Replies

So far, so good:

Nil illigitimi carborundum

anonymous wrote:

Try using another service, other than your ISP, such as OpenDNS, for your DNS lookups. It could very well be that your ISP is having troubles, as others have suggested earlier in this thread.

OpenDNS’s servers are located at the following I.P. addresses: 208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222

You could also try using Google’s DNS server, located at 8.8.8.8 (yes, that’s four eights in a row with only a dot separating them).

If you need guidance on just how to change your source of DNS lookups to one of those mentioned above, drop a line here and we’ll get back to you with instructions.

Both of the above services are completely free for anyone to use, although OpenDNS has additional services that are paid services, but useful for many folks. Their basic DNS lookup service, however, is completely free of charge to anyone anywhere in the world.

That’s a good idea! Yes, “Paul T” suggested my ISP could be having problems. I didn’t think of it being a DNS problem though.

The DNS that I am using is Google’s – 8.8.8.8 – with the alternate being 8.8.4.4.

I will try my ISP’s DNS service as I’m sure I have read that there are many people who say there is little advantage in using 8.8.8.8 other than it is easy to remember!

If the problem continues, then at least it is a variable that we can ignore.

Today, though, all is well – the .live.com servers are accessible without problems. Touch wood.

Stay tuned – I’ll let you know what happens.

Nil illigitimi carborundum

After a week of pop3.live.com and smtp.live.com working flawlessly, a new situation has arisen. Starting about 3pm on 19th August, access by Outlook Express to the first two Hotmail accounts fails, and then a minute later they work.

On 19th August at 13:12, all were working:

Then, at 15:52, access to the first two accounts failed:

But another “Send / Receive All Mail” just a minute later worked perfectly:

– and they continued to work the rest of the day.

The same happened yesterday and today. It feels like I have to wake up the servers by trying to access two accounts, and then after they’ve woken up they stay awake.

I could post screen shots from yesterday and today, but they are the same as the ones above – the first two Hotmails fail, the second two work, and then a minute later they all work and stay working.

Nil illigitimi carborundum

Both servers stayed not working for the rest of the day.
Now, today, the .live.com servers started working:

Summary:

Jul  2nd       live.com failed        outlook.com working
Jul  3rd       outlook.com failed     live.com working
Jul  5th       live.com failed        outlook.com working
Jul 17th       outlook.com failed     live.com working
Jul 19th       live.com failed        outlook.com working
Jul 20th 00:47 both outlook.com and live.com not working
Jul 20th 15:16 outlook.com working
Jul 23rd       outlook.com failed     live.com working
Aug  3rd       live.com failed        outlook.com working 169 repeated emails out of 181
Aug  6th       outlook.com failed     live.com working     27 repeated emails out of  33
Aug 10th 01:00 both live.com and outlook.com not working
Aug 10th 12:30 outlook.com working
Aug 10th 18:58 outlook.com failed     live.com working 
Aug 11th 11:52 live.com failed        outlook.com working  13 repeated emails out of  18
Aug 11th 15:37 both live.com and outlook.com not working   
Aug 12th 13:36 live.com now working                        27 repeated emails out of  71

Today’s screen shot:

(Ignore the one error above – I made a typo in the server name. It worked OK after correction).

Nil illigitimi carborundum

And now – 15:37 : they are both not working:

Summary:

Jul  2nd       live.com failed        outlook.com working
Jul  3rd       outlook.com failed     live.com working
Jul  5th       live.com failed        outlook.com working
Jul 17th       outlook.com failed     live.com working
Jul 19th       live.com failed        outlook.com working
Jul 20th 00:47 both outlook.com and live.com not working
Jul 20th 15:16 outlook.com working
Jul 23rd       outlook.com failed     live.com working
Aug  3rd       live.com failed        outlook.com working 169 repeated emails out of 181
Aug  6th       outlook.com failed     live.com working     27 repeated emails out of  33
Aug 10th 01:00 both live.com and outlook.com not working
Aug 10th 12:30 outlook.com working
Aug 10th 18:58 outlook.com failed     live.com working 
Aug 11th 11:52 live.com failed        outlook.com working  13 repeated emails out of  18
Aug 11th 15:37 both live.com and outlook.com not working

Nil illigitimi carborundum

They switched again this morning.

Summary:

July 2nd          live.com failed        outlook.com working
July 3rd          outlook.com failed     live.com working
July 5th          live.com failed        outlook.com working
July 17th         outlook.com failed     live.com working
July 19th         live.com failed        outlook.com working
July 20th 00:47   both outlook.com and live.com not working
July 20th 15:16   outlook.com working
July 23rd         outlook.com failed     live.com working
August 3rd        live.com failed        outlook.com working 169 repeated emails out of 181
August 6th        outlook.com failed     live.com working     27 repeated emails out of  33
August 10th 01:00 both live.com and outlook.com not working
August 10th 12:30 outlook.com working
August 10th 18:58 outlook.com failed     live.com working 
August 11th 11:52 live.com failed        outlook.com working  13 repeated emails out of  18

This morning’s screenshots:
.live.com servers failing:

.outlook.com servers working:

Two options:

• 1. Write a Macro that automatically switches the servers in Outlook Express when there’s a server failure.
  2. Forward all emails from these Hotmail/Outlook accounts to a Gmail account.

Nil illigitimi carborundum

Summary:

July 2nd          live.com failed          outlook.com working
July 3rd          outlook.com failed       live.com working
July 5th          live.com failed          outlook.com working
July 17th         outlook.com failed       live.com working
July 19th         live.com failed          outlook.com working
July 20th 00:47   both outlook.com failed and live.com not working
July 20th 15:16   outlook.com working
July 23rd         outlook.com failed       live.com working
August 3rd        live.com failed          outlook.com working
August 6th        outlook.com failed       live.com working
August 10th 01:00 both live.com and outlook.com not working
August 10th 12:30 outlook.com working

Update:
August 10th 18:58 outlook failed           live.com working 

This evening’s screenshots:

.outlook.com servers failing:

.live.com servers working:

Nil illigitimi carborundum

anonymous wrote:

Update to the history: Here’s the history: <snip>

PS. Is there any way to use a non-proportional font here? BBCode? – just to make it more readable. Moderator’s reply: only Simple BBCodes, sorry

The above was me posting! (Didn’t notice I wasn’t logged in and didn’t realise you could post without logging in. Duh!)

So here is the latest “History”:
July 2nd … live.com failed…………..outlook.com working
July 3rd … outlook.com failed…..…..live.com working
July 5th … live.com failed……………outlook.com working
July 17th … outlook.com failed…..….live.com working
July 19th … live.com failed………….outlook.com working
July 20th 00:47 both outlook.com failed and live.com not working
July 20th 15:16 outlook.com working
July 23rd … outlook.com failed…..…live.com working
August 3rd … live.com failed……….outlook.com working
August 6th … outlook.com failed……live.com working
August 10th 01:00 – both live.com and outlook.com not working

Update:
August 10th 12:30 outlook.com working ~ 90 old emails from 5th August received again.

The one failure in the image above is for an account that I deliberately left using “live.com”. After changing it to use “outlook.com” it was OK.

Brain storming: Is there a chance that this could be my ISP having “problems”? (3BB – Thailand)

 

Nil illigitimi carborundum

KhunRoger wrote:

Kirsty wrote:

KhunRoger wrote:

I sent him an email similar to the one I sent Woody. There’s been no response from Heinz even though it says in his profile page

Are you on Facebook? From Heinz’s bio: “If you do not hear from me within some five days and (or or) need an answer right now, try posting to this Facebook page. “ It could be worth a further try.

Thanks, Kirsty, I’m looking into that now.

OK, I just posted this on his “About email” page:

“My question is do you know why the POP3 servers for Outlook Express keep changing from pop3.live.com and smtp.live.com to pop-mail.outlook.com and smtp-mail.outlook.com.
This change – and the reverse change back – has been happening since July 2nd. Here’s the history:
July 2nd live.com failed outlook.com working
July 3rd outlook.com failed live.com working
July 5th live.com failed outlook.com working
July 17th outlook.com failed live.com working
July 19th live.com failed outlook.com working
July 20th 00:47 outlook.com failed and live.com failed
July 20th 15:16 outlook.com working
July 23rd outlook.com failed live.com working
August 3rd live.com failed outlook.com working
August 6th outlook.com failed live.com working
Regards
Roger”

Full disclosure: I hate Facebook’s message input method. In fact, I rarely use FB. And I have no idea how he will contact me back.

 

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1 user thanked author for this post.

columbia2011

BobbyB wrote:

My deepest sympathies @khunroger, you really seem to be getting the old M$ run around here with your mail. If memory serves me right Outlook Express have you considered using IMAP? Its just a thought here, it maybe more stable than PO3. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/pop-imap-and-smtp-settings-for-outlook-com-d088b986-291d-42b8-9564-9c414e2aa040. A lot of blurb not really related but the Mail settings interspersed with the other M$ stuff should work. “Fingers crossed”

IMAP is one of those concepts that I’ve tried to stay clear of over the years! I’m very much a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” person.

From here:

“While IMAP is generally the preferred protocol, POP3 works just fine for users who only use one machine or for some reason don’t want to keep messages on the server or in a cloud environment and prefer to have their messages permanently stored on their local computers.” – which describes me down to a T.  (I have stored emails going back to the 1990’s :). Remember those old Compuserve numbered email accounts, e.g. 100714,1122@compuserve.com).
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I will investigate this a bit more thoroughly. My main requirement of any change to IMAP is that I don’t lose any emails.

I found a site that describes the setup of an IMAP account for Outlook – not Outlook Express – which I may try later on a little-used Hotmail account. The problem – if I am not mistaken – is that you can only ADD an account as IMAP, you can’t change an existing account to IMAP.

But, currently, .live.com servers are still working/accessible. Today.

What I really don’t understand is why there is no mention of this that I can find on the Internet. Am I really the very last XP/Outlook Express hold-out in the world?  🙂

 

Nil illigitimi carborundum

Kirsty wrote:

KhunRoger wrote:

I sent him an email similar to the one I sent Woody. There’s been no response from Heinz even though it says in his profile page

Are you on Facebook? From Heinz’s bio: “If you do not hear from me within some five days and (or or) need an answer right now, try posting to this Facebook page. “ It could be worth a further try.

Thanks, Kirsty, I’m looking into that now.

Nil illigitimi carborundum

Kirsty wrote:

KhunRoger wrote:

Any ideas on who to contact at Microsoft – and how?

I’m not sure if this will be of any use to you, but these articles may have something that may help? How to Contact Outlook.com Support Check the Outlook.com Service Status: Is Outlook.com (Live.com) Down? Here’s How to Check

Thanks for the links, Kirsty. They both point to articles written by Heinz Tschabitscher. I actually gave a link to another of his articles at LifeWire in my original post at the top of this thread – it’s the “this site” link in the second paragraph.

When the server switching first occurred at the beginning of July, I started scouring the Internet trying to find any mention of it, and found Heinz’s articles. So I sent him an email similar to the one I sent Woody. There’s been no response from Heinz even though it says in his profile page here:

“I encourage you to write me personally at heinzts@me.com with any comments, hunches, insights, problems and questions you have. I love reading readers’ messages and appreciate your writing in.”

So that’s disappointing! 🙂

Anyway, the live.com servers are currently working.

I’ll certainly keep this thread updated with any changes when they occur (not “if”) and any info as I find it.

 

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1 user thanked author for this post.

Kirsty

If it’s Monday, it must be “Back to pop3.live.com”-day:

All mail.outlook.com servers failed:

Same error message:

Switched back to the old pop3.live.com servers:

– and got 33 messages, all bar 6 were old and dated back to August 2nd, when the last switch occurred.

Any ideas on who to contact at Microsoft – and how?

 

Nil illigitimi carborundum

Here we go again:

All 5 Hotmails failed:

Same errors as before:

So I changed the servers back to xxx-mail.outlook.com and they all worked:

And I got 181 emails of which all but about 12 were repeats of emails I’d already received since 22nd July, which is when I had to change FROM xxxx-mail.outlook.com TO xxx.live.com.

So it’s been working with pop3.live.com since then and now switches back to mail.outlook.com and gives me all the old emails, again.

Anyone spot a pattern here?

Nil illigitimi carborundum

HiFlyer wrote:

@KuhnRoger #205276 “…But really, I want to know why this is happening …” “Redmondnet is scheduled to become fully aware on August 4th this year.😓👹 Redmondnet must have seen my snarky comment. First time ever I can’t access my outlook (live) email account. Spooky.

So time travel is real at least. I quoted HiFlyer before he actually posted. Spooky indeed.

Nil illigitimi carborundum

2 users thanked author for this post.

BobbyB, HiFlyer