Orcon email vanished!

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Orcon email vanished!

hawkz25

45 posts

Geek

#70715 29-Oct-2010 10:00

Hi there,

I went to check my email last night (using windows live mail) and found that all my emails are gone. I used IMAP so I didn't have to store my emails on my laptop in case of failure (lazy backuper... i know.. i know)

I checked and double checked my mail client and can't see any of the mail at all. I have several years worth of email with some personally important messages that I'm not keen on losing.

Before everyone says did you make a backup, the answer is no- I stupidly felt safe that my email would remain intact on orcon's mail servers.

Not that it should make a difference, but I am not with Orcon anymore, I once was but left and am using the lifetime email account.

I have sent an email to Orcon but not phoned yet as this disaster was discovered afterhours last night. I will be calling them today.

Has anyone else had their mail vanish?

thanks

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5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#397221 29-Oct-2010 11:02

Same problem for me, ex Orcon customer with IMAP through Thunderbird. Other accounts in thunderbird untouched, all emails gone from webmail but can send and receive new mail, no response from Orcon support yet.

hawkz25

45 posts

Geek

#397227 29-Oct-2010 11:11

thanks for replying, I'm glad im not alone. There's one other person on gameplanet who has the same issue. They were told they were SOL, pretty poor form really.

xurizaemon

153 posts

Master Geek

#397250 29-Oct-2010 11:46

Yep, this happened for another Orcon customer I work with yesterday (an organisation with thousands of members and hundreds of email accounts on their domain, as it happens). Emails stopped delivering mid afternoon, and this morning Orcon reported that the emails received for their domain from then until early evening had been lost.

A search for "Orcon" on Twitter shows that there are a few folks similarly affected (but clearly not everyone).

Orcon are active in this forum so I'm sure they'll be able to shed some light on the situation if they are inclined.

Biggest worry for me (as an Orcon customer who wasn't directly affected by this, but more so as a person who provides technical support to several companies who use Orcon as an ISP and mail service) is that on two occasions this month, their email routing has died, and both times they have not made any mention of it on their Network Status page.

(In fact, on the 5th October outage, they said specifically that "core services were not affected". Mail hosting isn't a core service? I think most customers would expect otherwise.)

The equipment needed to be replaced to restore services, and whilst Orcon’s core network remained operational, some Orcon customers could not access the internet for around 30 minutes.

Outages happen, and customers accept this, but my preference is for a company who are capable of being open and straight up about any issues as and when they happen. I don't think Orcon have significantly more outages than other companies; I've come away from this experience with a much reduced sense of trust in Orcon, which makes me a bit sad, as they've been a great supplier over many years & represented good things about the NZ ISP industry.

hawkz25

45 posts

Geek

#397255 29-Oct-2010 11:52

I'm sure someone from orcon has already looked here and is thinking "No way am I stepping in here"

I'm very unhappy about this, it's so unprofessional.

touch

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#397262 29-Oct-2010 11:59

Orcon support via phone: emails are "not recoverable"

xurizaemon

153 posts

Master Geek

#397278 29-Oct-2010 12:22

"The outage resulted in 266 people losing their emails.Engineers here are working to understand whether or not we can retrieve it ^CS" - http://twitter.com/Orcon/status/29032939619

xpd

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#397280 29-Oct-2010 12:27

Odd, Im not seeing Orcons tweets on Tweetdeck :-/

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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bameron

305 posts

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2degrees

#397282 29-Oct-2010 12:31

Hey guys,

Cam (^CP from Twitter) here. We've updated our network status page to include details on the email outage.

http://www.orcon.net.nz/support/network_status

Cheers,

Cam

robbyp

1199 posts

Uber Geek

#397287 29-Oct-2010 12:41

You have to keep your own local backup too. Unless you have got at least two copies of files, you don't have a backup. Pretty sure it will say something like that in their terms. However you would also expect orcon to have an archive of backups. My host keeps 15 days of consecutive backups.

redjet

299 posts

Ultimate Geek

#397319 29-Oct-2010 13:29

I still find it amazing that people use ISP's for email in this day and age with excellent email offerings from the likes of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. I'm not suggesting that these companies will never lose your emails but you'd think they'd have a lot better backup and DR policies and procedures in place than your local ISP.

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robbyp

1199 posts

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#397326 29-Oct-2010 13:36

redjet: I still find it amazing that people use ISP's for email in this day and age with excellent email offerings from the likes of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. I'm not suggesting that these companies will never lose your emails but you'd think they'd have a lot better backup and DR policies and procedures in place than your local ISP.

I believe even googles gmail has lost their customers email before. It is a problem with the whole cloud computing

model.

At least you can download your email to back it up. However some hosted cloud applications don't have this option.

nzkiwiman

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#397328 29-Oct-2010 13:40

When I read this, its makes me glad that I still use POP and know how to backup my PST and OST files from Outlook so that things are not lost as long as I have downloaded my email.

I also find it annoying (this goes to many companies) that Twitter and Facebook have become THE place for technical support over help desks and website pages. Some of us have not brought into these two fads yet.

freitasm

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#397331 29-Oct-2010 13:43

robbyp: I believe even googles gmail has lost their customers email before. It is a problem with the whole cloud computing model.

But I do believe Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! put a lot more effort in making it work...

ardvark

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#397332 29-Oct-2010 13:46

Very very annoyed with Orcon, all emails from 3 years lost (both emails in, and emails sent), used IMAP for my email (as recommended by orcon when I set up account with them) - and was assured by them it would be backed up and not lost.

However my real concern was loosing emails I had not read yet and did not know who sent them to me.

I know I had 18 emails waiting for me to read yesterday - I only got to see three of them before the failure. I dont know who sent me the remaining 15 and given I am trying to complete a major item of writing and was waiting on feedback from the US i dont know if that was in those 15 emails or not....

After 40mins on hold last night was told it was a known issue and that it would be corrected.

Yet only late this morning did they post something on their website saying the issue even existed.

I have been used email for 15 years and have a heap of computer experience with a number of internet providers and its how an organisation reacts when their systems have a failure that counts. If they cant cope restoring emails (which you would think they would have to keep a record of in case of criminal activity etc) then what hope have we got depending on them for more complex challenges.

Their performance and service levels have dropped as rapidly as their customer base has grown and I am very annoyed as I had recommended them to family and friends.

If it "only" impacts 230 customers then you would think they would be able to out the effort in and recover the data. And what reassurance are they going to give us that it wont happen again - what was the cause....

Given that Telecom has just planted a roadside box across the road from me its very tempting for me to switch back - the service can only improve from what I am getting (or not getting) at the moment.

And Orcon need to add a disclaimer clearly on their website and on their support pages noting that their IMAP system can experience total failure and emails would not be recoverable, in fact I dont think they should offer IMAP at all if they cant support it.

A

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#397334 29-Oct-2010 13:47

What's even harder to believe is that no backup existed?

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