TalkTalk Mail plus & Pipex

[Bill73]

Hello, I subscribe via DD to TalkTalk Mail Plus to maintain my PIPEX address because TalkTalk decided that I wasn't a geographically viable customer. I have received the update warning emails and have changed my account settings from POP to IMAP. Now I have no incoming or send capability. I assume something needs to be reset ? Also I am unable to contact the TalkTalk Team "Sorry due to technical issues we can’t log you in right now. Please try again later." This message has been current for the entire 2 weeks that I have been trying.  Reading through the many Forum messages on this issue it seems I am not alone. Is there any way to resolve this  ?

Moderator note:  Images moderated.

[Gondola]

No worries.

We do appreciate your time in letting us know. Thank you.

[Bill73]

Good Morning Gondola - I've POP-ed back into the realms of sanity 😄. It's so much easier than IMAP and I know what I am doing. Thanks again for your (and Ady's) help ..........I'll be staying on Talktalk Mail Plus  and Pipex even though there are cheaper options !

Regards

Bill

[Bill73]

Thank you for the prompt reply; I shall need to sit and digest this for a while and reserve the right to come back with another question !

Thank you for removing the personal info in my message - I thought you would but I couldn't see how not to include it and still clearly illustrate the problem.

Regards

Bill

[Gondola]

I've removed the image from the last post as it was revealing personal data. I've checked that the address is deliverable.  The error messages indicates that the sender was getting an undeliverable bounceback.

What happens with alias addresses is that the inbound server recognises the address as an alias and redirects to the master mailbox address on the TalkTalk Mail platform. So there's two lookups happening. First is a lookup using the alias to find the master address then there's a lookup using the master address to find the mailbox. If either of these fail then there's an undeliverable bounceback. 

The incoming mail delivery does not depend on the connection type to your mailbox by your email client Outlook.

The advice from Microsoft on backing up mail messages is to use the proprietary pst file format. Unfortunately that is pretty unique to Outlook.

You can however Save mail messages from TalkTalk Mail webmail as eml files that are viewable as standard email files in many email clients.

It's not possible to switch an existing IMAP email account to a POP3 account. You can delete the email account on Outlook and set up a POP3 account. The only difference in settings is to use the incoming mail server port 995 and set the account to Never delete from the server so the Inbox messages are retained in the online Inbox as well as being downloaded to your device.

[Bill73]

Good Morning Gondola,

Since changing my pipex account settings to use IMAP as per the warning emails and your very good advice, I find IMAP to be quite difficult to work with. It's probably a legacy thing or an age thing but I cannot get the methodology of IMAP emails, synchronisation and server behaviour to register in my mind. Is it possible to revert to POP3 without incurring the wrath of the Talktalk police ?

I note that Talktalk says "Our recommendation is to use IMAP rather than POP3 settings, as this will ensure a copy of your emails is retained on our Mail server, as well as on your local device." but how do I get emails to be retained on my local device i.e. my computer ? I've scoured the internet trying to better understand the IMAP process and frequently come across statements like "IMAP can be set up so that you can still access your already-received email when you are offline." ..........but I can never find the appropriate instructions ! Also, since moving over to IMAP a number of reply (not fresh messages) senders to me have got bounce back:

Error Details
Reported error: 550 5.1.1 Z9Ekp9AMnB2M2 Recipient Undeliverable (TT512)
DSN generated by: CWXP265MB2293.GBRP265.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM

I don't know whether it's my settings or the sender's settings causing this...............any comment/advice/hint would be really appreciated.

Regards

Bill

[Gondola]

Perfect.

We do appreciate your time in letting us know. Thank you.

[Bill73]

Good evening Ady/Gondola,

I am up and running again - I think !
Many thanks for the advice.

Kind regards

Bill

[Ady-TalkTalk]

Hi Bill, that incident is as you know still ongoing since the update that was supposed to fix was cancelled November 2021 we've had no updates and got no estimates for the fix. 

Ady

[Bill73]

Thank you - I really look forward to normal function 😃, I have changed and clicked on so many things in the last several weeks to try to rectify the issue I just hope that I have the right set of instructions as there seem to be so many small variations depending on which forum message / contributor I read.
Just one more thing meanwhile - as a TalkTalk Plus subscriber will I ever be able to log into My Account? (Sorry due to technical issues we can’t log you in right now. Please try again later.)

Kind Regards

Bill

[Ady-TalkTalk]

Hi Bill73, I've added your mailbox to those to be restored to normal function. Please allow 48 hours for the change to complete.

Ady

[Gondola]

Hi Bill

I'll remove the image as it's revealing your personal data.

The settings are in need of a slight change to the server host names and I'll make one other recommendation but other than that it's good.

The incoming IMAP mail server is: mail.talktalk.net

The outgoing SMTP mail server is: smtp.talktalk.net

I think with Outlook you'd get better performance reliability by ticking Log on using User name and Password for the outgoing server.

I'll request TalkTalk Support restore full access for you.

Prepare for TalkTalk Support - include in the Community Profile (not in these public posts):

 MailPlus ccount holder name

 Alternative mobile contact number. Full address with postcode (in the Location box)

 Scroll down to Private notes to add the pipex email address and MailPlus account number

 Check and Save changes

Select here:  Update your profile