Email Client Access No Longer Works

[RigaMortice]

I'd been successfully operating my talktalk.net email using Outlook 365 until the morning of 21st April when it stopped working with a login failure. It's still failing today.

Initially I assumed it was an Outlook issue but then downloaded a copy of Thunderbird to check and found it fails the same way.

My webmail still works, although it's not great to use.

I'm using the recommended IMAP settings from this page:  Email settings | SMTP, IMAP & POP3 | TalkTalk Help & Support so I hope that page is up-to-date.

I've already had some long conversations with support but all at a fairly superficial level so would appreciate a closer look at my account to see what might be stopping me using Outlook/Thunderbird to access my email.

Thanks

[Billx]

@RigaMortice 

Well, well, well. Congratulations. It looks like the re-activation, re-set or re-configured it.

Bill

[RigaMortice]

I can't believe it but I've fixed it!

After creating a third mailbox (which I could also access using every third-party program available to me) I noticed the "deactivate mailbox" option in mailbox manager and thought it might be worth a try.

After I'd confirmed that I wouldn't lose any mail, by deactivating and reactivating one of my new test mailboxes, I

1. set up one of my test mailboxes as an admin (mailbox manager option)

2. logged out and then logged in with that test account

3. deactivated my original (non-IMAP) mail account

4. re-activated the account

5. bingo - it now works with IMAP. Simple as that.

I'd spent an hour earlier today banging my head against the wall speaking to yet another TT customer services manager so this feels very satisfying indeed. I've no idea what de/reactivating a mailbox is supposed to achieve but TBH don't really care.

Thanks to everyone who offered help and particularly @nameunknown who tipped me in the direction of that second mailbox .

Case closed - hopefully forever

[Billx]

Yes, we will wait for @amahle-TT , as well.

[nameunknown]

@amahle-TT is looking into it too. See her comment here:

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Email/Email-Client-Access-No-Longer-Works/m-p/3120822?_gl=1*srv7...

[Billx]

@RigaMortice 

OK, let's see what the non-community support come up with

[RigaMortice]

Thanks for all the research and ideas but recreating my mailbox would be a last resort, because:

1. there's always a risk that I won't be able to reinstate it for some reason and then I'll be unable to use this email address at all

2. exporting and re-importing is a faff and also probably won't be perfect either

3. if my mailbox is blocked by name then all that recreation will make no difference anyway

I called the TT help number and now I've got another non-community support thread started. So I'll see if they can just fix my mailbox without me moving from my armchair. At least (so far) they haven't told me to just use webmail...

[nameunknown]

@Billx 

I don't usually use webmail, and have not changed the layout. It appears that my layout is set to 'List'.

webmail

Yes, of course, @RigaMortice has to decide whether to delete and recreate his account, hence I wrote "If you need a method of restoring all of your emails to a newly created account ...".

[Billx]

Sorry, @nameunknown 

The  " 'Select all messages' in the 3 dots menu on the far right" is the far right of the central pane, the messagelist column/pane of the app, not the far right of the app.

And to go through this, @RigaMortice has to first decide whether he wants to delete and recreate the email address.

Edit: alright @nameunknown , our difference of where the 3 dots are, depends on the layout that the user has set the TalkTalk webmail app to. Sorry. My layout is currently set, so that the reading pane is on the right, rather than below. 

[nameunknown]

@RigaMortice 

If you need a method of restoring all of your emails to a newly created account .....

Having consulted with @Billx , I now see there is a way to export emails from webmail, and these can then be imported into an IMAP folder via an email application.

To export Inbox, Sent, etc folder contents, select all emails in the folder using 'Select all messages' in the 3 dots menu on the far right. Then go to the 'More actions' 3dots menu, which is at the end of the row of icons tha starts with the Delete icon. In 'More actions' select 'Save as file'. Save each file with a name corresponding to the folder name, e.g. for Inbox save it as Inbox.zip.

Extract the contents of a zip file into a local folder on your computer. Select all of the files, and drag them into the corresponding IMAP folder of the (new) email account. I am not sure if you can drag and drop them into Office 365 Outlook, but you can definitely drag multiple .eml files all at once into a Local folder or an IMAP folder in Thunderbird.

[Billx]

Hi, @nameunknown 

I thought @RigaMortice  couldn't use his TalkTalk email address with Thunderbird or Outlook 365. He can't login to his TalkTalk email address, using Thunderbird  He can use his TalkTalk email address ONLY with TalkTalk webmail. That is what he is fighting for.

Yes, there might be some problems, if he does what I suggested. But maybe, that might be the only way to move forward.

Bill

[nameunknown]

@RigaMortice 

The same thought occurred to me the other day, after your success with the new email account. I didn't suggest it, because as you say there is no guarantee it will resolve the issue, and there's the saving/restoring of your emails to deal with.

With Microsoft Outlook 2007, I can copy emails from an email account whilst offline, i.e. not logged in to the server. I am not familiar with Office 365 Outlook. I assume your emails are stored in the cloud. Can you not export them to a local .pst file? This would only be for the emails up until April when you lost access using an application to send/receive email.

I store all of the emails I want to keep in local folders, and frequently create a backup of the Outlook.pst file. That way I am in control at all times of the emails that I want to keep.

[RigaMortice]

Thanks  @Billx  - I had already considered that, but there are at least two problems:

1. I can't easily save all my mails - because for some reason I don't have a working third-party email client to do the saving. And I understand that TalkTalk don't support such things...

2. There's no guarantee that I'd be able to delete and/or recreate my mailbox, and a new mailbox might not be any different. It would all depend whether the presumed block is on my email address or on an internal mailbox identifier.

- so I'll need an alternative - like unblocking my mailbox!

Good thought though.

[Billx]

Hi, @RigaMortice 

Since the staff seem to be having difficulty with this, I might suggest something.

Could you save all your current emails in your main TalkTalk email address to a local folder in your computer,

delete your  main TalkTalk email address

and then immediately recreate your  main TalkTalk email address in the separate Email Manager?

Regarding the possible mistyping of your passwords, you can easily save your passwords in the local password manager, included within your browser. This way, you will only have to type them in, once.

Bill

[amahle-TT]

Kindly bear with me as I look into this for you and I will be back with feedback, thanks.

[RigaMortice]

Outstanding.

Thanks @nameunknown. Your name will be forever remembered 😉

[nameunknown]

@siphosethu-TT 

I don't usually jump in on other's threads to query a response from TalkTalk staff, but I cannot let this one go.

@RigaMortice  has posted saying that a newly created TalkTalk email account functions correctly in Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. However, he is unable to log in using these applications with his original email account.

He has also previously stated that he is able to connect to the incoming TalkTalk mail server using openssl, and can successfully log in using the credentials for the new account, but not with the credentials for his original email account (although the same login credentials work using webmail).

That information indicates that the issue is not related to Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird, but is an authentication (login) issue.

Your response (not for the first time from TalkTalk Community staff) is "We don't support third party's". However, @RigaMortice  has demonstrated the issue is not with a third party application, so why give that response?

The issue is with authentication (login), so you ought to be raising this with the team responsible for managing the email servers, who ought to be able to investigate and resolve the issue.

[RigaMortice]

My disillusionment is complete.

[siphosethu-TT]

We don't support third party's so I would advise you use webmail as that works. Thanks

[RigaMortice]

This seems like a good time for a final summary of the current situation with my mailbox - plus one question:

1. Webmail works, as it has always done. Unfortunately TT webmail is awful to use.

2. My original/main email account "doesn't work" (connects to the TT mail server but sign-in fails) when I use any third-party software. Specifically Thunderbird, Outlook 365 and (just for testing) openssl

3. I've created a new mailbox just for testing and I CAN access it using all three of the third-party tools mentioned above. I've used the exact same password as for my main email account, and obviously I've used the same connection settings.

So, can anyone in TalkTalk support advise why I can successfully access one mailbox and not the other?

[siphosethu-TT]

Hi there @RigaMortice, please note that we can only offer support with webmail. There's not much I can do with Third party you would have to contact the third party for help. Thanks