Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

imap4.blueyonder.co.uk and Apple Mail borken?

21 views
Skip to first unread message

Steve Folly

unread,
May 16, 2009, 1:46:53 PM5/16/09
to
Hi,

Is anyone using Apple Mail to access their Virgin Media email via
imap4.blueyonder.co.uk?

I ask because I've been getting my email like this for about a year now, but
it just stopped working a few days ago. Nothing has changed in my
configuration. (Still on 10.5.6, no updates were done in between it working
and not working.)

VM has said there is nothing wrong with their servers, which I'm inclined to
agree with since I created a new account in Entourage to read from the same
email account and everything works fine.

I've tried deleting the account and recreating, but no luck. Short of
deleting *all* Mail preferences (which I'd rather not do!) I'm stuck as to
what to do next.

Can anyone suggest anything?


--
Regards,
Steve

There's probably no god.
Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

Peter Hayes

unread,
May 16, 2009, 2:28:41 PM5/16/09
to
Steve Folly wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is anyone using Apple Mail to access their Virgin Media email via
> imap4.blueyonder.co.uk?
>
> I ask because I've been getting my email like this for about a year now, but
> it just stopped working a few days ago. Nothing has changed in my
> configuration. (Still on 10.5.6, no updates were done in between it working
> and not working.)
>
> VM has said there is nothing wrong with their servers, which I'm inclined to
> agree with since I created a new account in Entourage to read from the same
> email account and everything works fine.
>
> I've tried deleting the account and recreating, but no luck. Short of
> deleting *all* Mail preferences (which I'd rather not do!) I'm stuck as to
> what to do next.
>
> Can anyone suggest anything?
>
>
Sorry to say I've no problems, used IMAP for ages and other than some
times when it's been slow or too much SPAM has got through. Using Mac OS
X mail fully updated.

Pete H

Hans Sluiman

unread,
May 16, 2009, 6:37:12 PM5/16/09
to

No problems here either.

Sara

unread,
May 18, 2009, 10:47:04 AM5/18/09
to
In article <seHPl.29802$OO7....@text.news.virginmedia.com>,
Hans Sluiman <n...@this.address> wrote:

Fine here too.

--
Married and loving it

Chris Ridd

unread,
May 18, 2009, 11:32:23 AM5/18/09
to

No problems here either. What does Mail.app's Connection Doctor say?
Click the "Show Detail" button and then "Check Again" if there are
problems to get loads of debug output. It helps debugging if you're
only checking one account.
--
Chris

Steve Folly

unread,
May 24, 2009, 12:45:14 PM5/24/09
to
On 18/05/2009 16:32, in article 77ddc6F...@mid.individual.net, "Chris
Ridd" <chri...@mac.com> wrote:

To which IP address does imap4.blueyonder.co.uk resolve for you?

I get 62.254.26.203 at home, but at work I get 195.188.53.52. VM say it's
fine due to load balancing and redundancy. Fair enough.

However, I'm narrowing it down, I think...

The Connection Doctor isn't much help here - it only shows the LOGIN
command, and then nothing else.

Apple Mail uses IMAP command tags of the form 'x.y' which the server at
62.254.26.203 seems to barf on (closes the connection). Entourage and
Thunderbird use just 'x', and they work just fine. (Where x and y are
numbers.)

But what's strange is that the server at 195.188.53.52 copes just fine with
command tags 'x.y'.

Simulating Apple Mail on telnet to 62.254.26.203, port 143:

1.1 LOGIN user password

I get 'connection closed by foreign host'. But doing the same thing on
195.188.53.52, I get the response 'logon failure'.

All very weird...!

This problem only started a few weeks ago. I wonder if VM have changed some
configuration somewhere?

Chris Ridd

unread,
May 24, 2009, 1:55:50 PM5/24/09
to

From a VM address, imap4.blueyonder.co.uk resolves to 195.188.53.52.
Interestingly that 62.254.26.203 address belongs to
imap4-gw.blueyonder.co.uk. I get the same resolves from a non-VM
network too.

I'd want to work out why your DNS is resolving a bit strangely. Try
flushing your router's DNS cache? (eg reboot it)

The VM folks in the virginmedia.support.* groups might be able to
explain what these two machines are.

--
Chris

Hans Sluiman

unread,
May 24, 2009, 4:18:33 PM5/24/09
to

Here at home imap4 resolves to 195.188.53.52.

Steve Folly

unread,
May 24, 2009, 4:46:10 PM5/24/09
to
On 24/05/2009 18:55, in article 77tg15F...@mid.individual.net, "Chris
Ridd" <chri...@mac.com> wrote:

Tried that. And connecting directly without a router also gives
62.254.26.203.

Hmmm... how odd... VM gives me 194.168.4.100 and 194.168.8.100 as primary
and secondary DNS servers respectively. The primary ones gives me 62..., the
secondary one gives me 195... for imap4.blueyonder.co.uk!

And, the primary server always returns a cache TTL of 0, which seems a bit
strange?


Which area are you in? I'm hanging off ...ubr16.haye.blueyonder.co.uk

> The VM folks in the virginmedia.support.* groups might be able to
> explain what these two machines are.

Yep - response pending!

Steve Folly

unread,
May 24, 2009, 4:46:48 PM5/24/09
to
On 24/05/2009 21:18, in article
tYhSl.33390$OO7....@text.news.virginmedia.com, "Hans Sluiman"
<n...@this.address> wrote:

> Here at home imap4 resolves to 195.188.53.52.

Which area?

Hans Sluiman

unread,
May 24, 2009, 5:54:56 PM5/24/09
to
Steve Folly wrote:
> On 24/05/2009 21:18, in article
> tYhSl.33390$OO7....@text.news.virginmedia.com, "Hans Sluiman"
> <n...@this.address> wrote:
>
>> Here at home imap4 resolves to 195.188.53.52.
>
> Which area?
>
>

...ubr01.azte.blueyonder.co.uk (Edinburgh)

Hans Sluiman

unread,
May 24, 2009, 5:57:27 PM5/24/09
to

Sorry, that should be ubr21.sgyl.blueyonder.co.uk

Chris Ridd

unread,
May 25, 2009, 2:18:56 AM5/25/09
to
On 2009-05-24 21:46:10 +0100, Steve Folly <modera...@spfweb.co.uk> said:

> Tried that. And connecting directly without a router also gives
> 62.254.26.203.
>
> Hmmm... how odd... VM gives me 194.168.4.100 and 194.168.8.100 as primary
> and secondary DNS servers respectively. The primary ones gives me 62..., the
> secondary one gives me 195... for imap4.blueyonder.co.uk!

Those are the private name server addresses I get too.

Interesting yours are returning different things. They probably shouldn't be.

> And, the primary server always returns a cache TTL of 0, which seems a bit
> strange?

Yep.

> Which area are you in? I'm hanging off ...ubr16.haye.blueyonder.co.uk

Currently I'm in the grim frozen north, aka
osr01soli-v15.network.virginmedia.net.

>
>> The VM folks in the virginmedia.support.* groups might be able to
>> explain what these two machines are.
>
> Yep - response pending!

Fingers crossed.
--
Chris

Steve Folly

unread,
May 29, 2009, 12:11:59 PM5/29/09
to
On 25/05/2009 07:18, in article 77urigF...@mid.individual.net, "Chris
Ridd" <chri...@mac.com> wrote:

>>> The VM folks in the virginmedia.support.* groups might be able to
>>> explain what these two machines are.
>>
>> Yep - response pending!
>
> Fingers crossed.

I wasn't expecting that... Just had a phone call from VM tech support saying
they had resolved the issue ("implemented a fix"). He stayed on the line
until I had verified it was working, which indeed it was. Good service!

Chris Ridd

unread,
May 29, 2009, 1:43:10 PM5/29/09
to
On 2009-05-29 17:11:59 +0100, Steve Folly <modera...@spfweb.co.uk> said:

> On 25/05/2009 07:18, in article 77urigF...@mid.individual.net, "Chris
> Ridd" <chri...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>>>> The VM folks in the virginmedia.support.* groups might be able to
>>>> explain what these two machines are.
>>>
>>> Yep - response pending!
>>
>> Fingers crossed.
>
> I wasn't expecting that... Just had a phone call from VM tech support saying
> they had resolved the issue ("implemented a fix"). He stayed on the line
> until I had verified it was working, which indeed it was. Good service!

Excellent! The VM folks on their news groups aren't half bad.
--
Chris

0 new messages