Help With Email
Connectivity Problems
With any connectivity-related problem you're experiencing with your email or
web services, if it is not a known issue, there are a few standard steps we'll
go through with you first to begin to diagnose your problem. If you've already
done these before you contact us, it will help us identify and fix your problem
as quickly as possible.
- Make sure it's not your internet or network connection. To do this,
open your web browser and try accessing some of the biggest sites on the
web: google.com, yahoo.com, and msn.com. If you don't regularly visit
one of those, choose that one to ensure you're not loading from your cache.
- If the above test fails, check your network. Go to Start > Run, and
type in "cmd" (no quotes). In the command prompt window, type "ipconfig
/all" (again, no quotes). If you get an error, or if your IP address
begins with something like 169., or shows up as 0.0.0.0, then restarting
your system and/or router may fix the problem.
- If your internet connection is fine, and you're using an email program,
completely exit the program and reopen it. This usually helps if your
mail program seems to be locked up. Restarting your computer should do
the trick if your email program won't completely close.
Keeping Your Email Running Smoothly
Here are some general tips on how you can keep your email running in peak
condition with as little risk of user-generated error as possible.
- Avoid accessing your email through a mail client and your webmail at
the same time. This is not to say you can't do this, but being logged
into the same account via POP and webmail simultaneously, can make both
perform slowly.
- A full mailbox performs poorly. You can do this automatically by
setting your mail program to delete messages automatically after X days.
Keep in mind that this is not X days after the email is received, it is X
days after the mail program with that setting downloads the message. This
will keep you from having you delete messages manually when your account
is full.
- Use your spam filters. The webmail system has some good and completely
customizable spam filters that can help you keep your mailbox size low by
rejecting junk messages. We suggest bouncing suspected junk rather than
outright deleting it because junk filters have been known to erroneously
flag legitimate messages as junk. Bouncing them will let the sender know
that their message was rejected. If the messages are simply deleted,
senders will never know that you never got their email.
Problem: My email is taking forever to download
If you've been waiting a while for your email to download and haven't gotten
an error, there's a good chance that either A) your email program has locked
up; or B) your email program is fine, but you may have received a large email
that is taking some time to download; or C) you've received one or more large
emails or have a really full inbox, and you're trying to get your mail using
your email program and through the webmail simultaneously.
Patience is key here. If you have a large message, don't hit send/receive
multiple times, as this can actually restart the download, making it take
even longer. First ensure that you're not also logged into the webmail on
the same account. Our mail system has a 10MB attachment limit, so if you are
downloading a message that big and it takes more than 5 minutes, there's a
good chance that your network is oversaturated or your internet connection is
slow. Go get some fresh air, a cup of coffee or whatever, and come back in a
bit. If after 10 minutes you still have nothing, it's time to do something
more drastic. Your email program needs to be completely closed. This can
be tricky since a mail program that is actively downloading doesn't usually
like to close before it's done. The solution, restart your system. Then,
do not open your mail program, but instead, open your browser and go to
your webmail. Find the offending messages and download the attachments from
there. Save the message content, and delete the message. Log out of the
webmail and open your mail program. Everything should be back to normal.
If you're having network or internet grief that makes email take longer than
it should, you might want to try configuring your email program at that
location to use IMAP rather than POP. Mail clients using POP download
complete messages, one at a time. IMAP is great for people on a slow
connection because it downloads headers only and makes hundreds of messages
appear to come in at lightning speed. Then, messages are downloaded in their
entirety on an on-demand basis, when you click on them. You can also mark
certain messages for download, so larger messages will be ready when you are.
However, unlike POP, where your email program's copy of your messages is
treated as authoritative, IMAP treats the server's copy of your messages as
authoritative. This means that if you use IMAP, you'll have to either clean
old messages off the server manually through the webmail, or maintain a POP
client somewhere else that you treat as your master copy.
Program-specific Setup
For help with specific email programs, please
click
here.
