Vodafone says email problem finally resolved; Spark warns about weekend

UPDATE, Monday 9am: Vodafone says its email system has returned to normal operating functionality.

UPDATE Saturday, 12pm: Well, we didn't say for triple-real and cross fingers on both hands. Vodafone's lastest update: "We know that there are some customers with very large email accounts who are still experiencing delays. We have pinpointed these accounts and whilst they may take a little longer to return to full operating speed, we expect this to be restored soon."

UPDATE Saturday, 10am: Vodafone's webmail is now back up and running, for real this time. The company's latest update says: "As the system came back online, the backlog of emails started to flow through to peoples accounts at a controlled rate. At approximately 2 am this morning, the backlog of emails was cleared. As of this morning, people with vodafone.co.nz and ihug.co.nz email services should have received stored emails."

UPDATE Friday, 9pm: Vodafone's latest update says: "Webmail is back up and running. You should be able to log in and read and reply to emails. We are working to clear the backlog of stored emails now and you will see them start to come through across the course of this evening. We are keeping a close eye on the system overnight to ensure it returns to normal functionality."

The company says none of the email affected by the technical foulup will be lost, only delayed. Problems first hit on Wednesday.

UPDATE Friday, 3.30pm:  Problems continue for users of some Vodafone-hosted email accounts.

Towards the end of the third day of the foul-up, the company is still unable to give an estimated time for a fix or say how many customers are affected [UPDATE: Vodafone now says 7pm].

"We are working really hard to resolve the problem affecting some Vodafone hosted email accounts," the company's latest statement says.

"We know this has caused a headache for some of our home and small business users and we are really sorry ... The problem relates to a bottleneck in the delivery system of emails and as a result, the system has slowed.

"It is important to note that emails are being stored and will be delivered to customers as this issue is resolved."

Spark upgrades
Separately, Spark says it will be doing planned maintenance on its network between 6pm Saturday and 7am Monday.

Some services will be out of action over that period including broadband and mobile usage meters and alerts, plan changes and prepaid top-ups [UPDATE: Spark says the upgrade went as planned and all services are back online]

.EARLIER: Vodafone customers are suffering a third day of email problems.

Since Wednesday, people using either a vodafone.co.nz or ihug.co.nz email account may have experienced problems accessing their accounts, spokeswoman Bailey Tebbutt says.

"This was due to an unexpected systems fault. Our team are currently working on a fix and are focused on resolving the fault as a priority.

We apologise to any customers who have experienced a reduced service and aim to have the accounts back to normal operating speed as quickly as possible."

The company can't or won't say how many customers are affected by the glitch or give an estimated time to fix it.

One customer tells NBR, "As one of the affected ihug people, I am particularly peeved that there has been nothing on the Vodafone website about the outage."

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