Yahoo! Mail Problem
The reason for posting this blog is that there was nothing on Google Search or Blogsearch for a particular painful and frustrating problem. So if someone is facing this same issue, I hope this can help them.
The last couple of days, I have been having problems accessing my Yahoo! email. The symptoms were as follows:
- When I type http://mail.yahoo.com/, I get the login page as usual.
- I type in my user name and password, but the browser stays without showing a page for a long time, probably like 5-10 minutes.
- Finally, it comes back with an "internal error server connection terminated" error. There is nothing else on the page.
- This happened in Internet Explorer. So I tried clearing out the browsing data using "Delete all" option within Internet Explorer 7.0. Same result.
- I tried using Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers. Same problem.
- I tried on another computer (Windows XP, IE & Firefox). No success.
- Then I asked my wife to login on the same computers and she was able to do so. I realized this was a problem with my login.
I tried unsuccessfully for a solution on various sites. There were very few results with this error. And in those pages, the persons expressed their frustration and intention to move to Gmail. I gave up and went back to some other work.
A few hours later, I tried again and was surprised to find that I was able to login again. I thought of it as an aberration. A few hours later, the problem came back. I had to check if any emails came. So I went to the My Yahoo! Beta page, but the web part for Mail did not show any information and showed an icon indicating it was trying to retrieving information. I switched to the old My Yahoo! view and I could now see the list of emails. Clicking them yielded the same problem as before.
I tried again after sometime and finally got the following screen with the text "contact Customer Care about Error Code 1" hyperlinked to a form that allowed me to submit my username and secondary email address. I tried searching for "Error Code 1" on Google, but didn't find anything useful.
An hour or so later, I tried again and this time I was able to login. There was an automated email from Yahoo! that read, "Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care. We received your question and the wheels of progress are in motion. A support rep will get back to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, please visit our online help center (http://help.yahoo.com/), if you have not already done so. You'll find a lot of good information there."
Two and a half hours after that, I received another message (which seems to be written instead of automated) that read,
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care. Sorry to hear you had problems accessing Yahoo! Mail. We jumped on it, and hopefully the temporary problem is now taken care of. If you're still having issues, please reply to this email to let us know. You can also try returning to Yahoo! Mail and pressing the Reload or Refresh button on your browser, then logging back in.
Much Appreciated,
The Yahoo! Mail Team
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Mail.
Regards,
Yahoo! Customer Care
I am very puzzled at the whole chain of events. Although I have a lot of emails, I don't use that much space as I get rid of the funny forwarded attachments and miscellaneous junk items I get. I don't have the latest Messenger-integrated Yahoo Mail, although I am using the new beta version. I suppose a possibility would be a scheduled maintenance that may have got disrupted when I logged in at unholy hours.
Although the timing of the support email (received sometime after the problem went away) did not add up, if what the Yahoo! Mail team said was true, it looks like they know what the problem is and how to fix it. That is a good sign and probably it may not happen again.
27 comments:
if u r connecting thru an improperly configured proxy, such things can happen..thats what i've heard :)
Thanks for the comment, Ajith. I thought about that, but I tried from different computers on different networks, but I had the same problem. But my wife was able to use the same computer to login. Also later the problem went away without any change on my part.
Just switch to Gmail, problem solved.
@anonymous
Gmail has its outages, too. Besides, I have a lot of existing emails and contacts already in Yahoo!
You are not crazy. I have been a Yahoo Mail user for seven or eight years and the service has been unacceptably bad over the past week or so. This has occurred on our Mac, using Firefox and Safari, and on my Dell laptop using Internet Explorer. The same locking up problem you described is happening to me. Tonight I have been unable to get to my mail at all. Another issue has been trying to sign out of one mail account to another (my wife's). This has been impossible.
Yes, I also have a Gmail account but use it only for family/personal use... not e-commerce.
David, this may have to do with some Yahoo! Mail upgrades too. I just noticed that they have now integrated the Messenger interface within Yahoo! It is quite possible that the problem will go away soon.
this is happening to me too at this very moment.
so i googled to find and answers and landed here.
very frustrating as i hav a business email to tend to ASAP.
@anonymous
Sorry to hear about your problems with Yahoo! Mail. Hope they fix the issue soon and you are able to get back to your work.
I'm having the same problem. I wrote to Yahoo's help, got the "we jumped on it" responses a few times, with no change in result.
Then I got a different response from Yahoo help, and although I can't get into mail yet, am now getting this error:
Firefox can't find the server at us.f999.mail.yahoo.com.
The problem happens with all browsers (Camino, Safari, Firefox), on Mac and PC platforms (with IE7).
It is NOT related to browser or IP or firewall issues, since my husband can sign in to my.yahoo on any of our home machines or at work, in any browser, and get to his yahoo mail. HIS mail comes up at us.f560.mail.yahoo.com, I notice.
@anonymous
I think the problem is that Yahoo! is migrating your data to a new format and they have not fixed all the chinks in the migration program.
I get this error msg: Warning: mail() [function.mail]: Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set() in C:\xampp\htdocs\www\yahoo\processing.php on line 16 .
Don't know waht to do..if i go on my laptop i can get my emails..but i cant from this one..it's been like this for 2 days now:(
@anonymous
I think this has to do with some internal programming error on the Yahoo! server you are being redirected to.
I think it may help if you contact Yahoo! customer support at http://help.yahoo.com/fast/help/ca/mail/cgi_feedback. They may probably tweak your account.
Is it something to do with the loading of pictures - I turned this off in IE and managed to load up so at least I can see messages etc...
@anonymous
I don't think images is the problem. I have seen Yahoo! Mail load up with images disabled sometimes (without any change to IE configuration). Should be a server issue and it would go away soon.
I have the same problem all the time and its not anything wrong on my end, I am a network engineer at a big hospital, So I know networking. The problem is on Yahoo's side.... I have not contacted anyone is support because I know it would be a waste of time. I just wish they would fix it!
@anonymous
Yes, apparently they know how to fix the problem, but they have either been doing it slowly or not doing it until someone complains.
I'll bet they take notice if everyone on this blog sends an email to Yahoo! customer support at http://help.yahoo.com/fast/help/ca/mail/cgi_feedback
Thanks for posting this info Thought Clusters - thought I was doing something wrong.
It's now 3½ months later, but would you believe: these problems continue.
I've had a minor hiccup with Yahoo a couple of weeks ago, but it seemed to be back to normal (except that I'm biting my nails because an email from an editor may have been lost).
Today, the service is utterly unacceptable: the browser (Firefox) returns constant messages that it can't contact uk.f272.mail.yahoo.com. It'd definitely their fault!
Like you, I have relied on Yahoo for years, and I'm loathe to change all my contacts, plus it doesn't seem professional.
@denni
Could be a problem with the Yahoo! Mail beta to live conversion. A few weeks back, I had severe problems myself.
Wow, this thread started in June and I still have these problems with Yahoo mail every day now. Anyone know when Yahoo intends to fix it? Or is Yahoo Mail finally dying?
I am having Yahoo Mail issues as well. I normally use Outlook for a mail client to my Yahoo account. Quite frequently it can send but not receive. Then all of the sudden it will receive the same old messages over and over, creating dups in my inbox. Then it will be hours before being able to receive again. I have verified my POP3 and SMTP settings. So, I go to the web UI and try to do my emails from there. Many times the main inbox page errors out, if not - I get an error when reading a message, if not - I get an error when sending or replying. I refresh or close out of IE and get back in and sometimes it works (or one step will) but most of the time something fails. I have cleared my browser's cache. I have tried this from various computers (all Windows-based, but different flavors of Windows and different IE versions). I have tried from my broadband connection at home, my Verizon wireless card and from various work locations around the country - so I know it is not my network or related infrastructure. The sad thing is that this is not a free account - I pay Yahoo for their 'premium email service'. I cannot simply change providers at this point - I have had this account for years and use it for personal as well as work. If anybody figures out what the scoop is - I would be totally in your debt...
Are you using the Yahoo! Mail classic version or the newer version? In the recent past, I have been using the new version of Yahoo! Mail on Internet Explorer 7.0.
The main problem I have faced is that you need to wait for a few seconds (usually 15-20 seconds) after you log in until the Inbox has fully loaded. If you don't do that, then I have seen errors coming up.
I am using Mail Plus (the new one) from the website, but am also having problems using Outlook.
Krish - are you saying that if you don't wait the 15-20 seconds when logging in - that may come back to haunt you later in the session when you are replying to a message? It seems strange that sometimes showing the inbox list, opening-up an individual message and entering my reply text works fine and then after I click on the 'send' button I get that lovely "You've stumbled upon a temporary problem we're having with Yahoo! Mail."...I have been having this problem over the last couple of months - doesn't appear to be "temporary".
I didn't face any issue after the Inbox fully loaded.
I would suggest contacting Yahoo customer support. They helped me through my last issue.
Ok - I'll check with those guys - thanks!
I have been having problems with yahoo for several days. I was able to get on yahoo from my desk top but not my lap top. Called DSL provider was told to call Dell on phone with them for 4hrs for 2 days finally uninstalled windows & reinstall lost all my doc.'s & files back-up didn't work. Still having problems loading yahoo and keep getting an error box that says "There was a problem retriveing weather data please try again later" click OK comes right back up again.
I get those weather errors from time to time. Just wait a few seconds after you sign in, and normally it should be okay.
The weather gadget is located near the top right when you log in. Sometimes resetting the location helps too.
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