back to article UK2's email still borked

Customers of web hosting firm UK2.net are putting up with yet another day without emails. Of course they're probably used to it by now - email was unavailable for most of last week. We spoke to managing director Martin Baker on Friday. He blamed a storage array failure for the snafu but promised all emails would be moved …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    snafu or fubar?

    personally I think it's a fubar.

  2. redbook

    36 Billion?

    36 billion files? Not too sure what their setup is (2 x USB external drives?) but if my maths is correct, moving 36 billion files at the rate of 1,000 a second would still take over a year.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get what you pay for

    Sorry, but I have no sympathy for people who have problems with their email on some of these cheap hosting companies.

    People will go to the ends of the market place to get a good (read cheap) deal, and then expect this perfect service.

    Customers put huge value on their email and webhosting, but when it comes to hosting those, they go with the lowest cost provider they can find. Showing exactly how much they value their email and websites.

    At the end of the day, something has to give. And usually its the ISPs ability to invest in kit.

    So if you value your email, choose a provider who does actually make a decent margin, and pay a little bit more.

    Same goes for all those Google Mail customers. If you value your email, get a proper solution and pay for it.

  4. Duncan Price

    fubar

    This is really pi$$ing me off - not only have I lost my online address book (fortunately backed up) but also some sent and received mail. The new webmail interface is giving me grief and there is litte on the UK2.net site to tell me what is going on! Only found out the true extent of the problem from El Reg.

    ...at least the webmail is working well enough now to open an account with El Reg to post a comment...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Proper bo

    http://twitter.com/bobendtsen

    UK2 founder asking why Twitter so popular. Perhaps because email not working?

  6. James O'Brien
    Joke

    @1st AC

    Dont forget TARFU :)

    But yes I would agree with you on this.

  7. phil mcracken
    FAIL

    Cheap?! UK2 ain't cheap....

    And it ain't good either.

    Just ditched my server with them for one in the EU at half the cost and with better spec and reliability. Sick of my sites going up and down like the proverbial tart's drawers.

  8. Mark Allen
    Grenade

    Bunch of amatures....

    Network Congestion? Not fscking surprising. One of the accounts I host there has just spat out ALL email I have ever received - which dates back to 2007. 700+ messages being REDELIVERED into my mailbox. Thank gawd I am weird enough to use Opera M2 mail client and it can show the newly arrived email in a different colour. Otherwise I'd of just double the size of my mailstore on the local PC.

    I have also confused a few clients by replying to old 2007 emails as if they came today....

    My own fault really, I have been putting of the migration of my "other" domain names due to their awkward transfer process. This is going to make me finally get my butt in gear and get it sorted.

    The poster above is correct - you really do get what you pay for. The bare minimum costs of UK2 hide the horrendous service. And, of course, they nail you on excessive costs when you try and migrate OUT of their awful system.

  9. JassMan
    WTF?

    What has nudity got to do with email systems?

    From the article ... "Please *BARE* with us as we have all staff working on the ticket queues at present and this will bring you the fastest response to enquiries."

    I thought they ought to be fixing the email system not starting an online naturism site!

    Maybe they think SMTP means "Show Me The P*nis"

  10. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Solution

    It has been a bit of a bummer, all right. As an additional twist, I discovered the hard way that if you have a POP account with them and redirect the address which points at it elsewhere, the mailbox is deleted instantly, losing everything in it.

    In my case I got so frustrated that I emailed my woes direct to Ditlev Bredahl, the CEO. Everyting sorted within 20 minutes. On Sunday morning.

    Incidentally, AC, when things work smoothly (I know, I know) UK2 is really good. This is only the second problem I have had with them in ten+ years. Cheap, i know, but most of the time it Just Works.

    Paris, because if anybody knows about things which go up and down like a tart's drawers ...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Getting what you pay for...

    @ Anonymous Coward 15:52 GMT

    "Sorry, but I have no sympathy for people who have problems with their email on some of these cheap hosting companies."

    So, what's your sure-fire method of ensuring that the more expensive operator you select is any less of a clown?

    I'm sure I'm not alone in being willing to pay more for a better service if there was any recognised means of identify said service in advance (rather than with 5 years good luck and hindsight).

  12. TeeCee Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Re: Solution

    Seconded. Second problem in 10+ years here too. I'm happy to forgive 'em with that sort of record.

    If any of the stuff I was directly responsible for only went pear-shaped twice in ten years, I'd be pretty bloody pleased.....

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Certainly not cheap

    especially for a bunch of rank amateurs.

    Front page link to webmail does not point to new the webmail host

    There is no redirect to new the host

    When you do finally get there you find none of the address books have been ported

    and last but not least they seem to be storing all passwords un-encrypted. A fault ticket will be acknowledged with a message containing both the account name and the password.

    Wow guys take first prize in the dork of the year contest.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @redbook

    "Not too sure what their setup is"

    Doesn't really matter, the backup is a mirror of the MTA's email files, restoring one at a time takes forever, as you'd expect.

    There's better ways of backing up email servers, which I'm sure knowing Ditlev the right people are figuring out - the only issue once the event is dealt with would be to ask why they didn't use a better method in the first place.

    But yeah the issue is it's billions of really tiny files which is inevitably going to take decades.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Easy solution

    MobileMe.

  16. Equitas

    Baring all?

    If high prices guaranteed reliablity I'd happily paid them. However, I've had one full-price ISP go belly-up this year already and indeed had to switch one address to hosting at UK2 as a result.

    As far as I can see, the sundry assorted addresses I have at UK2 are all operating -- though none of them has more there than a forwarding table.

    Technical support, once all-but-non-existent at UK2 does at least now exist. If they can just get suitable staff, the concept of TS baring all could be an interesting feature.

  17. nigelhetherington
    FAIL

    UK2 no responses from technical department

    Since the 6th November I have had no access to my POP accounts. I have sent eleven support request to UK Technical Service and have received no response.

    This is not the first time the UK2 technical support have chosen not to answer support emails. Previously I was forced to write to Stuart Parry to request help from the technical department.

    What sort of s shoddy company will not reply to customers requests for technical support, not reply to eleven support requests over the previous seven days? who UK2 ... probably the worlds worst service provider ... hope the migration away will be less painful!

  18. Dave_H
    Stop

    @nigelhetherington

    Hmm.. let me think - help the person who keeps blithering on and sending increasing anoying emails, or help the little people who are supporting us and not moaning.

    You get the service you grumble for?

    Yes, my email was still not sorted for all of our family accounts last night, but it's quite liberating not having to wade through all the crap every night. When it does come back, I'll just email all the people I want to talk to to let them know of the outage, and to resend their mail, and junk everything else that has come in.

    Second problem in 10 years - that's why I moved my domain hosting to them a few months back!

    Still getting increasing demands of money for service from FNHosting even though I've emailed and snailmailed a total of 14 times to tell them to close the account as I've transferred.

    Now that's what I call bad service!

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