Godaddy email problem

[Strapporava]

Hi, I just read all the old threads about this but I couldn't find any solution, sorry I'm repeating...
We've recently upgraded to a business hosting in Godaddy and suddenly the cPanel Webmail navigation turned totally unstable getting several messages of error like "Authentication error" after login attempt or "Unexpected condition from IMAP server, closed or corrupt connection to IMAP. Possible mailbox corruption". When finally we get into Roundcube o Horde, the navigation response is very very slow and many times we get "Server error" and we have to start all over again.

After seven days straight calling Godaddy Support and wasting hours and hours, one of the guys toll me that they don't have enough tools to check what the problem is and they don't provide support to cPanel emails. I understand that they are clients of cPanel so it's difficult for me to accept that answer. I know that Godaddy sell their own email service so they try to force you to move there... but that is another story.
So... we are in a shared hosting so I can't see the WHM, only the cPanel and as you already know, I'm very limited here. I find myself in a dead end situation without any help from my hosting provider. We are an educational institution and we need the emails working fine as soon as possible.
According Godaddy all the Domain records are ok, the Email Fowarding is ok and my problem is with cPanel.




PS: I attach two images ofmy domain records

Thanks in advance!
Strapporava

 

[cPanelLauren]

Before I dig into this I wanted to let you know a couple of things:

1. I removed any identifying information from posts here per Forums Guidelines and FAQ and sent you a notification of this, I've also deleted subsequent responses discussing this.
2. I've reported this matter internally to be discussed with your provider's support as on shared hosting there is absolutely no reason why a client should be told they can't troubleshoot email issues within that shared hosting environment. Especially considering you would not be granted root access to the server to resolve them. This matter will be followed up on by one of our senior admins here.

We've recently upgraded to a business hosting in Godaddy and suddenly the cPanel Webmail navigation turned totally unstable getting several messages of error like "Authentication error" after login attempt or "Unexpected condition from IMAP server, closed or corrupt connection to IMAP. Possible mailbox corruption". When finally we get into Roundcube o Horde, the navigation response is very very slow and many times we get "Server error" and we have to start all over again.

A few questions to try to get to the root of this (though it may be that you need access you don't have which is what I'll try to determine)

• Are you ever able to access webmail?
• If the above answer is yes what URL format is it?
  • domain.tld/webmail or port
  • server.hostname.tld/webmail or port
  • ipaddress:port
  • webmail.server.hostname.tld
  • webmail.domain.tld
• Are you able to access on new accounts more reliably than previously existing accounts?
• Are you able to connect with a mail client like thunderbird or outlook without issues?

 

[Strapporava]

Hi Lauren. Thank you for your answer and sorry about my identifying information previously posted!

It's no the first time they told me they can't help me with cPanel emails problems. They tell you that after a thousand calls and (in this case) two internal Advance Support tickets without any success...

About your questions:

- Yes, we are able to access webmail randomly but with very slow navigation
- The URL we use is: domain.com.ar/webmail (which sometimes changes to domain.com.ar:2096)
- We tried configuring a new account but the behavior is the same
- Yes, we are able to connect with an Email Client (Apple Mail) but when Webmail stops we can't get emails from Email Client either.

Thanks again for your help!
Strapporava

 

[rolinger]

@cPanelLauren - welcome to GoDaddy. Horrendous support. You can't talk to anyone that know what they are doing, you are screened by some 1st level person who then relays your issue via a ticket to an internal "expert" and then ultimate get an email from said expert that "because you are vps client, we can't trouble shoot this". I stick with them out of habit, but of lately I am starting to look at other vendors. I am no cPanel expert but I do know what I am doing and never once, in nearly 4 years of service, have I ever spoken to anyone (or emailed anyone) at GoDaddy whom I felt was more knowledgeable than me - and I am the customer. No one there even cares to try.

 

[keat63]

I feel your pain, i went through this with HostPapa, and I've heard this so many times with GoDaddy.

I believe Rollinger is accuate in his explanation.
I've always considered that your tier one guys are probably scripted, not IT trained, and possibly have very little in the way of diagnostic skills.
If it falls outside of their script or skill set, actually getting it to land on the correct desk can be tiresome.

With HostPapa I would have constant outages, all my domains would drop off the end of the web, could have been down for hours.
By the time a support ticket got picked up (as long as 24 hours), the server would be back up again, so support would tell me that they can't see anything wrong.

I suffered various issues for a few years before i decided to do this myself.
If I administer my own destiny, then there's only me to blame if something goes wrong.

Good Luck.

 

[keat63]

Oh and for the record (I really hope HostPapa are listening).

HostPapa forced my hand, they served 30 days notice on me because I had the audacity to complain about the shocking level of support I was receiving.
This is how they obtain their 99% customer satisfaction rating, by getting rid of customers who complain.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hello,

Hi Lauren. Thank you for your answer and sorry about my identifying information previously posted!

No worries at all it happens, I just wanted to make sure you knew why it kept getting deleted

- Yes, we are able to access webmail randomly but with very slow navigation
- The URL we use is: domain.com.ar/webmail (which sometimes changes to domain.com.ar:2096)
- We tried configuring a new account but the behavior is the same
- Yes, we are able to connect with an Email Client (Apple Mail) but when Webmail stops we can't get emails from Email Client either.

Unfortunately, this sounds like behavior associated with an overwhelmed mailserver. Slow connection, connection drops, consistent on new accounts and old which rules out some form of issue with the account moving (usually when you upgrade to a different plan they'll move you servers). You can search the forums and find complaints almost identical to yours.

Unfortunately we see quite a few complaints about them similar to yours

@cPanelLauren - welcome to GoDaddy. Horrendous support. You can't talk to anyone that know what they are doing, you are screened by some 1st level person who then relays your issue via a ticket to an internal "expert" and then ultimate get an email from said expert that "because you are vps client, we can't trouble shoot this". I stick with them out of habit, but of lately I am starting to look at other vendors. I am no cPanel expert but I do know what I am doing and never once, in nearly 4 years of service, have I ever spoken to anyone (or emailed anyone) at GoDaddy whom I felt was more knowledgeable than me - and I am the customer. No one there even cares to try.

Yea unfortunately I am aware of issues people bring up about support especially with mail, the best we can do is take them up through internal channels and hope to have them addressed by their management when it comes to supporting of cPanel software. I can help with a lot of stuff but when it comes to shared hosting and issues on a mailserver that require root access to resolve my hands are tied.

Oh and for the record (I really hope HostPapa are listening).

HostPapa forced my hand, they served 30 days notice on me because I had the audacity to complain about the shocking level of support I was receiving.
This is how they obtain their 99% customer satisfaction rating, by getting rid of customers who complain.

As in they told you, that you had 30 days to leave their service?

 

[keat63]

Yep.

I actually found my review on trustpilot today. Lol.
HostPapa picked up on it.
Even though I left my review with a random pseudo, they addressed me by my name.
I wonder If I can sue under gdpr regulations

 

[Strapporava]

Unfortunately, this sounds like behavior associated with an overwhelmed mailserver. Slow connection, connection drops, consistent on new accounts and old which rules out some form of issue with the account moving (usually when you upgrade to a different plan they'll move you servers). You can search the forums and find complaints almost identical to yours.

Unfortunately we see quite a few complaints about them similar to yours

Hi again Lauren and thanks one more time for your help. Have you been able to run some kind of checking tool or dig into the server configuration? I don't understand if you are assuming the problem is an overwhelmed mailserver or you are sure about that and this is your final answer (which makes me feel very cheated from Godaddy). It's a crazy situation to paid for a better service and end up getting just problems and none improvement at all).

Any suggestions? like deleting all the email accounts and creating them again... I don't know, just saying something silly maybe but I'm against the wall here (and I paid a year in advance for the new business plan) so I feel more like a hostage than a client.


Thanks for your patience and support.
Strapporava

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @Strapporava

I am making an assumption based off of what you're telling me is occurring. Here's how I'm doing it:

1. If it was DNS related you wouldn't get any mail.
2. Webmail being accessible but slow lends to overloading
3. The behavior being the same on new vs old accounts rules out issues with a transfer
4. Timeouts in conjunction with slow loading UI also lend to overloading.
5. I would think if it was *just* disconnects and being unable to log back in that the issue was firewall related but this sounds like latency is a big part of the issue as well and if it was continuously happening you wouldn't be able to get back in.

I wouldn't have a way to view your server's load averages but you might be able to from you cPanel interface pending that they haven't removed your package's ability to see server information - you can type it in the top search bar or click the "Server Information" link in the right-hand sidebar with Statistics.

 

[Strapporava]

@cPanelLauren your assumptions seem very logical to me, I share the same opinion with you.

I saw the Server statistics and everything seems fine. We may have a lot traffic because our students are playing multiple videos files from the server (4TB per month) but this was not a problem before the plan upgrade and if this were the problem, it is showing issues only with cPanel webmail, nothing more. Everything else is working just fine.

Thanks again for your support, I think you can't do anything else to help me (please let me know if I am wrong) but I want you not to forget that Godaddy is blaming cPanel for their own problems, and again I have wasted my time with another of their lies.

Thanks a lot.
Strapporava

 

[keat63]

One thing which crossed my mind a few times when I had similar issues.
Is there a connectivity issue between me and our server.
We are in the UK, the server was in Canada.

When you have an outage, try connecting using a VPN
Or maybe try using something like GeoPeeker

GeoPeeker - A tool for viewing sites from different geographic locations

GeoPeeker is a tool for quickly viewing a site from different geographic locations.

geopeeker.com

 

[cPanelLauren]

@Strapporava

Before you upgraded to the business plan did you have the same amount of email and/or any changes with email? What I mean is was everything the same then you upgraded and now it's not working? I'd bring this to GoDaddy and ask them to explain it as it seems like that's the case - If the fault were on cPanel's webmail functionality then why did it work without issue prior?

 

[Strapporava]

@Strapporava

Before you upgraded to the business plan did you have the same amount of email and/or any changes with email? What I mean is was everything the same then you upgraded and now it's not working? I'd bring this to GoDaddy and ask them to explain it as it seems like that's the case - If the fault were on cPanel's webmail functionality then why did it work without issue prior?

Hi Lauren. No, no problem at all before the upgrade, all the accounts were working amazingly great! I told them this in almost all my calls but they always say that the problem is not related with the upgrade... and you know... they follow their own script very very well!

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @Strapporava

Yea, it's very difficult when you're placed in this situation too, I understand. I will continue checking in with the internal query for you but the unfortunate part of this is that even if it was an issue with cPanel, you wouldn't have the access to resolve it with the account you have. I'm going to see if there's anything else that can be done to help you as well and I'll update here when I have more info

 

[Strapporava]

Thanks again for your help!

 

[cPanelLauren]

@Strapporava

Of course, in the meantime have you tried accessing from a different IP or VPN like the suggestion earlier notes? If you haven't you might try and see if the behavior is the same.

Another suggestion, you might request that they transfer you to another server. It could just be this server that is experiencing the issue and if they transfer you the behavior may be improved.

 

[Strapporava]

@cPanelLauren

I've tried from different IPs with the same behavior but not a VPN... but it is impossible for all the people in the administration who work in their homes to do that ...

Another suggestion, you might request that they transfer you to another server. It could just be this server that is experiencing the issue and if they transfer you the behavior may be improved.

Yes! I did that after your advice and I'm waiting for an answer (sadly I don't believe in Godaddy anymore but we'll see...)
Thanks a lot again!

 

[cPanelLauren]

I've tried from different IPs with the same behavior but not a VPN... but it is impossible for all the people in the administration who work in their homes to do that ...

Yea, that makes sense, it was just a thought in hopes that maybe there was some issue with the location you were accessing from, trying to rule out any issue besides ones with the server specifically.

Yes! I did that after your advice and I'm waiting for an answer (sadly I don't believe in Godaddy anymore but we'll see...)
Thanks a lot again!

I've got my fingers crossed for you!