Spark email stability lately?

Forums › Spark New Zealand › Spark email stability lately?

Inphinity

2471 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 910

Subscriber

Topic # 217749 10-Jul-2017 21:41

I'm surprised I've not noticed any other posts about this, which has made me question if it's just me. Is anyone else finding Spark's email service since being migrated to the new platform really slow and unreliable, particularly in terms of webmail performance? I know, I know - yes I have non-ISP accounts, but I still have a bunch of stuff I use this for.

Essentially, the webmail service is unusable as far as I'm concerned between about 6pm and 11pm most days - can usually sign in, but most actions (such as trying to view an email) are greeted with either an orange box saying server unreachable, or a full page message with a retry button, or sometimes it'll show the message headers and in the content area say 'Error while loading message content An unknown error occurred'. I get the same behaviour across multiple devices and multiple connections (e.g. both fibre and 4g). My mail client tends to suffer an increase in timeouts trying to send/receive during this period. During the daytime, it's generally pretty fine.

I'm sure I'll be vilified for this, but to be honest it was far better when run by Yahoo.

Does anybody else encounter this?

Windows 7 x64 // i5-3570K // 16GB DDR3-1600 // GTX660Ti 2GB // Samsung 830 120GB SSD // OCZ Agility4 120GB SSD // Samsung U28D590D @ 3840x2160 & Asus PB278Q @ 2560x1440
Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G900I w/Spark

1 | 2

2563 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 368

Reply # 1819247 10-Jul-2017 22:39

I rarely use the webmail portal but I've had no issues with my Xtra account.

Jolla C
Nokia N1
Nokia N9
Nokia E7
HP Touchpad
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

hio77

'That VDSL Cat'
6430 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1229

Trusted

Spark

Subscriber

Reply # 1819252 10-Jul-2017 22:56

I'm not aware of any large issues of late..

however i also have not been around xtramail stuff for the last month or so...

I'll test throughout tomorrow evening on my personal xtramail account to see if i can't replicate the issue in that time period though once i get in for the evening.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

chevrolux

3122 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 943

Subscriber

Reply # 1819253 10-Jul-2017 23:08

Am i the only one amazed they monitor connections?!

Who cares about the customer details rubbish.

Imagine the stack that does the monitoring!! Must be in the hundreds of thousands of tails it is monitoring. And then to have a team actually able to act on this info, that's even more impressive.

chevrolux

3122 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 943

Subscriber

Reply # 1819254 10-Jul-2017 23:09

...wrong thread sorry.....

hio77

'That VDSL Cat'
6430 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1229

Trusted

Spark

Subscriber

Reply # 1819258 10-Jul-2017 23:16

chevrolux: ...wrong thread sorry.....

hah, was about to ask!

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

tdgeek

9500 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1462

Trusted

Reply # 1819295 11-Jul-2017 06:47

One person supports this post

Inphinity:

I'm surprised I've not noticed any other posts about this, which has made me question if it's just me. Is anyone else finding Spark's email service since being migrated to the new platform really slow and unreliable, particularly in terms of webmail performance? I know, I know - yes I have non-ISP accounts, but I still have a bunch of stuff I use this for.

Essentially, the webmail service is unusable as far as I'm concerned between about 6pm and 11pm most days - can usually sign in, but most actions (such as trying to view an email) are greeted with either an orange box saying server unreachable, or a full page message with a retry button, or sometimes it'll show the message headers and in the content area say 'Error while loading message content An unknown error occurred'. I get the same behaviour across multiple devices and multiple connections (e.g. both fibre and 4g). My mail client tends to suffer an increase in timeouts trying to send/receive during this period. During the daytime, it's generally pretty fine.

I'm sure I'll be vilified for this, but to be honest it was far better when run by Yahoo.

Does anybody else encounter this?

Reading the subject, I assumed this will be for an email client, especially Outlook, not webmail, so I am surprised. I only use webmail. In all there Yahoo days it was 99.9% reliable. SMX, the same. I use it all the time, cannot recall an issue apart from the re sign on once the auto sign in expires, thats normal.

Actually, I recall I have had the odd time when I get a connection fail message on a while screen in a blue box, I click the Retry and all good. Infrequently it may stall on bringing up the UI, I click the browser retry, its there. How often do these happen? Rarely. Maybe once a fortnight based on multi daily accesses.

Do you fully log in each time, and not use auto sign in?

smalltrader

119 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 52

Reply # 1819325 11-Jul-2017 07:57

One person supports this post

No problem with Xtra Email using Webmail and Thunderbird at all in the last two months.

For IMAP client on Android, occasionally I have to initiate manual retrieval of mail, hard to blame this on email server without more investigation.

Inphinity

2471 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 910

Subscriber

Reply # 1819607 11-Jul-2017 14:57

tdgeek:

Actually, I recall I have had the odd time when I get a connection fail message on a while screen in a blue box, I click the Retry and all good. Infrequently it may stall on bringing up the UI, I click the browser retry, its there. How often do these happen? Rarely. Maybe once a fortnight based on multi daily accesses.

Do you fully log in each time, and not use auto sign in?

The blue box on the white screen I get often during the evenings. Sometimes I get it after signing in, sometimes when trying to load a message or folder or search. Just before I posted this thread last night, it just sat on the grey background after login with the 3 'cycling dots' or whatever the loading animation is called for a few minutes then throws the blue box / white screen message for example. I would say that if I spend 30 minutes using webmail in an evening, half of that time is retrying / reloading / refreshing the page to wait for it to work - yet I can go now and it's absolutely fine. I've tried auto sign in, and I've tried different browsers on different devices (as well as incognito / privacy modes). The only thing I don't have to try is a different account. I'm conscious I have quite a lot of content in the mailbox (and particularly the inbox itself - I just use read/unread more than filing things away), and am wondering whether that's impacting it somehow. I might try moving a whole bunch of stuff to some other folders and see if it improves. I guess mainly I have been trying to identify if it's 'me' (or my account) and thus something I can address, versus something more widespread that is not under my control.

tdgeek

9500 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1462

Trusted

Reply # 1819618 11-Jul-2017 15:18

One person supports this post

Inphinity:

tdgeek:

Actually, I recall I have had the odd time when I get a connection fail message on a while screen in a blue box, I click the Retry and all good. Infrequently it may stall on bringing up the UI, I click the browser retry, its there. How often do these happen? Rarely. Maybe once a fortnight based on multi daily accesses.

Do you fully log in each time, and not use auto sign in?

The blue box on the white screen I get often during the evenings. Sometimes I get it after signing in, sometimes when trying to load a message or folder or search. Just before I posted this thread last night, it just sat on the grey background after login with the 3 'cycling dots' or whatever the loading animation is called for a few minutes then throws the blue box / white screen message for example. I would say that if I spend 30 minutes using webmail in an evening, half of that time is retrying / reloading / refreshing the page to wait for it to work - yet I can go now and it's absolutely fine. I've tried auto sign in, and I've tried different browsers on different devices (as well as incognito / privacy modes). The only thing I don't have to try is a different account. I'm conscious I have quite a lot of content in the mailbox (and particularly the inbox itself - I just use read/unread more than filing things away), and am wondering whether that's impacting it somehow. I might try moving a whole bunch of stuff to some other folders and see if it improves. I guess mainly I have been trying to identify if it's 'me' (or my account) and thus something I can address, versus something more widespread that is not under my control.

Not sure if a large mailbox matters so much these days, it used to. I have 5700 in my Inbox (been a bit slack) and its 99+ % fine. Maybe post the browsers and versions for others to comment perhaps. Im sure if it was widespread , we would know from even just GZ

Inphinity

2471 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 910

Subscriber

Reply # 1819627 11-Jul-2017 15:27

tdgeek:

Not sure if a large mailbox matters so much these days, it used to. I have 5700 in my Inbox (been a bit slack) and its 99+ % fine. Maybe post the browsers and versions for others to comment perhaps. Im sure if it was widespread , we would know from even just GZ

Thanks, yeah, I figured I'd have seen something here already if it was more widespread :)

I've tried Chrome 59, Firefox 54, and IE 11 on Windows 7, the same plus Edge on Windows 10, and then Chrome 59 also on Android.

As to items in inbox:

tdgeek

9500 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1462

Trusted

Reply # 1819638 11-Jul-2017 15:43

Inphinity:

tdgeek:

Not sure if a large mailbox matters so much these days, it used to. I have 5700 in my Inbox (been a bit slack) and its 99+ % fine. Maybe post the browsers and versions for others to comment perhaps. Im sure if it was widespread , we would know from even just GZ

Thanks, yeah, I figured I'd have seen something here already if it was more widespread :)

I've tried Chrome 59, Firefox 54, and IE 11 on Windows 7, the same plus Edge on Windows 10, and then Chrome 59 also on Android.

As to items in inbox:

52,103!

Back in the day my mate had Issues in Outlook, 10,000 in there. I guess time to identify and manage the Inbox headers between the Yahoo server and his Outlook. Reducing that fixed it

Webmail, maybe similar, although it doesnt update the full Inbox, as when you scroll it loads. But your issue is logging in. Might be a red herring?

Inphinity

2471 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 910

Subscriber

Reply # 1819644 11-Jul-2017 15:56

tdgeek:

52,103!

Back in the day my mate had Issues in Outlook, 10,000 in there. I guess time to identify and manage the Inbox headers between the Yahoo server and his Outlook. Reducing that fixed it

Webmail, maybe similar, although it doesnt update the full Inbox, as when you scroll it loads. But your issue is logging in. Might be a red herring?

Yeah :) It's a fair few. The issue is not just logging in - it can be anything. Sometimes it will log in OK, but then error when trying to display an email, for example. It's just what appear to be a high proportion of timed-out requests when taking any action, but only seems to be during 'peak' evening hours. I will try to cull back the inbox and see if it helps, since it seems it's a 'just me' thing :)

Oblivian

2019 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 168

Reply # 1819650 11-Jul-2017 16:04

Don't use the webmail portal since the mobile takes care of it.

But sure sick of all the Emails about my apparent apple account needing to be actioned before its removed.

No, no apple account. Just obvious phishing

jaybeedee

39 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

Reply # 1822192 14-Jul-2017 04:36

I agree with the OP.

I am travelling overseas and finding my xtra mail slow and unreliable, both from the mail client on my (android) phone and from the webmail client.

This is when I am on 4G data AND on good WiFi connections. Unfair to compare to gmail, but my gmail is very crisp both through chrome and through the gmail app.

Jase2985

6816 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2172

Subscriber

Reply # 1822195 14-Jul-2017 05:23

i have zero issues with either. very snappy via my android mail client and via outlook.

I work on a ship and when we are away we use a slow satellite connection (512k) and it has a latency between 700 and 3000ms and it still has worked fine. never noticed any issues.

1 | 2