smtp.vodacom.co.za

Monday 19th. Looking good. Emails are being sent without any great distress. Thanks
 
Mail Server Problems: smtp.vodacom.co.za

Is anyone else having trouble sending mail? I'm getting the "timed out" message again 9 times out of 10.

Thanks
Slak
 
Ja, this is crazy. Yesterday I sent a number of messages that didn't arrive at destination, without any indication. Today, outgoing mail times out. A recorded message on 155 says that Vodacom is "having a problem with email".
 
ARGH! I can't stand this anymore - some very important mails never arrived yesterday! Today at least I get a timeout, but yesterday everything SEEMED fine, but the messages never arrived. Now I'm in the dwang again - missed a deadline, p*ssed of another client!

I'm losing so much money because of 3G's problems, it just isn't even funny anymore.

Please, God, send us an answer! A company that offers stable technology at a good price, to whom the customer is number one and that does their beta testing behind the scenes. Amen.
 
One of my business contacts gave up on 3G, seeing how I battle, and got ADSL. He would rather be stuck in one location than suffering with bad service.


Apart from al the SMTP timeouts it appears that 3G started to suck overall in the last few days. I have actually waited some time now to get access to this web site so I can post about my disappointment. My laptop is standing in exactly the same location everyday but the performance goes up and down.

Again....I have 500 MB left on my bundle. I wanted to download a service pack from Altera.com but seeing that it took about 5 minutes to load a 84kbyte file I must admit defeat and forget about using the rest of the bundle.

Vodacom, people are not just losing the remainder of their bundles, they are also losing income. I have to receive a 10mbyte file in a short while and then send a 1MB patch to a client. This client is very sensitive and is on the verge of cancelling a contract on me. In that case I have to pay back about R8000 if they don't see a reason to continue. Not being able to receive their data looks like a good reason.

Please, keep the pipes open !!!

VMS
 
Can't email using smtp.vodacom.co.za. Now our backup server is having a problem. For some reason I can't attach to email using Yahoo mail.

Goodness, I'm forced to use FTP!!!
 
This is not acceptable. If we all start losing clients because Vodacom's 3G is not stable then pretty soon Vodacom will have no 3G clients...
 
Yup, also loosing money

I am in the same position. I am also running our business mail from 3G, and now I have 13 VERY important mails sitting in the outbox!!

I don't have dial up, as I rely on 3G.

Not even Vodacom3G is answering us.

If I could say "This is f$%ed up", I would.
 
If all goes to plan the smtp service will today migrate to it's final production site with a multi-blade, fully redundant cluster looking after the smtp service.

Yesterday's failure was caused by a harddisk failure on the current server and we had to migrate manually over to a backup server.

Hopefully, after today, this will be a thing of the past....
 
What grates me is the following:

1) Vodacom has not used the sms system to inform users of the problem, and keep us updated.

2) We don't know the extent of the problem. (i.e. are some emails getting through and others not? - I managed to send some emails from my palm treo using GPRS and the vodacom smtp at 6am this morning from my bath)

3) Is this only affecting some users?

4) Vodacom's message on 155 is cryptic to say the least, and if you hold on you don't get an operator. I held for more than 10 mins yesterday and today before giving up. Do we pay for these calls?

I should say, however, that 3G has been very stable ever since I started using it in December 2004 and this is the first time I have experienced extended problems.

Trout6
 
That's fair enough Vodacom3G, but there are a lot of unhappy people who complain about mail servers not working, connections not working, and people loosing bandwith they paid for, because they can't connect, including me.

I think it's great that you guys tell us what happened, but the fact of the matter is that people like myself, who use 3G for business, have been really inconvenienced by this. I do not think it's enough just to say that a new mail server is going up today or when ever.

We need to be able to carry over our bandwith and you guys need to put a system in place that will allow us to send and receive mails when your servers don't work. Vodocom is our ISP, and you need to act like a professional one, if you want to keep us happy.
 
A business client of mine sent me an email yesterday asking what time must he come over today. I automatically relied with the time. Oops, time out, no connection. Tried again a few minutes ago. I could send him an SMS, but he from the old school and probably will think it is a voicemail. Then I could call him on his cell, but he is a talkative bastard that once he gets talking will keep you going with questions like:"Hows the kids?" etc... I can never get rid of him in less than 5 minutes. So I have a business package and pay R1.80 per minute. I work as a contractor and charge per hour. 5 minutes lost is 1/12 of an hour. ..... Only one example of my day.

All of this could have been avoided if I could just send a simple text reply. Please guys....bigger harddrive....bigger machine....infact 2 or 3.....more on-time.....please !!!


VMS
 
It's now 10.00 a.m. and I still can't send mail. I also run a business and rely on 3G as my connection to the world. It is freaking me out having to dial up every time I need to send an email. The cost and time wasted is unacceptable. I agree with other forumites that Vodacom have not done and are not doing enough to keep us informed of what exactly is going on. This board is not an official Vodacom notification board and how do 3G users who don't know about it stay abreast of the latest problems? I appreciate vodacom3G's replies, but there needs to be a more official way of keeping clients informed. And we need a lot more details than that provided by the 155 recorded message. And as this problem is intermittently ongoing, I agree that there needs to be some kind of back up email system that we can use at no extra cost as well as some kind of compensation for our loss of time and money.
 
After your feedback early this morning, we decided to immediately cut over. You might have seen a few hiccups during this process.

So the new server is in place and running. So please pass the feedback.

You won't be able to ping this server but will connect on the smtp port.

It's a mother of a system, in a fully redundant cluster, so lets hold thumbs. It took a long time coming, but hopefully it's now the end of the smtp server issues.
 
Hey v3g,

Might be my side, but it gets to accepting the data for the message then "hangs" - anyone else seeing this ?

Laterz !

vodacom3g said:
After your feedback early this morning, we decided to immediately cut over. You might have seen a few hiccups during this process.

So the new server is in place and running. So please pass the feedback.

You won't be able to ping this server but will connect on the smtp port.

It's a mother of a system, in a fully redundant cluster, so lets hold thumbs. It took a long time coming, but hopefully it's now the end of the smtp server issues.
Click to expand...
 
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