.uk and all my e-mail started working again for two days until this morning when both failed. In desperation I changed everything to orangehome.co.uk and they are both working now - for the time being but Web Access seems to have slowed down.
I can't seem to get any sense out of Technical Support - I think they are struggling with this issue and blaming outlook settings, which is ridiculous. So if you have this problem and are using outlook you could try changing your POP and SMTP addresses to orangehome.co.uk - this doesn't affect your Orange, Wanadoo or Freeserve E-mail adresses. Good Luck and I'll let you know how I fare.
If anyone from Orange is reading this then please get in touch at cbw@casablanca.fsworld.co.uk - It is interesting that Orange was voted worst for support in a recent survey.
surfing = OK
receiving emails = OK
Sending emails = X
no email account setting have changed since freeserve days. I've changed to orangehome SMTP & POP with no luck, or at least the same result so I've changed it back. This problem only begun last week.
I will get a connection at some point through the evening but I have not noted any pattern as yet!
Well I said I would report back.
Over the Bank Holiday weekend, I've been able to receive e-mails, access the web (although very slowly) but had intermittent problems not being able to send e-mails with outlook account addresses which have worked before very recently. I can't send any on the recommended orangehome.co.uk address at the moment.
I am seriously getting pi**ed off with this and will be e-mailing Orange tonight and trying to escalate in Orange UK tomorrow. SUGGEST WE ALL DO THE SAME.
By the way my speed is below 1MB, although I thought I'd been upgraded to 8MB !
It appears that as of Friday 21.03.08, that 4 of the 7 servers that are listed under smtp.orangehome.co.uk are currently down.
The IP addresses that work or do not work as as follows:
Name: smtp.orangehome.co.uk
193.252.22.134 - Not working
193.252.22.138 - Working
193.252.22.139 - Working
193.252.22.140 - Working
193.252.22.187 - Not Working
193.252.22.188 - Not Working
193.252.22.189 - Not Working
Hope this helps.
_________________ The best & most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller
As a night cap, I have just changed POP and SMTP addresses to Orange.co.uk and my test messages were sent ok but I didn't receive any e-mails.
So I changed Incoming Server addresses POP3 back to orangehome.co.uk and left outgoing SMTP addresses as Orange.co.uk and test messages worked twice- sent and received !!
I hope you look forward to tomorrow morning's next thrilling installment...and Orange, I hope you are monitoring this, as it might give you some idea as to what is happening and why you might lose a considerable number of accounts soon if you don't sort things out or at least let us know what is going on.....
As a night cap, I have just changed POP and SMTP addresses to Orange.co.uk and my test messages were sent ok but I didn't receive any e-mails.
So I changed Incoming Server addresses POP3 back to orangehome.co.uk and left outgoing SMTP addresses as Orange.co.uk and test messages worked twice- sent and received !!
I hope you look forward to tomorrow morning's next thrilling installment...and Orange, I hope you are monitoring this, as it might give you some idea as to what is happening and why you might lose a considerable number of accounts soon if you don't sort things out or at least let us know what is going on.....
I'm running Vista and Outlook 2007 - on brand new system with Orange broadband/livebox. Fine for first 6 weeks, then they did an update to livebox which gave service problems with internet. Did a factory reset, web OK.
Then, just before Easter 2008, outgoing e-mails got stuck in my outbox. Cleared them eventually by clicking on outbox and re-sending etc. Also worked for a while if I used Outlook in Safe mode. Improved for a while, then got worse. At best intermittant. Help line no help - blaming it all on Outlook, which I'm sure is not the case. Concerned about their servers after reading this forum. Disabled Firewall and antivirus, checked all the settings etc.
Found out later in the weekend that a friend who lives near me also had same problems and he's using XP with Outlook Express.
How can you make them come clean - spent hours and hours on this and several expensive phone calls. Seems like its a money-making scam to get extra phone revenue over a 4-day bank holiday.
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