Communicating with each other
Over the last several days I’ve received a lot of feedback from users, both in comments and in email, regarding how we’ve been communicating information about our recent SMTP issues. The majority of people feel that we should have reached out sooner, and that the blog was not an adequate channel to reach everyone. By now, impacted users should have received a Service Announcement, but I still wanted to take a moment to address those concerns.
It’s my goal that people become confident that when there are issues impacting their Yahoo! Mail experience, they can look to the blog for the latest news and information. With that being the case, I understand that I will need to work very hard to identify these situations and get appropriate updates out as soon as possible. In this case there was concern that given the advanced nature of the impacted feature, I might end up confusing a great deal of people who weren’t impacted. Ultimately we decided that even at the risk of confusing people, we needed to get the information out to impacted users as quickly as possible.
That brings me to the second concern many people have raised, and that is that the blog is not an adequate channel to get the word out to everyone. While I’d like for that not to be true, I know that not everyone reads this blog (yet). However, we knew that it would also take a few days to pull together a message to send to the appropriate users, and I wanted to make sure that folks seeking more information had an opportunity to find it. That included not only a blog post, but updated Help pages and Customer Care.
As I mentioned above, all impacted users should now have received a Service Announcement, but I believed that if I could start pushing out helpful information even sooner through the blog … that it was worthwhile. Rest assured that had this been a planned change we would have certainly emailed users ahead of time to give them a chance to prepare for the switch.
And don’t forget, when you reach out to me with an issue it’s important to know what to include and expect. I’m not an alternative to Customer Care, so please continue any efforts you have made to reach out to them for help. If you are sharing an issue with me (via comments or email) please be as detailed as possible. That means letting me know your operating system, browser, specific error, etc. That helps me distinguish between a unique user issue (that I can’t really help with) or a larger issue (that I can get our engineers to fix for everyone at once).
Thanks for reading,
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Ryan K. Community Manager Yahoo! Mail |
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March 4th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Well said.
We probably all wish that Customer Care was better (and didn’t give out so many stock answers) but the blog isn’t the best place for everybody’s support questions. The problem, of course, is that all of us readers get understandably excited at some actual knowledgeable human contact at Yahoo and want to milk it for all its worth…
March 4th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Well…. customer service really stinks especially when you tell them all the specs and they still can’t understand what your OS is and what what mail you have. If we want to contact you about other issues that you may not be aware of how is the best way to do that? I can call support since I have Plus. I have used SMTP and POP3 and never had a problem with it except when I typo’d the pw and what not. Otherwise there have been Simple Mail Transfer Protocol problems with my stuff.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Ok–this is great, but how do you get someone on the phone to answer a question. Right now I can’t send messages from Outlook. I’m receiving a new error I’ve never got before,I went to the url provided to fix the error but it didn’t help. How can I find out how to fix this?
Task ‘deannadoyon@yahoo.com - Sending’ reported error (0×800CCC78) : ‘Cannot send the message. Verify the e-mail address in your account properties. The server responded: 553 From: address not verified; see http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/manage/sendfrom-07.html‘
March 4th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Here’s a constructive suggestion for everyone to pass around to their Yahoo!-using friends. If everyone would make sure they are subscribed to the blog’s RSS feed on their My Yahoo! page, they would get the announcements very speedily.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
ha ha ha ha about wat i said… yahoo.com is the best ever….
March 4th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I just wanted to say that the delete button in my spam folder hasn’t worked for the last 3 days. It works in all my other folders, but I sure would like to delete all of my spam. lol. I’m just curious if everyone else is having this problem too.
Thanks for your time!
Seth
March 4th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
im sure this was a well spoken piece but i got totally lost after the first sentence.So if u wish to send me further emails please make them more understandible.I have the looks but not the brains.Sorry but dont count on me i have no clue wat were talkin about………….Maddy Russell
March 4th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Hey, Rob, that is an excellent suggestion. I hope it’s okay that I added the feed to my iGoogle page, though.
Seriously, it is a good suggestion but the fact is that the only communication service that EVERY Yahoo! Mail Plus subscriber is guaranteed to use is email.
March 4th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Perhaps it would make sense to add this blog’s feed to everyone’s Yahoo Mail RSS feeds by default.
Another option would be to put the blog feed on the Home/Today tab of Yahoo Mail. I know that wouldn’t have helped everyone with this last issue (as it affected those of us using the POP access), but when things start going wrong, it would give us a place to look.
Speaking of things going wrong, I have been unable to access Yahoo Mail through my iPhone all day today. I am also keep getting asked for my password whenever my Mac tries to sync my contacts. Anyone else having this problem?
March 4th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Thank you for addressing this issue. I try very hard to find answers when there is a Yahoo Mail issue. To go through so much effort to search all the possible places where updates or answers COULD be posted (e.g. on this blog, Yahoo Answers or on the Yahoo Support Site) and see nothing is very frustrating. Equally frustrating is spend so much time attempting to reach a live customer service representative only to be told either they are not aware of a problem, or simply to say it has been escalated with no further guidance is equally useless. I hope that ALL of YAHOO will look at this massive failure of customer communication as a lesson for the future. Only time will tell.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I try to avoid all updates, since they only cause problems. My tool bar seems to be disappearing except with e-mail. On My Yahoo the tool bar disappears.
Maybe I would be better off without it.
I think that yahoo needs to realize there are two (2) types of users here. The 99% who need to get things done and use the Internet to accomplish something. And the 1% who doesn’t have a life and wants to spend all day dealing with computer issues.
When most people buy a car they want something to drive. There are a few who just want to park it in the driveway and spend all their time tinkering with it. There are few people in the second group and anyone building a car for them will soon go broke. Study GM and Ford for examples. People who want a car that actually works buy Honda, Nissan’s, Toyota, Mercedes, BMWs, etc.
Yahoo makes $ from ads but if yahoo doesn’t work then people leave, and then the ads leave, and then the profit leaves, and then Microsoft buys it all up.
THINK ABOUT IT!! AND CREATE SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY WORKS!
March 5th, 2008 at 5:29 am
So is the SMTP problem fixed? I changed the server and it still doesn’t work. I tried to call the customer center and they said it was a 20 minute wait. Is someone going to update us on the status of this problem.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:22 am
There is more than just mail that is impacting users these days. I didn’t ask Yahoo to give me a “NEW” look or feel, yet every other time I open my browser it opens the new version instead of the Old version I like. I talked to customer suport and told them I did not plan to change and wanted them to make it so my browser would open my.yahoo.com and not switch every day. It does it to my mail also. In fact, I have to go to mail to reset it. You will force me too change home pages if this persists
March 5th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I have no problems what so ever but i have not updated anything on my computer when it comes to yahoo, or any other server that i use.
I hope that you guy’s resolve your problems.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I use an IPhone and I haven’t been able to send an email in three days. It keeps telling me that the server is “null”. Is anyone else having this problem? Does anybody know how to fix it? Is there ever anybody available at yahoo? Anybody?
March 5th, 2008 at 9:54 am
We just switched to yahoo web host. and merchant account - I can use MY personal yahoo mail box to add an account and send/retreive outlook. Others here - are not having the same luck. Is it because of this? when i point to yahoo’s bizmail server, I’m fine. But not one else at my office can do it. We may have to switch because of this.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:14 am
have not recieved regular e-mail for almost 2 days - get a error “Code 5″ message. situation is totally unacceptable - spoke to someone who acknowledges some kind of a problem at Yahoo’s end, but no idea how long the problem will go on. I’m ready to ditch the service after many years.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I seriously don’t know what to do about the SPAM taking over my mailbox and what seems like my life. I get an average of 50 per day that go directly to my Junk folder and about 10 a day that bleed over into my INBOX. They are disgusting and explicit subject lines. I have no idea how these are generated or why I keep getting them. I mark them all as SPAM, unopened. Then when I scan through my Junk Folder as I’ve learned to do…I find a raft of legitimate e-mails that should have gone to my INBOX. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks
c
March 5th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I never received any sort of email. I have an iPhone and I was having push problems during all of this. Not sure if you were aware that this also impacted iPhone users.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I still seem to be getting long delays and non-delivered messages when I send email through Outlook / Entourage.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I can’t believe I upgraded and paid money in order to be able to use outlook and my messages are being sent via outer slobovia. The last one I sent took 16 hours to show up. I got your email and checked my settings, but nothing has changed. Honestly, if it wasn’t so much trouble, I’d change to another server. I’m not at all impressed with the canned messages I get back from customer service that don’t even address the question asked. What’s up Yahoo?
March 5th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Thanks for taking the time to address this. I find your forum informative and well presented.
Bob
March 5th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I am getting the Error Code 5 every session of using Yahoo! mail. I have two accounts, one for business and one for personal. I cannot open my mailbox - I get the “You’ve stumbled onto a temporary problem….” which has not been temporary or infrequent at all. I’ve been having these issues for 2 months and it’s getting more and more persistent. I often cannot send mail. I get “Try again”. I’ve been told via an impersonal email that I should turn off my smart phone while trying to use my pc to access my email. My Windows Mobile phone is programmed to send/receive email every 10 minutes and I’m not modifying this setting every time I use my pc to login to my Yahoo! mail accounts - that’s too inconvenient.
Since early January I can no longer send mail from my Yahoo! accounts via my Windows Mobile phone. I’ve replaced my phone and sat through many troubleshooting phone calls and in-store visits with Verizon with no results.
I guess I’ll switch to another email provider? But I want my domain to go with me for my business account.
Any advise or feedback is greatly appreciated. I’ve emailed yahoo customer service with no response and verified my settings for SMTP are correct.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
So, I’ve updated my settings. Worked fine for two days. Now emails are being held somewhere. What is the deal? I know you guys are trying to stop spammers. But you’re going to lose customers if you cannot find a way to provide instant email to the non-spamming customers!
March 6th, 2008 at 4:14 am
I want to thank whoever implemented the download all feature in Yahoo Mail Beta. Its made things a lot easier for me. But can we have a feature that allows one to download all attachments together as themselves and not zip files?
Thanks
March 6th, 2008 at 7:11 am
My gripe (out of many) is the Varification code I have to put in when sending emails. One of the reasons for this, as Yahoo Customer Service states (via email - which I still have if anyone wants to see it) is because I have a link in my email. Which I do. I have a link underneath my signature.
I was having issues with Yahoo not delivering nor receiving my Mac mail, which is semi resolved, but still very unreliable. I hope this issue gets fixed very soon since this one of the things Yahoo supposedly fixed for its PAYING customers.
March 7th, 2008 at 9:05 am
What is the update on the missing ‘contact icon’ via Yahoo webmail access from appearing next to any email from an existing Yahoo ‘contact’, which I read is due to a glitch in Yahoo Mail system. Note, I use the Classic Interface.
I searched Yahoo Mail answers and I saw a post from February that said Yahoo was aware of the missing contact icon problem and is working on fixing it; but, there hasn’t been any updates since then.
Also, even if you open a message from someone not in your Yahoo mail contact list, the option next to that sender’s address to ‘add to contact list’ no longer appears.
Ryan, thanks in advance for looking into this!
March 7th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Hi sampalesi — is that even possible? If you want to download everything at once, you have to group the files together somehow…
March 11th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Thanks for this thoughtful blog post.
However, if the email you send had contained instructions that actually worked (I’m referring to updating the POP3 and SMTP servers, which did not work), then you wouldn’t have needed to supply the blog link so that people could scramble around and find a working solution
March 11th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I just made the server switch in Eudora 8. All is well, with no delays. But now when I try to use Firefox with the New Yahoo Mail (Plus) Web Mail, I cannot right-click on anything, nor drag and drop, nor open a new message (compose). I just applied Java JRE Update 5 to my computer. Yahoo Engineers, please update YOUR Java!
March 14th, 2008 at 8:12 am
I can not send email from express or outlook. I know I have been getting messages from yahoo mail about possible problems but have not been smart enough to follow the instructions to solve this problem. could I have a detailed set of instructions sent to rlantz38517@sbcglobal.net ofr dell running xp
March 14th, 2008 at 11:11 am
It is not a matter of communicatting. It is a matter of solving the problem, which is, of course, not solved. So stop whining about communication and get engineers to SOLVE THE POP PROBLEM, please.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am
This problem seems to affect more than just POP mail users.. Has anyone tried to access mail.yahoo.com lately? I’ve tried from every angle i can find, and it’s like the page doesn’t even exist anymore. It seems i’m going to have to redirect all my yahoo mail to hotmail now..
If you leave people wondering about their mail, they will find someone else to provide it.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
My problem in sending mail is exactly the same as deanna (see 4 March 2008)and as yet no proper answer to my query on this error report has been received. My husband is linked to the same router and he can send mail without any problems - how and why? Margaet 18 March 2008
March 24th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Has something significant happened at Yahoo! on the spam blocking front in the last week or so? I used to get over 50 messages a day in my bulk folder, with a few spilling over into my inbox. In the last week or so, there’s been a bare trickle of spam, some days none at all. This is really good news if there’s been new action to block spam at its source, but not so great if it means I’m missing legitimate messages–in the past, I’ve had a moderate amount of real mail tagged as yahoobulk, and I hope those messages aren’t falling into a black hole now.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
I still have problems in sending email. Few days ago the problem seemed solved, but now I am getting the usual message (failed connection with SMTP server). I have to try few times to finally succeed (btw, I have a yahoo.it account, as I am Italian - does it mean anything?). Thanks in advance, cheers
April 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Hi. Can you please post a post containing information about the recent yahoo chain mail change? I have heard that this change limits chain e-mails to only 5. I am a student with the California Virtual Academy, and my teachers send announcements via chain e-mails. Lately, I have not been able to receive them. Can you please post a post on this topic giving more information, and how users can opt out of this limit?
April 4th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
P.S. When I said that the change limits chain e-mails to 5 I meant the number of addresses it is sent to.
April 13th, 2008 at 9:06 am
I haven’t been able to access my inbox for more than 6 months now, all i get is error code 1 and error code 5, this is ridiculous. I spoke to someone who said that they would sort it in 48 hours, 4 weeks later and still no luck. I cannot access my mail in anyway. think I will have to go elsewhere….
June 12th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I have in the last 2 days tried to access to my yahoo account, with my same password of always and it tells me that is invalid, I tried to enter to my account and when I put my information I can’t enter, so what is happening. please help