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Thread ID: 126262	2012-08-17 00:27:00	Xtra dial up email failures	jinja_thom (4306)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1295120	2012-08-17 00:27:00	I have an 86 year old friend who has successfully used an xtra dial up connection for her email requirements for 6 or more years, she has regularly received emails as large as 3 - 4 MB from family members both in NZ and abroard as well as various monthly newsletters of similar size. She can recognise the signs of a large email being received, and simply goes off and does something else for 30 or 40 minutes till it completes. During the last 5 or 6 weeks, she has been unable to complete the reception of any emails larger than 200 or 300kB due to the "server has unexpectedly terminated your connection etc", the size is related to the current connection speed. Several conversations with the xtra help desk have led me to conclude that they recently changed their Yhoo email processing software and it now invokes a 5 minute idle timeout, and it considers data transmission attributable to a single email message as idle time where as the interaction between successive emails is not idle and therefore resets the timer, so a large number of small emails are OK but a single large email will always fail. The termination does not disconnect her dial up link just the email service. Help desk advice so far has been, " tell her friends to send smaller emails" or " go to a broadband service". Has anyone else run across this situation?	jinja_thom (4306)
1295121	2012-08-17 00:40:00	I haven't heard of this no, but back in my dial up days I remember using a program to keep the connection active. I did a google and found this http://www.keepalive.me.uk/ I think if you just open the web page it will ping at regular intervals to keep the connection active.	dugimodo (138)
1295122	2012-08-17 00:45:00	Which ports is she using - I've found the secure ports a bit flaky on dialup for some people. Maybe try something like Mailwasher if they're just jokes that she's not really interested in.	Renegade (16270)
1295123	2012-08-17 00:52:00	It reduces security a little, but try using non-secure POP3 on port 110. It doesn't seem to suffer the same timeout issue from what I've seen.	inphinity (7274)
1295124	2012-08-17 00:54:00	I commend you on your request for help. Tells us everything. Has she tried webmail as it may just be one email holding the show up. I had that several times back in the dialup days.	mikebartnz (21)
1295125	2012-08-17 01:35:00	Help desk advice so far has been, " tell her friends to send smaller emails" or " go to a broadband service". Or....use another email provider altogether.	pctek (84)
1295126	2012-08-17 02:04:00	Or....use another email provider altogether. /agree except pretty much all the ISP's are losing interest in dial-up rapidly. Like it or not things are moving on. I'd try the keepalive link I posted, it should solve the problem in the short term.	dugimodo (138)
1295127	2012-08-17 02:07:00	/agree except pretty much all the ISP's are losing interest in dial-up rapidly. Like it or not things are moving on. I'd try the keepalive link I posted, it should solve the problem in the short term. The thing is, though, if it's the same issue I have seen, that it's the mail server timing out your session, nothing to do with keeping the dial-up connection alive. I've seen it on very slow broadband connections too while trying to receive monstrous attachments (someone needs to tell these people that 18MB isn't suitable as an email attachment...).	inphinity (7274)
1295128	2012-08-17 02:39:00	+1 It's fairly common with dialup & Xtra It's usually one 5M+ attachment taking too long to download, so it times out & starts again. You will have to use Webmail to remove that email with the large attatchment . "she has been unable to complete the reception of any emails larger than 200 or 300kB" That would be of a concern though, you'll need to confirm by checking email size's through webmail, I suspect its not the case. Another possibility is other background internet activity usingy all the dialup bandwidth: eg P2P, Win Updates, AV updates, virus/malware	1101 (13337)
1295129	2012-08-17 05:15:00	/agree except pretty much all the ISP's are losing interest in dial-up rapidly. Like it or not things are moving on. I'd try the keepalive link I posted, it should solve the problem in the short term. They can't. There are still people in the rural areas with no broadband capability, nor Woosh or anything.	pctek (84)
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