Hotmail outage peeves some e-mail users

Microsoft is grappling with a Hotmail outage that's keeping some users of the e-mail service from using their accounts.

A faulty server is apparently the root of the problem, according to a Microsoft customer service representative who confirmed the outage on Wednesday. The representative declined to immediately discuss the nature of the problem, when it began, or how many of Hotmail's 187 million users are affected.

The outage has caused intermittent access to Hotmail accounts for some consumers over the last couple of weeks and, more alarmingly, appears to have erased new and saved messages from in-boxes, according to several people who contacted CNET News.com about the problem. It is also the latest in a string of ongoing customer complaints about the service.

Customers, especially paying ones, are starting to lose patience.

"For a company the size of Microsoft, which bills themselves as a progressive, consumer-friendly organization, they're really taking a long time to fix this," said Dwight Foster, a Hotmail subscriber in Orinda, Calif., who pays $20 a year for an account with extra storage. "I'm about to blow a gasket."

Angry Hotmail customers are bad news for Microsoft, which faces fierce competition from Google and Yahoo in the free e-mail services market. Google turned up the heat on its rivals last year when it launched a test version of Gmail, an e-mail service featuring 1 gigabyte of free storage. Microsoft and Yahoo have been rushing to catch up ever since.

Gmail has been a particular pain for Microsoft, according to a new study. When signing up for Gmail, more people switch from Hotmail than from any other competing service, according to Return Path, a company that makes tools to ease the transition from one e-mail program to another. About twice as many people abandoned Hotmail accounts than Yahoo ones in favor of Gmail in the last half of 2004, the study said.

E-mail is a key component in each company's growing stable of online properties that generate billions of dollars in annual advertising revenue.

[rshimizu12]

A flakey system

Well I am glad I don't depend on hotmail. Awhile back when hotmail first came out I used it and it would go down from time to time. A few years ago hotmail went down for almost 2 weeks and lost everyones messages.

[wrwjpn]

Can you trust MS

I can't. I know so many people who use hotmail as their main email. Well, if you think they will improve then you will be disappointed time and time again. This is given their track record that it will go down again with no reason, at least MS won't let the public know. But it is free, and well they don't make any money from it, so it isn't a priority for them to fix it. Never trust a free email for your main email. I use it mainly to register for websites that require an email address to see their online content such as NY Times and LA Times.

[Bonzi]

Hotmail has become useless

I thought I was the only one with problems with this email supplier....I am constantly losing all my emails and continually having to download and reset my hotmail account. By the sounds of your article this will not be fixed any time soon. Sadly, my hotmail account is listed with all my business clients....

[wrwjpn]

Why

Why would you use a free service for your business?
That is tempting fate, and it has proven to be unreliable. Remember: 'You get what you pay for.' Now you have no recourse to recover from any lost business or respect from your clients.

[iqula]

You can get a new 1GB, email access and personal online desktop (pod) here

I found a site that provides a 1GB online storage email and an amazing personal online desktop, it's worth a look see http://www.cosmopod.com

[wrwjpn]

But ...

it is free and comes with no guarantee to be there in the future. Free is fine for personal use, but if you need this for your business it doesn't solve the problem if it goes down.

Get a business account or use your email account that comes with your ISP.

Best Email Service

Free 10GB Email Service. Check it out (http://www.bgxmail.net)

Even Yahoo mails seems to be down

Even my Yahoo email is down, i have not been able to check my mails for last 3-4 days . i even wrote to their CS and they did not bother to reply back. My email id is in yahoo.co.in domain, does any body else also has problem with yahoo?

[wink21]

Well, the outage finally hit me....

This is so irritating. Right after having to buck up 30 bucks to be able to access hotmail via Outlook Express....I lose ALL access to hotmail. It is not a FREE email program when you have to pay 30 bucks a year to use it. So, I can understand that they don't want to put the time into maintaining the FREE email accounts, but I am a PAYING customer. I use (and have for nearly 10 years) hotmail for EVERYTHING, and I can handle this. An outage is acceptable, it happens with any service...cable companies, phone, electricity....everything, but this ongoing negligence and inability to inform the subscribers is unacceptable.

[Bill Dautrive]

re

You paid $30 to link a crappy email system to the most unsecure, buggy, email client in the world?

The person you should be complaining to is the person in the mirror.

Hotmail: Inferior Customer Service

I first started having problems with Hotmail last week - coincidently, the same day I got an offer to join Gmail. I'm a paying subscriber too: I have emailed Hotmail's customer service 3 times already - I had no response the first time, then some lame explanation (which didn't address my issues) and finally a response that basically said "we're working on it," with no explanation as to what the problem was, nor how long we have to tolerate this situation. My patience is wearing thin - for practically every message I open or try and respond to, I have to refresh the page, and/or close Hotmail and reopen it again.
It strikes me that the only news items about this are those complaining about Hotmail - why haven't Microsoft addressed this issue in a news conference, explained the problem, described the solution and timeframe?
One problem with switching to Gmail - Hotmail doesn't allow you to forward your emails to any other service, and Gmail doesn't allow you to retrieve your emails from another service. Anyone have any ideas as to how to get around this?
Thanks ...

Hotmail Difficulties

I am a paid Hotmail user and have had a generally positive experience, until now. But, for the last week and a half I have had intermittent problems in sending mail. The problems /appear\to only occur when I use Hotmail on the web, at which time I am able to read my messages but not able to respond or send new messages.

I have complained to Support and today I got the message pasted below. I just want my mail back!

Lee

Hello Hotmail Member,


Thank you for writing to MSN Hotmail Technical Support.

This is Mark and I understand that you are experiencing error messages when sending e-mail.

We have verified that a subset of Hotmail users also experience this issue. I understand how important it is for you to be able to send your messages on time. Although, I cannot provide a specific timeframe as to when this can be resolved, I will take the responsibility in making sure that your concern will be given priority. We are working diligently to get your issues addressed as soon as possible.

Again, thank you for your patience and cooperation. Please remain confident that Hotmail is committed to serve you better.


Sincerely,


Mark Anthony F.
MSN Hotmail Technical Support

[EdSF]

Give them your hand, they'll want your arm

It's amazing how appropriate the saying "give them your hand and they'll ask for your arm". Get with it. Hotmail is a free service, period. Unless you pay for the enhanced version, you really shouldn't say anything. Relying on free services (no matter what it is) for "critical business" activities, is folly, actually, it's irresponsible.

And then there are the anti-MS posts. Hate Outlook? Then just get another freebie like Thunderbird or the Mozilla suite. They're excellent programs. Hate Hotmail? Switch to Yahoo, or Gmail.

I don't think anyone posting gripes about Hotmail even has a clue on how to provide, manage, and operate such a service in the scope Hotmail does (or Yahoo or Gmail, etc.)! Hey, even Yahoo has hiccups! Deal with it!

Microsoft technology

I have been having problems with Hotmail for a while now. I gave them a lot of benefit of the doubt. This doesn't happen as often with all other free e-mail services out there. And speaking of free, this is a VERY high priority for Microsoft, because for them it's not free, because they eran a LOT of advertising $$$.
I wonder if the "faulty" server's fault is just... Windows technology's instability.

Better than Hotmail

Found this one recently

www.bgxmail.net

Free 10GB Email Service w/ guaranteed uptime.

[UrDaddie]

It's 9:30p CT and I still can't connect via Outlook

It's 9:30p CT (Thu Nov 16) and I still can't connect via Outlook to my hotmail account. I can get to my hotmail via their web-based system so I'm not totally TU, but I'm plenty annoyed.