WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Mags]

My little girl has a Bachelor of Science - Paramedicine and now a Masters of Science - Disaster and Emergency Response - we are very proud of her. She is now talking of doing he Doctorate.........heaven help us............

[Stanley]

With Holly that will be two doctors in the family! I'm very proud of them......
(And you! Laura couldn't have got there without you supporting her.)

[Cathy]

Congratulations Laura

[Stanley]

Smart Kids eh?
My flu jab being cancelled and the new one being for 04:30 on October 9th. It's years since I was outside the house at that late stage of the day. Going to bed early I'm winding down then.....

[PanBiker]

04.30, certainly not late in the day! 16.30 would be about right.

The surgery starts their flu jab roll out in October.

[Stanley]

Quite right Ian, that was how they put it in their copy email.....
What got my attention was the CH kicking in at low level early morning it has just done the same this morning but on a serious level. It was cold in the front room last night but the heating didn't come on. I almost lit the stove but then put on a fleece lined top shirt instead. I suspect it will be on for most of the day.
Later.... It was hearing that Donald Trump had claimed that immigrants were eating American pets despite being told that there was absolutely no evidence for this by the hosts, ABC News.

[Stanley]

The fact that my email is AWOL! (I don't have the faintest idea how to mend it. All I can do is sit back and wait.

[Tizer]

The fact that my email is AWOL!

What do you mean? Has your Thunderbird software failed to open? Does it open but fails to connect to your broadband server? Does it connect but you're not getting any messages? You've sent this post - if it's from your PC then your router must be working (unless you sent it via your phone).

[Stanley]

Thunderbird is fine Peter. It's the connection to the Talk Talk server that is failing. I have spent an hour on the chat line with a human being (I know that because he made silly mistakes like saying he'd send me an email and then apologising immediately) He now understands the problem and has gone away to fix it telling me that if there is no improvement within 24 hours I have to contact the chat line again.
I think that as far as Talk Talk is concerned that's as good as it gets!

[PanBiker]

Can you connect to your email account via web mail? That will confirm that the account is OK. You can access that via your Talk Talk log on, it's an option from the top bar after you have logged on. You will need your email password. If that is working it will be your account settings in Thunderbird that have broken, (it can happen).

Might be a daft question but are you using POP or IMAP configuration.

I ask because I sometimes have to refresh my IMAP settings.

[Big Kev]

The fact that my email is AWOL! (I don't have the faintest idea how to mend it. All I can do is sit back and wait.

You must have missed my reply in the 'Today I shall mainly' thread

[Stanley]

You're right Kev, I missed it.
The answer is the latter, it is refusing to connect. More specifically it will not authenticate my password.
It has done this before but only for short periods and has always healed by itself. As this had lasted longer than 12 hours (it started yesterday while I was connected) i talked to the chat line. He could not give me an instant cure but said if it was still off in 24 hours I should contact them again.
Needless to say I am pissed off!

[Big Kev]

Needless to say I am pissed off!

I would be too, TalkTalk is very good when everything is working as it should but, unfortunately, let down by their customer service. I had to escalate as a complaint, when my router packed up last year, despite telling them repeatedly what was wrong with it.

[Tizer]

That's why I've stayed with Plusnet for 20 years.

[Stanley]

My email is still dead. Thank God for Whatsapp, I can communicate with my family.
I shall be back on the chat line after 9AM this morning, I will have been without email for 44 hours, remember it failed in the middle of the day while it was being used. I shall be impressing that on them.
Needless to say, I am receptive to any advice that you can give me......
(Like how do I get to speak to a human being??)

[Tizer]

All I can suggest is to move your account to Plusnet. Most of its support staff are British and they drink Yorkshire Tea!

[PanBiker]

I have never really had a problem with Talk Talk. I don't use the telephone support line. I always use the online chat as you get a recorded transcript. Once you have got past the robot front end for gathering the basics of your complaint and which is quite common nowadays on support lines. You usually get through to second line support which should be a technician that can help with your problem. I find that the trick is to keep your cool and not go off on a tangent if you don't understand any of the replies, just ask again for clarification. You have to remember that the techs will get an entire range of customers with varying degrees of expertise. If you relate your tech level you will normally get replies that match your ability level. I do have an advantage though as having been in similar support roles for customers or colleagues one way or the other for my entire working life. It does tend to help if you mention that you have CISCO accreditation at tutor level.

If you can accommodate a change of ISP and email address etc, no point flogging a dead horse if that is how you view TalkTalk. Swapping should be relatively painless as they all use the same Open Reach network. The only difference really apart from the different tariffs available is how they support their customers.

Any joy with the web mail?

[Stanley]

Ian, I had no joy with anything yesterday and it was the online chat I was on. The basis of the case is that the servers won't accept my authentication and that means that I can't access anything else or even change my password. I think that's what is puzzling them. They even asked if the login had worked on landline as if they suspected fibre had something to do with it.
There were some gumption traps..... at one point the agent asked me to refresh my Firefox settings and of course that rebooted and I lost that connection and had to start all over again. On my fifth or sixth agent they were getting trained and had stopped asking security questions.
Where we ended up after six hours was that they can't fix it so it is now a complaint and a named engineer has been put in charge. He will call or text me on my mobile when he needs me. God knows how long this is going to take.
I had to mount a strong defence at one point with an agent who didn't know what Linux of Ubuntu was and insisted that I had to be on Windows or Mac..... She took some convincing but is now educated.
I hope to get to the post box today....... (By the way, I realised it was Friday the 13th......)
I sincerely hope none of you ever have a day like that!

[PanBiker]

The basis of the case is that the servers won't accept my authentication and that means that I can't access anything else or even change my password.

Have you tried changing your password via the web mail link on the TalkTalk website? That is a totally independent platform to any settings that may be compromised or corrupted in your chosen email client. You may be already past that point but if not that is the final test that would confirm that the problem is with TalkTalk rather than at your end. Another test would be to set up another email via the webmail link, you can have five or six on your TalkTalk account, again, that would test the functionality at their end.

[PanBiker]

Just had a look on TalkTalk web mail regarding creating new mail addresses and found this:

"Please Note - we have temporarily removed the create/delete mailbox functionality as we are performing some backend maintenance work on our email platform. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause."

[Stanley]

They have told me that they will get back to me as soon as they have something to say. They know the problem and believe me we tried a lot of things yesterday. I reckon it's best to keep off their backs until the silence gets deafening, it hasn't reached that stage yet.
Just seen your post Ian. Interesting but I am not speculating about it.

[Tizer]

Does your talktalk email still work OK on a tablet or smartphone?

[Stanley]

It doesn't work on anything as I know of....

[Big Kev]

Just had a look on TalkTalk web mail regarding creating new mail addresses and found this:

"Please Note - we have temporarily removed the create/delete mailbox functionality as we are performing some backend maintenance work on our email platform. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause."

That has been there for months Ian, I have been trying to create a new TalkTalk address for over a year as I don't have one. I never used it when I first went with TalkTalk and it appears they removed it.

[Stanley]

I am understandably only focussing on the fact that I pay TalkTalk for an email service and I am not getting it. It's no good them giving me increasingly esoteric things to do in the hope it is me that is at fault. I have changed nothing and have lost connection, that's down to them and is now an official complaint from a customer who is registered as having special needs because of age and disability. The ball is in their court now.
I am finding work-arounds in my communications with the kids, the only place I miss email at the moment is Bob's Bits, they are piling up in my inbox.......