System Status Blog

Service Outage: April 24, 2013 – Storefront Problems

04/24/2013 8:51:51 AM

At this time, customers can’t access their Storefront Administration and Storefront Websites. Our team is actively working on getting this resolved as quickly as possible. We will update this post as soon as we have additional information.

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Notification: April 16, 2013 – Hmail issues with POP/IMAP (Outlook)

04/16/2013 5:13:29 PM

Some users are continuing to have a problem receiving email in Outlook.  The Hmail administrators have continued to check the email system and no system, server, or network errors have been found.  The problem with Outlook and other email clients only affects certain systems.  Unfortunately we have been unable to determine the common thread of what is causing the problem on those systems.  Settings changes such as enabling SSL has fixed Outlook for many people.  As we come across settings that have worked for customers we are posting them in our community at https://community.homestead.com/homestead/topics/hmail_issues_with_pop_imap_outlook?rfm=1.    If these fixes do not work for you please contact your Internet Service Provider for additional settings they may require you to use.

 

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Notification: Update: April 16, 2013 – Phone support outage

04/16/2013 3:17:29 PM

The phone support outage has been resolved.

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Notification: April 16, 2013 – Phone support outage

04/16/2013 2:30:06 PM

Due to unexpected phone connectivity issues for our agents-phone support is unavailable today April 16. We’re sorry for any inconvenience. We are actively working toward a resolution.

While we work toward a resolution, we highly recommend visiting our community or help center (located in the upper right corner of your account) to find answers to your questions.  You can also contact chat support by logging into your account, clicking on Help in the top right-hand corner  and clicking Chat Live link. There is no impact to our website and hosting  services.

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Notification: Update: April 14, 2013 – Hmail issues with POP/IMAP (Outlook)

04/15/2013 12:37:30 PM

The Hmail administrators have checked the system and all settings are correct.  The problem with Outlook and other email clients only affects certain systems.  Unfortunately we have been unable to determine the common thread of what is causing the problem on those systems.  As we come across settings that have worked for customers we are posting them in our community at https://community.homestead.com/homestead/topics/hmail_issues_with_pop_imap_outlook?rfm=1.  If these fixes do not work for you please contact your ISP for additional settings they may require you to use.

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Notification: April 14, 2013 – Hmail issues with POP/IMAP (Outlook)

04/14/2013 11:00:31 AM

We are currently investigating an issue when using Outlook or another email program to access Hmail.  This does not affect all customers and those who are having problems when using an email program can still use webmail http://mail.homesteadmail.com

We apologize for the inconvenience and are working hard to restore all services as soon as possible.  Please check back for updates.

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Notification: April 12, 2013 – Hmail issues with POP/IMAP (Outlook)

04/12/2013 7:19:28 AM

We are currently investigating an issue when using Outlook or another email program to access Hmail.  This does not affect all customers and those who are having problems when using an email program can still use webmail http://mail.homesteadmail.com

We apologize for the inconvenience and are working hard to restore all services as soon as possible.  Please check back for updates.

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Notification: April 1, 2013 -12:35pm PST – Email Outage

04/01/2013 1:01:08 PM

There is currently an issue that is impacting the ability to send and receive email. We are actively working to resolve this problem.

We expect no loss of mail. Any previously delivered email is accessible.

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Notification: March 28, 2013 – Hmail Problems Update

03/28/2013 8:56:26 AM

Recently, we’ve had serious disruptions to email service for our customers. We are very sorry about the impact this has had on so many of you. In light of what has happened, we wanted to provide some additional information and provide more details about the steps we’re taking to resolve the issues and make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Over the last week, several of our customers’ email addresses were hacked and used to send out massive amounts of spam emails. This caused our company to be placed on multiple blacklists and significantly impacted Hmail email performance for all our customers. These blacklists, such as Spamcop and SORBS, are used by other providers to determine what emails are allowed to be received on their servers.

We disabled the hacked accounts and eliminated the source of the spam. We are still actively working to clear our reputation and get removed from all blacklists. Unfortunately, getting off of a blacklist is a complicated process and some have a waiting period to ensure that no more spam is being sent out from our servers. We are extremely sorry about the impact this has had on our small business customers. We are doing everything we can to get removed from all blacklists as soon as possible and our goal is to be completely operational over the next few days.

If you are sending email and receiving a bounce-back message that your email is being rejected it is because the recipient’s email host is using one of the blacklists that we are currently on. While we continue to work on being removed from all blacklists, you can attempt to contact their email administrator and ask to have your specific email addresses placed on their whitelist, allowing your email into their system. If their email administrator needs any information from our Hmail administrator, please refer them to mail-block@homesteadsupport.com.

Although there is currently no threat to the email accounts of the rest of our customers, we need all of our customers to review the strength of their email passwords. A strong email password contains upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters and will make your email very secure and thwart hackers attempting to gain access. It’s also important to keep different passwords across your many online accounts and change them every six months.

We are currently implementing changes to our email security policies and spam prevention measures to ensure that this problem does not happen again. We understand that email is the lifeblood for small businesses. We are sorry for the pain and inconvenience this has caused.

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Service Outage: March 19, 2013 – Intuit.com login page down, email slowness

03/19/2013 6:15:54 AM

The Intuit.com login page is currently down.  We have notified Intuit and they are working to resolve the problem.  You can access your Website account by going to Homestead.com and clicking the Log In button in the top right-hand corner.

In addition the Hmail system is experiencing slowness today.  Emails are being sent and delivered but there is a lag.  This has been reported to the Hmail administrators who are also working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.