Virgin email down: Users lose access to messages in major outage

Problems have been ongoing for days, users complain

(AFP via Getty Images)

Virgin email users have found their messages disappearing in a major outage.

The company’s email service has been suffering from problems since Sunday, users reported.

But even days on, the company is yet to give a significant update on what is happening and when service might be restored.

That has led to a flurry of complaints from affected users, who say they are unable to see their messages. On Twitter and outage tracking system Down Detector, users complained not only that their inbox had disappeared but that they had been left waiting for answers from the company.

The outage appears to have started late on Sunday. Some service appeared to have been restored on Monday evening – with users reporting that some messages got through – but the issue began again on Tuesday.

In a media statement, Virgin said that it was aware of the issue and was “working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible”. It apologised to affected users for the “inconvenience”.

“We apologise again to those individuals who have been experiencing issues with their email services since Monday,” Virgim Media said. “Our teams are continuing to work on restoring all users’ access as a priority and we will do this as soon as possible.”

But affected users also shared a longer message that they had received from Virgin itself. That blamed the issue on a “technical issue” and also apologised to users.

It told users that they are able to send and receive emails as normal. But any from during the outage will not be appearing, it warned.

“We want to reassure you that your emails and data are safe and secure; there is currently nothing to suggest your account has been compromised; and that all emails will be fully restored once the relevant system repair has been completed,” the company told customers. “Any emails sent to you on 19 June when this problem occurred, but not received, will also be delivered to your inbox once this issue has been fully fixed.”

It urged people to “contact the original senders” of any urgent emails, until the problem is fixed and the data is moved back into people’s inboxes.

Virgin Media told users that it was “working around the clock” to restore access to emails. Users did not need to take any further action, but could contact the company’s customer services if they need further information, it said.