US Cable Support > Cox HSI > E-mail POP access down?

reply to planet

Re: [VA] E-mail POP access down?

reply to BillRoland

It looks to me like cox decided to mess with the pop servers vs webmail servers. MS had the same sort of problem some years ago, and it was several days before things got sorted out.

They just posted another update...

"Restoration continues and we are actively exploring multiple approaches to restore email services. All available resources are engaged across multiple teams.These teams will continue working around the clock until your email is restored. Based on our investigation, event logs, and other data available to us, we have no indication that this incident is the result of a security breach that would put customer information at risk. We will provide additional updates by 9 am ET. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this is causing you."

reply to BillRoland
During the week up to this. I know of two e-mails that were sent that I never received. There may have been one other but I can't confirm it.

So I have 98% faith that all our mail is hunky dory.

reply to ajwees41
I have been down in CONNECTICUT SINCE FRIDAY

reply to betterdan

reply to dlarkin_dc
Cox Support update... no end in sight.

Summary
Email Outage Update as of 9:30 am, December 16th

Detail
Since our update at 1 a.m., our teams continue to make progress in restoring email service to our customers in the Midwest and East Coast regions. Teams across all levels of our organization are focused on the recovery and we truly apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. At this time we cannot provide an estimated time for recovery, but will continue to work around the clock until email service is restored.
--
Cox Preferred HSI 12/5~SB6120~Grandstrem HT502~E4500
OTA (...and proud of it!)
VOIPo

reply to dlarkin_dc
Appears to be down in FL too.

reply to dlarkin_dc
I would have never known if it wasn't for this thread. Haven't ever used the Cox email. Never did in case I needed to switch providers.

reply to dlarkin_dc
Restoration not expected today.

"Our teams are making progress in our email service restoration efforts. Through our investigation, we have isolated the cause of the failure to the email system platform which ultimately affected both the primary and secondary failover (back-up) systems. Currently, all incoming messages are queued in our system and we expect to deliver messages to customers on a rolling basis as we bring the systems back online.

Teams across all levels of our organization remain intensely focused on the restoration efforts. Unfortunately, we do not expect services to be restored today. We do understand the impact this is having on our customers, which is why we have deployed every resource possible to working this issue. While we are focused on restoring email access as quickly as possible, the multiple components and processes that make up our email system require care, and some time, to bring them back online."

reply to dlarkin_dc
This is really fustrating. I need a primary account to pay some bills, but I can't because of COX.

Can't pay bills due to email? Confused on that one. I never needed email at all to pay bills.

Some get billed through e-mail. That is, the invoice arrives by e-mail and there's a link to the service provider's site for a secure pay.

reply to dmorack
I would love to know what caused neither of the backup systems come online!

reply to dlarkin_dc
Heads should roll over this one and we should all get a credit on our bills. Whether or not people should use the ISP's email is not the issue, they offer the service and its a reasonable expectation to expect it to work. I don't really care when its out for 15 minutes in the middle of the night due to a maintenance window, but going on 48 hours with no end is sight is not acceptable.

reply to dlarkin_dc
per the article looks like only one backup and the samething that happened to the primary happened to the secondary.

reply to BillRoland
Oklahoma City afternoon still down

reply to ajwees41
ajwee41,

Yup, the servers fell like dominos. But what triggered the whole failure? What took the initial server down, then the failover servers? Corrupt data, overload of data, did a server glitch start it off, was some outside influence like a UPS failure in the data center... just what exactly happened?

We deserve to know and it will cut through any consumer-paranoia that's brewing... unless it was so fundamental Cox can only look foolish. Even then, I'd prefer a foolish honest ISP.
--
Cox Preferred HSI~SB6120~Grandstream HT502~E4500
OTA (...and proud of it!)
VOIPo

It would be nice, but as someone who has been in IT for a long time and with first-hand knowledge about several incidents which resulted in very high profile outages (bank ATM network, on-line retailer and others), you will probably be disappointed.

A. No one wants the liability. If WidgetCo publicly said "Our factory was shut down because an Acme server died and they couldn't fix it for 6 days" they would most likely be sued. In fact, the Acme server might have been brought down by a failed KoreaCo memory stick. The memory modules were supplied by SiliconCo. A replacement part was shipped via SpeedyCo, lost in transit and eventually installed backwards by a WidgetCo tech, etc.

B. It will take a while to sort out what went wrong.

C. Most of the time, it's human error - either at the root or along the way to exacerbate the situation.

I've never seen a full, factual, detailed accounting of a major outage by a large company.