back to article Hotmail still not working? Use Chrome to fix it, says MS

Microsoft has advised Hotmail users struggling to access their email accounts to surf via Google’s Chrome browser in order to successfully connect to the recently overhauled service. The software vendor finally rolled out its latest version of Hotmail to its 350 million users last week, but since then the company has faced …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Umm, hotmail user?

    ""I'm not saying I don't like the new features, but I have very important emails I have needed to reply to for three days now. "

    "Important" emails.... and you're using Hotmail? Seriously, what did you expect?

    1. carrynot
      IT Angle

      Computer locking

      Although I use live mail mostly, I do occasionally access my mail by browser, haven't had any problems yet but did have problems previously with computer locking up completely when using mail.

      I switched to Microsoft Security essentials for my anti virus which resolved the issue, subsequently found AVG Surf Shield did not like my internet access.

      1. Nick Stallman
        WTF?

        Err what?

        Does anyone else have difficulty understanding that last paragraph from carrynot?

        1. John F***ing Stepp
          Gates Halo

          re:Err what?

          I once saw an anti-virus accuse a subnet mask of being a denial of service attack. Some of us, programmers, should be standing in soup lines.

          As far as Mickey Soft's problems go; always test with IE guys. Sure develop in Firefox because it has all the neat debugging tools but afterwords test with IE because that is where the end user will be.

          And if you can get it to work (at all) in IE then you have an almost bullet* proof product. . .

          *If you have to kill a chicken to make it work then maybe it is pullet proof?

        2. burnard

          Yes

          I did.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    No doubt the 57th person to state this...

    "when I open my Hotmail.

    <snip>

    I have very important emails"

    If your emails are that important, dear user, you really shouldn't be using hotmail for them. Get a real email service. You pays your money and you takes your choice. If you pay nothing, expect to get nothing - anything more is a bonus but should not be relied upon.

    1. Tim Bates

      Anything but Hotmail!

      If people want to be tight-arsed about email, anything is better than Hotmail... Get a GMail account if it's that important to be free. Or even Yahoo would be better than Hotmail.

      1. Equitas
        FAIL

        Anything but hotmail?

        I myself don't commit anything of importance to either of my Hotmail accounts.

        On the other hand ...........

        My pop3 and smtp access to GMail was belly-up from last Saturday to mid-day Monday -- and no, it was NOT at my end.

        In the course of looking, during that outage, for a destination to which I could redirect mail from sundry assorted domains I own, I discovered that though the smtp on my Pipex Homecall account works perfectly, the associated pop mailbox wasn't accessible at all. And when it did become available to receive mail it was inaccessible by pop3. Why? Because the server address specified by Pipex Homecall and confirmed by three different (Indian) call-centre droids was wrong. Changing it from the specified pop.homecall.co.uk to pop3.homecall.co.uk made it work.

        And we wont' even begin go into the total chaos caused when Breathe took over Zetnet, thousands lost their email permanently and no contact was possible with any helpdesk whatsoever or via email either.

        I'm afraid that paid ISPs can be just as much problem as those who provide "free" email facilities.

  3. Christopher W
    Paris Hilton

    Chrome first...

    (surprised they didn't recommend using Chrome Frame!)

    First they suggest their users move to Chrome. Can we start placing bets on when they'll migrate hotmail.com over to Google Apps for Business?

    Paris, because even she preferred it when it was called HoTMaiL

  4. bygjohn

    Or they could rub salt into the wound...

    ... and set up a Google Mail account and collect their Hotmail via POP3 :-)

    1. Web Monster

      with any mail client

      that supports POP3. Why bother with a browser?

      1. bygjohn

        I agree

        I just liked the idea of people using their competitor to collect their Hotmail!

      2. Chris 211

        @Web Monster - regarding:with any mail client

        To get email from any kind of device that supports html web access numb-nuts! Internet cafe, work computers, mates computers, someone else's mobile phone! Infact I thought it was getting rare to actually use an email client for personal email, the benefits outweigh using the likes of outlook.

        Seams the hotmail coders have really screwed up, Gmail has worked brilliantly for me from day1, if the connection is slow it says so and offers a html only, low end, low bandwidth option. I would not touch hotmail with a barge pole.

  5. Tim Jenkins

    Does anyone else shudder when they see

    The phrases 'very important emails' and 'my Hotmail' in the same sentence?

    1. LinkOfHyrule

      I thought

      I thought the only reason people had hotmail and yahoo accounts these days was so they could access msn (I refuse to call it windows live whatever-the-nuts it's called) and sign up for spammy forums and news sites?

      I always giggle when I see a business that has a hotmail email address as its main contact email addy! Especially when they have a perfectly good website url they could use! Oh and I giggle harder when I see a hotmail address email actually painted on a van or a shop-front sign!

      1. Atonnis

        Hmm..

        Strange, I get the same giggle when I see a gmail address. My immediate reaction is 'oh, so my email to you is going to be REALLY secure....</sarcasm>'.

        Personally, I think email in general needs a total overhaul, the entire system at the moment is as weak as anything.

        Where it comes to Live Mail I've found a huge increase in spam to my Inbox. Live seems pretty much incapable of recognising the most obvious of spam messages and crap these days.

    2. Christopher W
      Thumb Up

      Certainly

      In the same manner as when I see whiney amateurs complaining about their "important business web sites" not working on their Dreamhost account

  6. A 20

    Chrome works

    I've been unable to read any emails in my Hotmail inbox for the past day or so under the latest release of Firefox; but I'm happy to report that using Chrome *does* fix it here.

    Oddly, the new Hotmail interface did work fine for me under FF initially; so something must have changed in the past day or two.

    I suspect MS has been playing whack-a-bug™ and broken something. That said, the only thing I can remember that's definitely different is that I upgraded to FF 3.6.8 recently. I'd be curious to hear whether older versions of FF 3.6 work with the new Hotmail?

    1. J 3

      @A 20

      Mine is 3.6.8 (under Ubuntu 9.10 though!) and it seems to be working as intended -- I hadn't used my Hotmail account in a long time, and just went there to check. The spam was there, and I deleted it. Tried to compose a message, and it looked fine.

  7. Mike S

    Never thought...

    "My computer completely stalls when I open my Hotmail. Yes, I have the same issue if I use Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Google Chrome. Yes, I have the same problem if I use another computer, and No, I don't see any script errors because my computer freezes as soon as the window is open... but I have very important emails I have needed to reply to for three days now."

    I never thought I would be defending Microsoft, and certainly there are probably cases out there where people are having problems, and I haven't used Hotmail in ages. But...

    I don't believe the account of the women quoted. If a web page can lock up a browser or lock up a computer and make it completely unresponsive, there's a flaw in the OS and the browser. And there aren't nearly as many flaws as there once were. And somehow, Microsoft has stumbled onto one that affects three different browsers simultaneously? No.

    User error is a more likely explanation - at least in the case above. And you have to question the competency of a user who has emails in Hotmail that are so critical.

    1. nickrw
      Grenade

      Re: Never thought...

      I believed her right up until "Yes, I have the same problem if I use another computer", assuming up to then that she was using an old PC that just couldn't cope with the idea of New Things. We've all had to explain that one while performing family tech support.

      Nope, sorry - pass your nearest BOFH your account credentials and they'll show you it logging in nicely, though you might not see those 'important emails' afterwards.

  8. f1rest0rm
    Happy

    Understated Irony

    Loved this ... Reg at it's best :-)

    Some users are furious at Microsoft for rolling out a buggy product without fully testing it first.

    1. Graham Lockley

      Fixed it for you

      Some users are furious at Microsoft for rolling out a free product without fully testing it first.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        For some people

        call them idealists, 'Free' is important. It doesn't and shouldn't equate to 'crap' as it does obviously in your mind. Microsoft have buggy software that they charge for too, so your correction doesn't deal with the problem of Microsoft and bugs

    2. Keith T. Grey, Sr.
      Linux

      And this is new?

      Since when in the last twenty years?

  9. Avatar of They
    FAIL

    EPIC FAIL

    I do hope you didn't contact M$ for comment using their hotmail account. You might be waiting a while.

    Still another story of MS releasing something massive that affects nearly everyone and none of it works for lots of people with little or no support from MS.

    Home server, Vista, Win7 (I still have no usb2) and now hotmail. Hasn't this been in the news before, as part of some other rehash / new service?

  10. jack 6

    What are the odds of this happening?

    "Some users are furious at Microsoft for rolling out a buggy product without fully testing it first."

    Surely not!

  11. ColonelClaw

    Anyone else experienced this behaviour?

    When I log into my Hotmail account (which I only use for forums and 'dodgy' web site registrations) it all looks absolutely fine on Firefox 3.6.8.

    However if I select a mail message to read nothing shows up on the reading pane. This also happens to others in my office.

    I also just tried it in IE8 and experienced the same behaviour, with the added bonus that when I tried to log out it said "Couldn't sign you out We couldn't sign you out because your browser is blocking cookies. "

    Say wha?

    Anyone else experienced these bugs?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Reply to post: Anyone else experienced this behaviour?

      Hmm... I have no issues with it. I am using IE8 though. The new setup does seem to be rather hard on the CPU, but no issues with the content anyway. I rarely use the web client to access Hotmail though.

  12. jack 6

    Why do people stick with it?

    I just don't get why people stay with all this rubbish coding. The comment: "Home server, Vista, Win7 (I still have no usb2) and now hotmail" leaves me to ask two questions, 1, Don't you ever learn? 2. Does usb2 mean user servicable brain?

    I simply can't understand the mentality of continually buying rubbish.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why not

    just use the Windows Live Mail software to access their hotmail account? It's fully integrated IIRC.

  14. tempemeaty
    Big Brother

    New kit or limited access for you

    There is a pretty large number of computer users who can't buy new computers and run old/used ones. I've encountered the fact that all the new browsers scan for the OS type and will bail on the install on the older browsers leaving the users of these somewhat older computers up the creek without a paddle. Therefor creating web-mail that is only compatible with the latest browsers in the last 9-12 months are going to lock out a huge number of web surfers. It's sort of and elitism when you think about it. If you can't afford the latest kit of the year no email and limited surfing for you. This leaves the Internet for only the well to do. Good way to keep the advantages of the Internet out of the hands of those at the economic bottom of things and keep them at the economic bottom.

    1. Tom 35

      Yahoo

      Yahoo mail still support a classic version for people with old crappy computers.

      MS could do that too, but I expect they would rather kick anyone still using Win98 in the butt.

    2. J 3
      Linux

      @tempemeaty

      While I understand your point, even if a little on the loony conspiracy theory side (c'mon, it's not "elitism", it's just that they want to sell more stuff and squeeze people of as much money as possible, i.e. business as usual), I have to point out that I myself do run the latest browsers (except IE and Safari) on an 8 year old computer at home that was donated by a friend who had no more use for it. Everything works fine, even if not as snappy as it is in the dual core computer with 4 GB of RAM I use at work, for example. But I do use an efficient OS.

      Just saying.

  15. The Indomitable Gall

    Overengineered UI.

    When world+dog are starting to browse by Wii, smartphone and netbook, what posessed Microsoft to decide to make the Hotmail UI more reliant on fancy features? It's getting harder and slower to use on a reasonably current desktop machine, but the internet is no longer simply for the desktop PC!!!!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    get what you pay for...

    nuff said,

    1. yossarianuk
      Linux

      Then why does Linux outperform Windows?

      Not true.

      I am know that companies are funding Linux in a variety of ways but to the end user it is free.

      Here is an example of a 'workstation' benchmark (i.e power user) - win7 vs Ubuntu 10.04

      http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_win7_ws&num=1

  17. Test Man
    Thumb Up

    There's an easy way to fix it...

    ... use an e-mail client application like Windows Live Mail or Outlook to access it.

    1. Ned Ludd
      FAIL

      @Test Man

      "There's an easy way to fix it... use an e-mail client application like Windows Live Mail or Outlook to access it."

      Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of having webmail?

  18. Kobus Botes
    Gates Horns

    Cookies, anyone?

    I had a similar problem in mid-January this year, when all of a sudden I could not log on to Hotmail (I know, I know, but I just keep it around to monitor some forums, where it will be too much effort on my side to change) or MSN.

    I could log on once, but returning from a link, or logging on to Hotmail, would give me an error (this is from Mandriva, using Firefox). Any further attempts to log on would be futile. I duly logged it with them, but then discovered , whilst researching the problem, that I could actually get my mail via Pop3, so I just set it up from a Windows machine and henceforth happily ignored My MSN and Hotmail.

    I eventually traced the cause of the problem to a malformed cookie, which I also notified Microsoft of.

    When this story broke, I decided to check what the situation was, and lo and behold! I can now once again log on without any problems whatsoever.

    Oh, by the way, those who are complaining must just show some restraint and patience: Microsoft finally responded in April, to tell me that they are looking into the problem. It was still not working at that time, though and, as said above, I could live without logging on.

  19. DavidShepherd

    Hotmail working so far...

    Of course I've just opened it, but not experiencing errors "yet". See many differences and changes of which some look good so far and others I will have to dig into. Currently testing with Firefox 3.6.3

  20. James Hughes 1

    Nobodies said it yet...

    But I am sure Linux would fix the problem.

    What ever the problem is.

    /Sarcasm (because you just know someone won't get it)

  21. Don Mitchell

    Web 2.0 crap

    Hotmail works fine for me on IE 8. Facebook on the other hand seems to do something different with every browser.

    I don't like the fact that all webites (including hotmail) keep making their pages more and more complex. It's the web 2.0 syndrome, where they feel compelled to replace every default behavior with script that does something slightly different. Suddenly there are drop downs and mouseovers you can't select text you are typing...and god only knows what will happen if you hit the back button. It's not just hotmail that is doing this, it's almost every damn site you visit these days.

  22. yossarianuk
    FAIL

    Hotmail i though that was a 90's thing.

    So people are still using hotmail?

    After about 2 mins using gmail I changed for good.

    Just time how long it takes to a) login and read a message b) login and compose a message in both gmail and hotmail - you would be a fool to keep using it,

    1. Ivan Headache

      It was a 90's thing

      But when I check my mail I see lots of hotmail addresses in received mail.

      The lovely Ivana runs a mailing list for a group of (shall we say 'middle aged') women. More than half of the addresses she sends to are hotmail.

      many users started with hotmail when the alternatives were fiddley to set up and involved incoming mail servers, SMTP, authentication and other such phrases that just scared them off.

      Hotmail was simple. Open a web browser and go to hotmail and get an account.

      They are too scared to change. They know that they only have to open their browser and there's google for finding things* and a click away is hotmail.

      *I'm still amazed by the number of people who open a browser window at google and then type in the web-address of the site they want to go to in the google search box. They are too scared even to type directly into the address bar of the browser. - in fact I've seen some folks open the google page and then type in Hotmail.

      It's Ok for the geeks on here to criticise the woman in the article - but she is typical of many real-world people.

    2. Atonnis

      Simple answer...

      Some of us really don't like Google's policy of scanning every little thing you do in what is supposed to be a private mailbox.

  23. Steve McPolin
    Coat

    Hello, I'm a mac

    [other guy just stand there, not moving, not blinking....]

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Weird ...

    Hotfail works fine here on my Linux lappy in Chrome, Firefox and Epiphany.

  25. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Happy

    Sometimes there's justice

    I know someone who runs his {cough} business via hotmail - several {cough} businesses actually. They will be mightily pissed off by this - couldn't happen to nicer people!

  26. JB
    Thumb Up

    Oh no!

    Logged into my hotmail for the first time for about 5 years using Chrome, and everything worked fine, except all my emails had gone. I was quite relieved, actually, that I wouldn't have to wade though five years' worth of spam from African dictators and Eastern European lovelies. Now, how do ou close your hotmail account??

  27. Herby

    Microsoft Software?

    Has bugs?

    Why you could have blown me over with a feather.

    Are you sure, can you double check that. I've been told that Microsoft doesn't have bugs. Maybe from the head guru himself!

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    mail2web.com

    anyone try using mail2web.com to access hotmail to bypass the script errors?

  29. asdf
    Flame

    all you need to know about hotmail

    M$ used to try and force you to pay for the upgrade to hotmail by limiting your inbox to 10 meg or something like that. Funny how that crap disappeared after gmail came on the scene. I swear at one point it looked like M$ was going to drop hotmail entirely as once they kill off their competitors they lose interest in a market.

  30. James Woods

    ha

    we've globally blocked *hotmail for quite awhile now and our previously spammed to death customers thank us for it.

    whatever amount of mailboxes hotmail claims to have probably 2/3 of it are simply spammer dumps. we see thousands of rejected hotmail emails every week to a handful of spamtraps we have setup.

    what I can't understand is why all the web browsers don't work with their new interface. they are using standardized web code that can easily be validated by a third party (sarcasm).

    I guess we're all going to be forced to use google chrome now to browse the interwebz since it's became trendy to see the internet how developers deem fit rather than the method we've enjoyed for years that's permitted us to get this far without pulling our hair out.

  31. Doug Glass
    Go

    Naaawww ...

    Works fine; all three accounts. What's wrong with you people? This is Microsoft! Just works!

  32. Doug Glass
    Go

    This is Microsoft ...

    ... why all the raised eyebrows and incredulous comments? This is Microsoft! Did anybody really expect anything different? Actually I think it's funny as hell.

  33. andy 103

    atdmt redirect

    I had a strange problem with Hotmail when they rolled out the new version. In Firefox 3.6, immediately after logging in the browser tried to redirect me to atdmt.com (or a subdomain of it).

    I Googled this and found it's to do with a tracking cookie and there are some settings you can make in your hosts file to block it. What's strange though is that when you use IE 7 or IE 8 you don't get that problem. It has since started to all work properly in Firefox again, so I've no idea what happened with it - was it a deliberate attempt to switch people to IE? Confusing if they're recommeding Chrome.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    It's steve time

    MS need to get Steve Balmer to appear in a black turtleneck and jeans at a hastily organized press conference and state defiantly there is NOTHING wrong with hotmail, and that it is all the fault of the users for holding their mouses wrong.

    Steve Jobs because he would never let a buggy product like this hit the market.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    email

    gmail for forums and other social applications

    hosted email for banks and other financial applications

    sorted.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    No issues here

    *shrug* didn't even notice any hiccups no matter what browser I use.

    Over the past 13 odd years or so I have had to rely on my Hotmail acct for work purposes on the odd occasion and yes I would most defintely not build a business that relys on it but in fairness to M$ I have never had anything more than minor issues with Hotmail.

    As folks say you get what you paid for and well I am a fairly happy customer given that fact..

    Beer to anyone who even if they had an issue didn't start whinging to M$ about a freee product; lets see those ppl setup a web based email system for millions of ppl globally and see how they do.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Phishing in progress?

    Never even got as far as entering a password, even with a screen.

    Saw a mid.live.com redirect. Got a different login page with subtle difference to

    that provided from live.com login. Akamai "man-in-the-middle" Verisign SSL certificate

    WITH NO MICROSOFT ID on the browser bar.

    I strongly recommend that anyone entering their details CHECK CAREFULLY where

    their login details ACTUALLY Went! Assuming you have history etc.

    Massive changes to code, released too quickly before CAREFULL checking are fertile ground for Phishing attacks.

    Not reported. To hell with them. They deserve to lose a significant proportion of

    their user base.

    Comments from a web pen./ security analyst willing to give M$ their time for free?

  38. Daniel Voyce
    Thumb Down

    Atrocious interface - Trying too hard = fail!

    I cant stand the new hotmail interface, I don't use it reguarly - it is just an old email account before I (wisely) made the switch to Gmail - its clunky and ugly - do they not understand people want simple clean interfaces?

  39. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Hotmail? Why?

    Is there, was there, will there ever be, a reason to use Hotmail?

    Sounding like something that can't make up its mind whether it is marketing itself to teenagers or providing a porn service is not a great way to get taken seriously.

    Even Yahoo! has it beat, hands down, exclamation marks up...

  40. xyz Silver badge
    FAIL

    My solution

    A friend of mine has the problem of everything freezing and memory munching when she tries to go to her inbox using her hotmail account.

    When I do it on my hotmail account on the same machine everything is fine !

    So same browser, same ISP just different accounts.

    I found out on her account if you click the inbox using "open in new tag" the problem vanishes.

    HTH, because otherwise it's a reboot job usually.

  41. Slasher
    Paris Hilton

    Bugs from m$? Of course!

    I have problems with messenger now. It won't load in Opera 10.53 and Firefox 3.6.8. That's on XPSP3 and Linux. IE6 works OK. Yeah, the company are upgrading very shortly so bye bye IE6!

    I have had the Couldn't sign you out 'cos your browser is blocking cookies error for a while. I only use hotmail because I can chat with others on Messenger. Chat clients won't work at work so have to use browser version which probably won't work when we get WIn7 later this month.

    Paris - she's got no bugs!

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