Email Troubleshooting

Here we'll go through some common troubleshooting tips; you should be able to solve most email problems by following this list.

If you have a specific problem which you don't think is covered here then take a look at the Common Email Problems Guide. If that doesn't help, contact our support team and we'll do our best to help.

1. Check Service Status
2. Check your Settings
3. Check your Antivirus
4. Check your Firewall
5. Contact Us

1. Check Service Status

You'll find that our systems are up-and-running smoothly for the majority of the time, but problems do happen and sometimes we have to take systems down for maintenance.

If we're aware of any major problems, we'll publish information on Service Status so it's worth checking there first.

2. Check your Settings

When entering your email settings, it's easy to miss something out or make a typo - we've all done it!

Make sure your email program is using the following settings:

• Username: your mailbox login name
• POP3: mail.plus.net
• SMTP: relay.plus.net

If you're not sure how to check your settings we've got step by step guides for the most popular email programs here.

3. Check your Antivirus

It shouldn't happen, but if you're using an antivirus program to scan your email then sometimes the scanning can take too long and cause the connection between your computer and our mailserver to timeout. Outlook Express/Windows Mail users may see error messages that like this: 0x800CCC**

Turn off your antivirus program and try again.

If this fixes the problem, you should contact the supplier of your antivirus software for further help. You might need to remove and re-install your antivirus program.

If this doesn't fix the problem, make sure you've checked everything mentioned on this page and contact our support team for more help.

4. Check your Firewall

Sometimes a firewall can block an email program by mistake. If you use a firewall and you're having connection or timeout problems when using email try turning off your firewall for a few minutes.

If this fixes the problem, you should contact the supplier of your firewall software for further help. You might need to remove and re-install your antivirus program.

If this doesn't fix the problem, make sure you've checked everything mentioned on this page and then contact our Support Team.

5. Contact Us

If the steps above have not solved your problem and you've had a look at the Common Email Problems Guide, then the next step is to contact us.

You can call us or raise a support query using the Help Assistant under this path:

Technical Support > Email, Spam, Webmail & News

Choose the heading that's most relevant to what your problem and raise your query to the support team.

Please provide as much information about the problem as you can. It'll be easier for us to help if you can tell us:

• What the problem is
• The email program you use
• The email address you're having problems with
• The settings you've used
• The error messages you see (if any)

This page last updated 15th May 2009