Vfemail.net and Openmail.cc
 

There are several old threads on the forum about VFEmail.net and Openmail.cc, but perhaps it's time to start a new one for more up-to-date comments and queries.

The service has been quite stable for a long time, but today I have encountered persistent problems.

Has anyone else experienced erratic response at VFEmail.net and/or openmail.cc (which is part of the same system)?

Openmail was very slow yesterday but worked.

Today I've encountered numerous problems -- failed logins with correct credentials, logins accepted but followed by very erratic performance, server errors, inability to move messages from inbox to folders, and several other problems, encountered repeatedly over the course of the entire day, and during two or three separate login/logout cycles.

I have accounts at both VFEmail.net and openmail.cc. A few minutes ago I was able to login to my VFEmail.net account but not my openmail.cc account. Then, a little while later, I encountered a 'failed login' for the VFEmail account as well.

What's going on? There is no mention of any problem on the VFEmail.net twitter feed, and nothing new at the VFEmail.net forum.

I haven't yet raised a ticket with Rick because I'm hoping it will clear up soon. (The service is moving to a new collocation site on March 21, and notice of the resultant downtime has been provided, but that is many days away and presumably has nothing to do with what is happening today.)

I'd appreciate it if other EMD members with VFEmail.net and/or openmail.cc accounts would check and see if anything erratic is happening with their accounts. I doubt that it could be only at my end, but you never know.

Thanks.

I've been using TB of late and have my VFEmail acct set up in it. I have noticed an occasional inability to login over the past couple of weeks. Yesterday afternoon, for example. I only log in several times per day, so I can't say how often this happens. Maybe once every few days. I've never submitted a support ticket or posted at their forum, since it has never been a 'work flow' issue for me.

Today it's logging in fine on TB, btw. And I just checked the webmail login (RC) and it's working fine, too. If/When login failure happens again (before the server move), I'll mention it. :)

I Received this message from VFEMail

Thanks again for being a being a member of VFEmail!

We've secured a new colocation facility and will be moving in by April 1st.

As we're planning to physically relocate the servers soon - the question is: Can you accept a few hours of downtime, or do we need to engineer a mirrored site?

A mirrored site would require a new server for the primary data, and we'd add an additional VM to get the database data over. Then when the DNS is changed, the new location would proxy until the records are propagated. We'd have to figure out how to securely connect both sites, it would probably require a full site to site VPN and entirely new subnetting at the new site. More moving parts means more chance for errors. But, potentially no actual downtime. Anyone pointing to the old site after the DNS change will simply be proxied.

A shutdown would just be powering down the servers, and taking them to the new location. As only the primary data store is not mirrored, half of the servers could already be ready and waiting. I would expect less than 2 hours of downtime on a Saturday (CST) night. This method less chance of problems, no funky re-configurations. No additional equipment saves about a month's worth of hosting costs. The proxy from the old site can still be done in this configuration.


Please vote ASAP! ow.ly/JfW5q


Please let me know if you have any questions,


Thanks,
Rick Romero

Just FYI an email updating the results of Rick Romero's poll has already been sent out. (He said most of his respondents are okay with up to 8 hrs. downtime while the transition is being made.)

Anyway, communicant's post indicates he's already aware of the server relocation schedule but doubts that's the cause of the problem(s) he's experiencing.

VFEmail Status Update
 

E-Mail received from Rick Romero:

Some time ago Fastmail would offer a lifetime account for $15 (or maybe $10). After a while FM decided this made no sense commercially, so the users were forced to upgrade.
Now VFM offers lifetime accounts for $1.... Good luck to them....

Their "lifetime" account is (according to the website) a BRONZE account for $24.95:

https://www.vfemail.net/vfemailaccts.php

So what exactly do you get for $1??

The way I read it, your $1 is for "creating" a COPPER account.

The current comparison between COPPER and BRONZE accounts is in the link:

https://www.vfemail.net/vfemailaccts.php

Ok, but once you created it and dropped $1 in the box, it's yours for life, isn't it? Subject to being used once every 180 days.....

I would guess that it doesn't depend on your understanding of the word "life", that would be determined by the provider of the service.

À la FastMail?

VFEmail - major problems reported on Twitter today
 

Quite a few tweets posted, quite a lot to read, I suggest if interested to head over to:

https://twitter.com/VFEmail

Last tweet:

Just noticed on their website:

It's getting more and more funny every day.... Now it reads:
This is followed by

1) What's the URL to log in to horde? I've been redirected to the page from time to time when I made a login error, but I never made a note ot the address.

2) These problems are not "funny" if one depends on VFEmail to the extent that I and many others do, Every few years Rick seems to be targeted by "vicious" DDOS attacks -- why? Why VFEmail in particular? Rick? Are you around? Why you?