When will Telstra webmail loading issue be fixed - it's been over a month

[asdlong]

I have been watching the forums but have not seen any answers. We rely on webmail for our business and personal emails and have tried forwarding them all to another email without success. Please advise how we can access our emails ASAP as we have not been able to load them for over a month and are missing bills and business requests. Thank you

[Jupiter · Accepted solution]

I will point out that Telstra Webmail is not a suitable product for business purposes and you should look at proper business grade hosting (there are some quite affordable options out there).

But to get to your emails, you will need to use an app such as Outlook or Thuderbird (which is free). Instructions on how to set them up can be found in the links included in the message from the outages page (see below).

Some customers attempting to login into webmail (email.telstra.com) may be experiencing delays in sending, receiving or webmail loading during busy periods of the day. This is because one of our email servers is currently experiencing technical issues. The situation has been improving, however we are aware that some customers may still be experiencing delays. As an alternative customers can access their BigPond email through mail programs via the PC, Tablet or Phone. For guides on how to set this up, please visit: https://www.telstra.com.au/support/category/email/how-to/set-up-windows (Windows) https://www.telstra.com.au/support/category/email/how-to/set-up-mac (Mac) or https://www.telstra.com.au/support/category/email/how-to/set-up-mobile (Mobile). If you are still experiencing issues please contact us for assistance via https://tel.st/75wrx

[Dowser]

If you follow Jupiter’s advice, be sure to use the IMAP  settings (rather than POP) so that you can access your emails across multiple devices in a synchronised fashion.

[fowlerd]

I can live with the slowness for the moment but at the beginning I lost a folder "Insurance" and have tried to find any of it in Trash.  How do I get my folder back?  I need it.  Please help

[DLR]

I have been using Outlook for Mac using the pop3 server (this is a deliberate choice based on the way I want to store my messages).

I stopped syncing to this account due to the server issues.

If I create a new imap account to sync with the server, will the pop3 account be affected?

I would like to keep the messages that I have selectively saved in the pop3 folders. Then if I only sync the imap account, all the server messages (even old ones I had deleted from 18 months ago, but somehow are reappearing over and over again) will be dumped into the inbox, and then I will be able to 'bulk' delete them. The messages I would have wanted to keep will still be in the pop3 account.

Is my thinking correct? Will it work?

[Greggles1]

Not really a satisfactory response - Bigpond had been working quite satisfactorily for the business and personal emailing that I required for over a decade, there is now an issue that was not there previously and it is not being rectified. The complex solution of rerouting emails to another source which by the way is so convoluted I defy anyone but the most technically minded to be able to negotiate it, is a poor excuse for not being able to fix the issue. You have been providing a service that people have had faith in and become reliant on and designed their lives around and then pull the rug form under them. It's simply not good enough and it feels like Telstra is actually falling apart in the new Covid world where in fact they are one of the best placed businesses to shine a this time.

[conraft]

Even when using Mac Mail, the downloads are painfully slow, 6 weeks is more than enough time to fix your server issues Telstra, you will lose customers

[Dowser]

What is interesting is the email outage page at 
https://outages.telstra.com/#/email?pageSource=home

states “There are no confirmed interruptions”

[conraft]

I'm not sure how you get that reply when your company repeatedly says they have an issue with certain servers. I cannot use Webmail, it times out and does not load all my emails, and it affects the speed of mail downloads to my Mac and Iphones. You guys really need to get it together.

[Jupiter]

The notice is at the top of outages.telstra.com

Not sure why it's not showing on the actual email page. 

[Dowser]

---

@Jupiter wrote:

The notice is at the top of outages.telstra.com

Not sure why it's not showing on the actual email page. 

---

Yes, I saw that.

When will the outage issues be finalised?.

[Dollydoo]

Have had an error message on my Mac mail since 9 August. This is how I look at all mail accounts.

hate having to log in on Webmail to access my bigpond emails, which is now the only way. 
Hard to get a person when ringing up for help,  just automated system that hangs up on you.

so angry- no help- useless company. I plan to merge over and NEVER USE TELSTRA AGAIN. 

[Greggles1]

I keep seeing this comment that Bigpond is not appropriate for business purposes. No one at Telstra Business happened to mention that when they canvassed me to set up an all encompassing Business account for our phones, emails and internet. This smacks of a company trying to shift people to a service they make more money from. Bigpond has worked perfectly for me for years up until the last couple of months. Lame excuse really that it is not appropriate for business - just get it working as it was and we will all be happy again.

[SteveW_52]

A lot of people here on CrowdSupport are not Telstra agents, they are just customers like you, trying to help other customers.  Telstra agents will have a Telstra logo next to their screen name.

[jrnsk]

Hi.  I had a tech come to see why my outlook was failing to receive emails (to my bigpond.net.au account) and receiving occasional old (previously seen emails from weeks earlier) and he advised that Telstra, as well as the other providers of server-based system, is steadily winding up these systems and I could either watch further decline or start moving away from bigpond.  When this slow up happened before I used to go to Webmail and delete all the old emails that were just clogging up the box and it would be fine again - only problem now is that I haven't been able to log into Webmail for ages, or it simply times out when I can.  Anyone else having this issue?

[Jupiter]

The consumer grade Telstra Mail isn't suitable for running a business on as there is no guarantee on uptime or fault rectification.

Telstra do supply business grade email services that have SLAs. You would need to speak to your account manager to find out which type you have.

[conraft]

All very well to say that but if I need to delete old mails from the server I can’t do that because you product does not load all my mail. What happens when I reach 10gb max? Does it just stop working?

[Jupiter]

Not my product - I don't work for Telstra.

When it reaches the 10GB limit it stops working.

If your Mac or iPhone is still connecting (and you have set them up as IMAP connections), then if you delete emails they will be deleted off the server (remember to empty the Trash folder afterwards).

[Williej]

This does not answer the question which is about routing mail from a company domain to Telstra mail  facilities on my personal account.

I use Outlook which does speed things up but does not resolve the issue of my company emails not rerouting to my Telstra account.

The message says  -

Each of the following recipients was rejected by a remote mail server.

This is a Telstra backend failure and is unacceptable

[Jupiter]

Yes, your correct. But if you'd asked about it,  then you might get a response. Your issue sounds totally different to what this thread was addressing. We are not mind readers here and cannot preemptively answer a question that you have not asked. 

Can you provide more details about the error that you receive? Is there an error code? Does the header information in the email tell you where the error message is being generated from?

[Williej]

If you read my comment then you will notice that the referral is to a previous comment, one you responded to.

You will also notice that my problem is that Telstra routers are not handling the rerouting of  emails from my company account emails (domain hosted by Telstra) to my personal bigpond queue. I think my requirement is obvious from that.

How can it be fixed and what is Telstra up to?

[Williej]

Further in rereading the originating post the problem alluded to is exactly the problem queried.

Facetious responses not appreciated.

[Jupiter]

You should have said that your company mail was hosted by Telstra. That is a totally different kettle of fish.

Now, if you provide the extra details that I asked about, then we might be able to help figure out what is happening. Otherwise, I've got nothing to go on, as the only other way to assist would to be from your computer.

[Williej]

This Message was undeliverable due to the following reason:

Each of the following recipients was rejected by a remote mail server.

The reasons given by the server are included to help you determine why each recipient was rejected.

    Recipient: <will@advancedmatting.com.au>

    Reason:    5.1.1 Relay denied for will@advancedmatting.com.au via 203.38.21.104

[Williej]

Mail to my bigpond account from my company domain is accepted.

However mail from my bigpond address to my company address is rejected per the message in my immediately previous post.

This sounds like a router failure to me and my query is when it will be fixed..

[Jupiter]

Well, there are two parts to the answer.

The first is, nobody at Crowdsupport has access to Telstra's systems, so if there is a fault, we can't find out when it will be fixed.

The second part is that the usual reason for that type of error message is that you are trying to send the messages using the wrong account. Start by making sure that the "From:" field is using your personal account details. The Telstra Mail server will not accept your business account credentials as your business account is hosted on the Webcentral (Melbourne IT) server.

[Williej]

I have been using it all as currently set up for years. The basic stuff is not the problem. 

I am finding it hard to locate Telstra support. It is opaque on their site. What is the best way to get Telstra support??

[Jupiter]

The best way is to send a message using the My Telstra app on your mobile (blue icon, bottom right of Get Help screen). If Codi redirects you, type "Speak to a consultant" and you should be transferred to the queue to chat with a human. It can take a few (business) hours to get an initial response, but you get a notification through the app when they do.

You could also try Livechat, but you need to keep the window open the entire time.

[Williej]

Thanks for your help.

I have already tried both and 48 hours later am still waiting for a response. I will persevere.

[saphrock]

Well I am having the same trouble with my home account, and it has been going on the last few months, been getting worse since the NBN was connected, why am I paying for a service that does not provide what it advertises