Plusnet switches over to 'shiny new' community / forums

Plusnet community now has a new look: https://community.plus.net/

Yet another Lithium forum, no doubt along with their annoying "email notification for every new post since your last visit to the thread" instead of the preferable (in my opinion) "email notification for the first new post since your last visit to the thread".

Not quite there yet though. I tried to reset my password and didn't get an email. I created a new user and sent my old user
a message. That did trigger the email notification so the old account is there. Unfortunately I gave the new account the same user name without thinking so that might cause some confusion

Edit: Ah ha. Forgot I'd used googlemail.com instead of gmail.com :-/

Edited by Andrue (Thu 07-Apr-16 15:21:26)

I had a similar problem although in my case I was playing silly beggars and tried to break the system by creating a new account with the same username which shouldn't have been possible
The way out of it is to go into your new account and change the username (you can do this for 30 days) then log out and try to login to the original account and it won't accept the password. Clicking on the "I have problems with the password" or similar as I can't remember the exact wording will generate an email to the email address registered for that account from which you can reset the password and you are good to go

You can turn off subscriptions to all threads and only subscribe to threads and posts that you want and you can turn off emails but the email notification for the "first" unread post is something that will hopefully be implemented soon. See https://community.plus.net/t5/Plusnet-Feedback/New-c...

I made a feature request directly to Lithium five years ago. They seemed to like my idea (which of course phpBB had come up with many years ago) but unfortunately it was never implemented, so maybe internally the feature was rejected at some point.

Edited by Oliver341 (Thu 07-Apr-16 18:10:22)

Not certain where I've gone wrong but I did get an email to reset the password. Did that and ....it won't let me log on using it. Why do people have to go break things .............

I supplied the email address that was used to send a notification a bit ago that there was going to be a new system, and twice so far I have requested a password reset to that address but got no email .

Looks like I shall have to use the "set up new" with a new name and send a message to the existing name to cause a message so I can make sure of the email address to use. As a couple of people above have done.

I had a email to say they was changing the forum, I doubt it will make any difference to the service, but then it seems about normal for the UK. spend money on thing that are not needed, but not at what is needed.

I've also supplied the correct email address and so far got no email to reset my password - having said that I had to do that for another site this morning and the email took three hours to arrive, so I'm not holding my breath.

In reply to a post by kasg:

I've also supplied the correct email address and so far got no email to reset my password - having said that I had to do that for another site this morning and the email took three hours to arrive, so I'm not holding my breath.

Mine was instant once I actually used the right domain. There was an initial oddity over setting my avatar (possibly due to two 'andrue' accounts) but it all seems to be working now.

Hmmm .

I just found an email timed at 17:08, long before my previous post. There was no way that was available to me when I posted.

Anyway, I clicked the link and entered my password as requested.

Error message

Correct the highlighted errors and try again.
We are unable to reset your password because the token has expired

Examining the header:-

Received: from smtp2.lithium.com ([46.19.168.11]:46563)
by jupiter.servers.rbl-mer.misp.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.86_1)
(envelope-from <[email protected]>)
id 1aoHja-0002Og-K1
for xxxxx@xxxxx; Thu, 07 Apr 2016 22:45:12 +0100
Received: from ams1papp30.am.lithium.com (am-lb-VIP-VLAN90.am.lithium.com [10.50.90.6])
by smtp2.lithium.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDA373B043C
for xxxxx@xxxxx; Thu, 7 Apr 2016 18:08:24 +0200

So it got queued in lithium for well over four hours. Tis to be hoped logging in doesn't take quite that long .

Of course, I now need to request again .

It was probably me trying to find out which email address I had on the plusnet forums.
So I simply submerged the lithium servers with password resets requests to every single email address and alias that I had.

Finally I got one the right one and got the password reset email to it.

New forum looks pretty sheet.
I'm sure once I have turned off all the notifications, signature displays, avatar images,popups and all the rest of the drivel it will be useable.

The email was sent at 21:00, received at 05:38 and, of course the "token" has now expired so I'll try again.

Edited by kasg (Fri 08-Apr-16 13:52:23)

In reply to a post by zom22:

I'm sure once I have turned off all the notifications, signature displays, avatar images,popups and all the rest of the drivel it will be useable.

You missed out buying a bigger monitor :-/

The new forum sucks. I much preferred the previous layout. It was so easy and simple to see what was going on.

Everything now seems to be all over the place; the font's too big and it looks as if PN employed some guy on work experience to do the whole thing.

Terrible.

Well you know the old saying coined by the long departed city editor of the Daily Telegraph now known at Hutbers Rule
"a stated improvement really means a deterioration in service"

Hutbers Law

In reply to a post by Conrad3000:

The new forum sucks. I much preferred the previous layout. It was so easy and simple to see what was going on.

We'll get to grips with where things are fairly quickly but the wasted space is annoying. Sadly it's becoming common in web site design and I think it's an attempt to cater for touch screen interfaces for the fumble fingered.

Ironically I'd be quite happy with it if the fonts were increasing in size as my ageing eyes already require me to run Windows at 125% scaling. Unfortunately all that seems to happen is that we get more empty space separating things :-/

I still can't get a password reset . Requested it a couple of hours ago but not come yet. No doubt by the time it arrives it will be out of time.

Does anyone know how long the "tokens" are valid for?

It isn't my IMAP server - everything else is coming straight through.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It isn't my IMAP server - everything else is coming straight through.

Nothing showing in the logs? I once had a problem with a friend when she wanted to send me a document and it turned out I'd blacklisted the address for some reason. Never did work out why. Luckily we both thought it was funny

Edited by Andrue (Fri 08-Apr-16 16:33:40)

They are just sitting in lithium it seems for several hours. I requested one late last night that PN sent at 23:56, but received by Tsohost at 5:25. That's the quickest so far but not a lot of use to me.

I suppose if I'd checked at 8:30am when I woke up .... .

Not exactly the top thing on my mind at the moment, as I (currently) wake up to very strong pain and it takes me 30 minutes to get downstairs, let the dog out for the necessary, make a mug of tea, and get back upstairs to drink it with some paracetemol.

Hi Bob, sorry to hear about your pain and hope it improves soon. The latest password reset request email still hasn't arrived and will be well out of date if and when it turns up. Unfortunately I can't get on to the forums to post about the problem so it would be nice if someone from Plusnet support chipped in on this thread.

However ... I do wonder if something else is going on. I am having similar problems now with password reset requests for two other completely unrelated sites. On the third attempt one did actually get through before it expired (it took a couple of hours) but I am still waiting for others. The common link between us is that we both use TSOhost. All of my incoming emails to various addresses (and each of the sites involved has a different email address) are processed through TSOhost's forwarding. I have tested the addresses through other means and email is getting through with no problems. Do you think there might be a connection?

I use Gradwell's mail service. There are some sites from which no mail ever reaches me. Nothing in my local logs. Nothing in my logs at Gradwell. My only recourse is to use my gmail address.

Commiserations to Bob.

I too am underwhelmed by the new community. Another victim of the "we can't do that" for my mail password change, so a new username. Plus the wasted screen space.

In reply to a post by kasg:

Hi Bob, sorry to hear about your pain and hope it improves soon. The latest password reset request email still hasn't arrived and will be well out of date if and when it turns up. Unfortunately I can't get on to the forums to post about the problem so it would be nice if someone from Plusnet support chipped in on this thread.

Just register on their site using a throw away dummy username like abc123 and use the 10 minute email site to provide you with a short term temp email address that lasts long enough to accept the Plusnet email registration activation confirmation mail
Then you can post your moan about your real username problems under your temp name.

Several others seem to be doing this with user names like ccc and others who have created a username of their old name with a 1 added on the end to enable them access to try and get access to their old username back.

In reply to a post by zom22:

Just register on their site using a throw away dummy username like abc123 and use the 10 minute email site to provide you with a short term temp email address that lasts long enough to accept the Plusnet email registration activation confirmation mail

I had thought about doing something like that but I'm not quite at that point yet. I've requested three more password reset emails; I'll see what happens.

Well, I've requested the password reset five or six times now since Thursday, but have not had one response. I checked a couple of notifications from the old forum, and am definitely using the right email address. Logs aren't showing any failures or deletions from my end, so either they aren't reaching me, or aren't being sent.

I presume there is some kind of automated system behind this, and not just some poor soul ploughing his/her way through thousands of requests manually...?

ETA: I registered a new username so I can go on to the new forum. It wouldn't let me use my original email address, so it recognises my old account. It's now 20 minutes since I registered, but I still haven't had the email in to allow me to complete the registration.

Edited by Jaggies (Sat 09-Apr-16 13:37:00)

When the emails arrive, (the one yesterday morning hasn't done), they show as within a couple of minutes of the request. PN appear to be sending it via lithium.

The headers show that as the send time, but the receipt time by my Tsohost server is many hours later. To my mind the holdup has to be within lithium.

I don't think it is to do with us both using Tsohost, as so many people here and clearly elsewhere (by the number setting up dummy accounts) are having the same problem.

seeing the same thing, long delays between lithium generating the email and it actually being received at the mail server

Received: from smtp2.lithium.com ([46.19.168.11]:58477)
by quark.servers.eqx.misp.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.86_1)
(envelope-from <[email protected]>)
id 1aog5H-0004dB-RJ
for xxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx; Sat, 09 Apr 2016 00:45:03 +0100
Received: from ams1papp30.am.lithium.com (am-lb-VIP-VLAN90.am.lithium.com [10.50.90.6])
by smtp2.lithium.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3B503B0455
for <xxxxx@xxxxxxxxx>; Fri, 8 Apr 2016 10:48:57 +0200 (CEST)

https://community.plus.net/t5/Community-Site-Feedbac...

Roberto, please check if tso servers block plain text email?

In reply to a post by planetbrain:

Received: from smtp2.lithium.com ([46.19.168.11]:58477)
by quark.servers.eqx.misp.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.86_1)
(envelope-from <[email protected]>)
id 1aog5H-0004dB-RJ
for xxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx; Sat, 09 Apr 2016 00:45:03 +0100

You're using Tsohost as well?

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Roberto, please check if tso servers block plain text email?

They're not plain text emails and one of them did get through, albeit too late, so it's not that. I am still waiting for anything from the five or six others I have requested.

Well it's borked. If Plusnet can't get a simple password change right there's no hope really. I'm not looking for workarounds.

Well. waited for the change password link email. When it arrived, I opened it using my phone instead of my laptop. Changed the password and it worked! Weird!

How would I do that? But I very much doubt that they do.

Easier is if you send one to me on the domain for my website. (See my sig).

As kasg and others say, the problem isn't generally that Tsohost rejects it. It is that it isn't received by Tsohost from lithium for several hours after Plusnet send it.

I wouldn't be surprised however if it hasn't been blocked now, given the number of repeats requested.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

As kasg and others say, the problem isn't generally that Tsohost rejects it. It is that it isn't received by Tsohost from lithium for several hours after Plusnet send it.

Or there is some greylisting or similar going (at tsohost) that forces lithium to queue the message, and the queue is not very well serviced. I had greylisting years ago on an ISP and its an interesting anti-spam measure but it doesn't really work.

Yes.

Interesting to see I'm not the only one using them and having this problem, but as others have said emails from other sites arrive without and problems.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Or there is some greylisting or similar going (at tsohost) that forces lithium to queue the message, and the queue is not very well serviced. I had greylisting years ago on an ISP and its an interesting anti-spam measure but it doesn't really work.

Yeah could be greylisting. Tsohost should be able to check their SMTP records to see if greylisting is the reason.

hence my question to Roberto, since he has an ad for tsohost in his sig I assumed he is part of that company and could access the logs? But maybe I am wrong.

What I can tell people here is I do get theplusnet forum email's and I get them instantly.

The issues that stand out.

The smtp server has no port 25 access, so email servers that try to connect back as a means of verifying senders will fail this check.
The email was sent over smtp not smtps (no encryption), vast majority of sysadmins wont enforce TLS on server to server transactions, but its possible some are.
There is no DKIM headers.

I do get normal Plusnet forum emails instantly. It's just this lithium-routed stuff that is delayed or sometimes lost.

I'll ask Tsohost support about the grey-listing some time on Sunday afternoon unless someone else does so first.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

hence my question to Roberto, since he has an ad for tsohost in his sig I assumed he is part of that company and could access the logs? But maybe I am wrong.

It's not an ad. If it were, it wouldn't be allowed!
P.S. neither is mine.

I got no issue with his sig, I am just saying i assumed (wrongly) Roberto would be able to directly check.

yeah this is a lithium issue not plusnet, ask them to check in the logs for smtp2.lithium.com

Interesting - I'm also with Tsohost and, despite two password reset requests, never received any email. There's a thread on the Plusnet Forum suggesting that some mail servers may be greylisted by Lithium, who host the new forum.

I didn't have any problems getting an email ... took maybe 5 mins. Anyway sorted now, changed my browser to Opera and managed to reset the password first time around. With Firefox, all I got was the error messages.

Whoopee, another one of the emails has arrived, took just under 21 hours ... but of course useless because, once again the "token has expired."

I just changed my forum email address to a TSO Hosted website one and the confirmation email came through instantly

I've just done another request.

As Chrysalis said, I did find a log in cPanel but it only covered 2 days, and it was three days since I tried. I'll see what happens this time, as I haven't received anything even late from the last two or three I did on Friday.

I haven't the energy to call Tso right now.

Chrys pointed this thread out to me as I have a growing thread on my own forum showing what testing has been done so far.

Im not with TSO but I am with Vidahost. Both are both part of Paragon Group. Mail to my server also goes via the MISP cluster.

I raised a support ticket last night but atm Im still going round in circles because at first they think its something on my server which I don't believe it is.

I'm not sure what packages you guys are on, but Im dedicated server with full WHM. (I know that their cloud services dont allow stuff like CPanel) so Ive been able to test to some extent and turn things like Spam Assassin off and make changes to DKM. Ive also whitelisted @plus.net - none of it makes any difference.

The latest info on my ticket is the guy said from the logs he cant see any of the missing ones ever being received at their end.

btw.. Im also having the same problem using BT, which is also powered by Lithium.

Edited by kitz (Sun 10-Apr-16 18:17:31)

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

I just changed my forum email address to a TSO Hosted website one and the confirmation email came through instantly

Are you on cloud? Does mail go through MISP?

from smtp2.Lithium.com ([46.19.168.11]:49303)
by myserver.servers.eqx.misp.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.86_1)

Ive still got about 20+ mails not received. A couple have turned up but they have like a 20hr delay. None of my password resets ones have arrived at all.

Just got this on my ticket a few mins ago.

Unfortunately your issue might be something our directors should look at. What I can do for you in this case forward your issue to our directors attention in order to look closer into this however this case will need to wait until tomorrow morning.

Bear in mind I am Vidahost, not TSO, so it will possibly be one of the Vidahost directors.
Can those on TSO please report it too so they know its not just me, nor specific to my server.
Cheers.

Edited by kitz (Sun 10-Apr-16 18:35:16)

Thanks kitz .

Just for info, the Tsohost Cloud system, which I detest in terms of user information and control in general, does have a sort of cPanel lookalike I think they must have written (or had written) themselves. It is very poor compared to cPanel.

The domain that my Community Forum emails come to is on the old cPanel hosting.

Having made a request as per my earlier post today there is no sign of anything to the relevant email address in the cPanel email trace. All display options ticked including "deferred" and "in progress".

I have the relevant part of the header for my first or second attempt in this post. A later one was almost exactly 12 hours delay.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Having made a request as per my earlier post today there is no sign of anything to the relevant email address in the cPanel email trace. All display options ticked including "deferred" and "in progress".

Same here - I looked at the cPanel trace last night - nothing showing for me either.

According to my ticket, the guy today looked at the logs and couldn't find anything for @community.bt.com (which also uses lithium) and could only see the one late arrival for @plus.net, nothing for the missing emails despite me listing what time I generated new requests.

Yep misp like me.

A later one was almost exactly 12 hours delay.

Interesting - test PMs using my dummy account have been almost exactly 8hrs or 20hrs.
I too thought it was a bit odd that they were almost to the minute.

The site is on cloud because it uses Wordpress and we had to move to the Cloud Servers to get that option.
This happened when I redesigned the site which was previously written using html (and a bit of a bastardised version at that)
I can't check the details as I don't receive the emails directly but as a redirect from the website email

Edited by deleted (Sun 10-Apr-16 22:38:09)

what this really need's is a sysadmin looking at the logs in the shell, the like's of cpanel will show dumbed down bits of information only.

Some emails can be rejected/greylisted before the stage where the recipient is checked and as such wouldnt show up in cpanel etc.

In reply to a post by Eurostar:

There's a thread on the Plusnet Forum suggesting that some mail servers may be greylisted by Lithium, who host the new forum.

Greylisting is done by the destination server, not the source. So in this case Tsohost/Vidahost would be doing the greylisting (intentional delaying of email delivery), if indeed that is the issue here.

Edited by Oliver341 (Sun 10-Apr-16 22:53:49)

In reply to a post by wingco1:

Well it's borked. If Plusnet can't get a simple password change right there's no hope really. I'm not looking for workarounds.

They can for some people. Mine came through immediately on gmail (once I realised that I originally registered using the original googlemail domain). A test with my own mail server(*) came through immediately as well. Whatever the problem is it appears to be host specific rather than a PN issue. But it's curious, I admit.

(*)For ISPs I use an independent address because if my connection fails I can't send or receive email

Edited by Andrue (Mon 11-Apr-16 08:42:55)

My password change emails (requested on the first day of the change-over) never appeared at all (email on 'UK Cheapest' hosting) - I just created a temporary account using my Plusnet email address and messaged a staff member who reset my original account email to an agreed one (also on my Plusnet account).

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by Eurostar:

There's a thread on the Plusnet Forum suggesting that some mail servers may be greylisted by Lithium, who host the new forum.

Greylisting is done by the destination server, not the source. So in this case Tsohost/Vidahost would be doing the greylisting (intentional delaying of email delivery), if indeed that is the issue here.

yep which is why I am asking people to read their logs.

You seem to have missed what Oliver was replying to .

nope, he replied to a comment that suggested lithium was doing the greylisting, and I said thats why I been advising people to get their logs checked as that may show if and why that lithium is been greylisted by their providers.

Sorry, but that sentence makes no sense at all.

in what way? it makes perfect sense to me.

The point kasg and I are making is that lithium doing the greylisting is exactly the opposite of the site it sends emails to greylisting lithium.

The problem could be that lithium has been greylisted by one or more mail hosts, including Tsohost.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

in what way? it makes perfect sense to me.

I hardly know where to start. Do you want to try rewording it?

Have you contacted Tso yet? I'll probably raise a ticket shortly. Meanwhile, I've just received another "Your community is live!" email advising me to reset my password!

Edit: ticket raised.

Edited by kasg (Mon 11-Apr-16 17:43:03)

I got no idea what point kasg is making.

My point is this.

the receiving server greylists not the sending server
this means to diagnose any possible greylisting the log of the receiver needs to be examined

Thats it really.

lithium are not doing the greylisting as they are the sender.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

the receiving server greylists not the sending server
this means to diagnose any possible greylisting the log of the receiver needs to be examined

Indeed and I now understand your post in the context of previous posts, but taken on its own it still appears contradictory.

I received the first notification that I am aware of at about 5pm and just reset the password and it took less than 2 mins to come through - I am cloud at TSO and my mail generally go through something like mail3.eqx.gridhost.co.uk (and I suspect as much spam stuff switched off as possible)

Nul points, PN!

So I wasn't alone in hitting prob. Rang CustServ and the guy could only suggest clearing cookies and/or trying a different browser. No diff! In the end I had to fangle my own way through it, but don't ask me how.

I suggest that if this particular forum has a fault it is that, as someone has recorded elsewhere, it is populated largely by blokes who are technically knowledgeable/confident. Chat about Lithium and all the ensuing posts certainly wouldn't have helped this guy at all.

Arguable that 95% of PC users just want the damned thing to continue to work so we can get on with the stuff we bought it for! [DISCUSS]

(replying to myself so as not to upset anyone else!)

I spent over 24 hours going backwards and forwards with Tsohost support and the conclusion is that there is absolutely nothing at Tsohost's end that would explain this. Most of the time, the emails are simply not reaching their servers. There were two that did, both of which were delayed for too long to be of any use to me. I am going to have to try re-registering and taking the issue up with Plusnet.

@kasg

Im not with TSO, but try contacting them again saying that someone on Vidahost was also experiencing this same problem and that Dominic Taylor is aware of the issue with smtp2.lithium

Dom was able to fix it for me. If you're dedicated, then I think its a relatively easy thing to do on one server... however I'm not sure what they will do in the case of their shared servers, but he said he would look into tweaking something.

The issue is something to do with the lithium server constantly times out when your host tries to verify that they are who they say they are.

2016-04-11 10:02:15 SMTP connection from smtp2.lithium.com [46.19.168.11]:51745 lost
2016-04-11 10:04:22 SMTP connection from [46.19.168.11]:60148 (TCP/IP connection count = 1)
2016-04-11 10:04:34 SMTP connection from smtp2.lithium.com [46.19.168.11]:60148 lost


At least if you mention Dom's name it may kick start something and stop you having to go round in circles.
Good luck.

Thanks kitz, I'll add that information to the ticket.

so we now have another possible cause.

Some sysadmins will make the sender wait X amount of seconds before accepting the email (effective anti spam measure), are lithium servers configured to be impatient and as such simply timeout instead?

Yippee, thanks to kitz and Dom Taylor I'm on!

Hi Kevin,

Should be fixed for you now.

We run thousands of servers with greylisting (it's a standard cPanel feature / many mailservers use it) but obviously for this mail system it's not working so I'm going to get it adjusted / disabled.

A subsequent password reset request took only 10 minutes to arrive so it actually worked! If any other Tsohost customers want to reference my ticket, it's TSY-217-79215.

Yaaayyyy!
Requested again less than five minutes ago after reading your post. I hadn't got my mail client loaded so started that up. Looked at the headings list for two domains then the relevant one, and up it came. Less than two minutes from submission.

The reset then worked immediately.

Thanks Kevin, for chasing this through.

Hi Bob,

I received another comment on the ticket:

Interestingly it wasn't greylisting, but another feature cPanel uses which adds a few seconds' delay. But evidently just enough to trip up that mailserver.

This demonstrates that, with the best support in the world, you still end up with certain areas in which only a select few have the necessary expertise, you just have to make sure that things get escalated to the right place. This had already been escalated once before it found the right person, thanks to kitz.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4476556-p...

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4476556-p...

Indeed, that seems to have been the case here. I'm still having trouble with another password reset email which never turns up and they're looking into it for me.

Glad you got it sorted - Team effort

I know nada when it comes to mail servers hence why I pay for a managed service. It was Chrys, who helped me on my forum to rule out some of the basic stuff.

I must admit I too went a bit round in circles at first on my ticket - possibly due to it being weekend and skeleton staff.... sooo... Being a server owner I have access to 24/7 telephone support where they realised it wasn't something simple that needed further investigation. I was promised someone would look at it first thing Monday, which is when Dom spotted the delay and smpt2.lithium dropping the connections. He told me it was something to do with CPanel.

Dom usually knows his stuff and he is one of the reasons why I use Vidahost. (Been with them since the days when it was just Seb & Dom who did everything and before they bought into TSO)

Anyhow, this is bigger than just Vidahost & TSO and others will also be affected.
Plusnet need to get Lithium to ensure their server is configured properly so that other servers dont think they are originators of spam.
Chrys can probably explain it better than me, but Lithium seems to be doing a total of about 4 things incorrectly, which will cause some servers to think they are spewing out spam.