Posted on 12/16/2012 5:37:30 AM PST by Perdogg
Please click here if you are a customer in the following states: Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Virginia
Restoration efforts continue and we are actively exploring multiple approaches to restore email services. All available resources are engaged across multiple teams.These teams will continue working around the clock until your email is restored. Based on our investigation, event logs, and other data available to us, we have no indication that this incident is the result of a security breach that would put customer information at risk. We will provide additional updates by 9 am ET. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this is causing you.
Virginia ping
What in the world is going on. This is the same message from yesterday when they expected to have the problem resolved by last night. Do you have any idea?
To me they are hinting at a “hack attack”.
Thankfully, I have Verizon FIOS with its fiber optics - it has really been fast and wonderful for our internet, TV and phones.
Cox must have had a major crash or hacking. Their email service in several states (including mine) has been down for the 3rd day now.
They only posted the notice of service issues yesterday.
I am but I have the business account at home. For the extra money it is faster, it almost never goes down, and I get 4 hour service response all 24 hours a day.
Thank goodness there are other means of communication. At least for now. I’m away from computer at the moment and can do the ping later today.
Mine has been down since late Friday afternoon. Frankly I am surprised they have posted a notice at all. It must be extremely serious since usually they refuse to provide insight into any problems they have. Other utilities would have posted a "we are having a problem" notice within hours if not minutes of a system failure.
Summary
Email Outage Update as of 9:30 am, December 16th
Detail
Since our update at 1:00 a.m., our teams continue to make progress in restoring email service to our customers in the Midwest and East Coast regions. Teams across all levels of our organization are focused on the recovery and we truly apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. At this time we cannot provide an estimated time for recovery, but will continue to work around the clock until email service is restored.
This happened to me, while I was in the Caribbean, got home to find ten emails including one from my provider saying it wasn’t their fault. Four days ago, I got a 443 email dump of emails from that time period.
Summary
Email Outage Update as of 12:00 pm, December 16th
Detail
Our teams are making progress in our email service restoration efforts. Through our investigation, we have isolated the cause of the failure to the email system platform which ultimately affected both the primary and secondary failover (back-up) systems. Currently, all incoming messages are queued in our system and we expect to deliver messages to customers on a rolling basis as we bring the systems back online. Teams across all levels of our organization remain intensely focused on the restoration efforts. Unfortunately, we do not expect services to be restored today. We do understand the impact this is having on our customers, which is why we have deployed every resource possible to working this issue. While we are focused on restoring email access as quickly as possible, the multiple components and processes that make up our email system require care, and some time, to bring them back online. Our next scheduled update is 3:00 pm, however we will update this alert with new information as we have it
My cox email has been very slow out here in AZ the last few days.
Summary
Email Outage Update as of 3:30 pm, December 16th
Detail
First we want to acknowledge the impact of the residential email service outage on our customers. We know this experience is not consistent with our promise to deliver reliable products and services, and sincerely apologize for the frustration this has caused.
Here is what we know:
We have isolated the cause to an issue within the email storage platform that supports Cox Residential Email in service areas in our Midwest and East Coast regions. This outage does not affect Cox Business customers.
Cox technical teams are working around the clock with email platform vendors to restore service as quickly and safely as possible. Unfortunately, we do not expect services to be restored today.
This outage is not the result of a cyber-attack or any form of cyber terrorism.
Some customers have asked about a redundant backup system. Our enterprise infrastructure exceeds industry standards and includes multiple levels of support designed to ensure reliability. Unfortunately, this outage affected the primary and secondary failover (back-up) systems.
Our email service is supported by multiple servers. As we successfully bring each server back online, customers on that server will be able to access their email.
Currently, all messages that have been received since Friday are queued in our system and we anticipate delivering messages to customers on a rolling basis as we bring the platform back online.
We cannot provide a definitive restoration time, but are expecting multiple phases, including when customers will be able to send and receive new messages as well as the delivery of currently queued emails.
If you must send or receive an email during this outage, you may want to create a temporary new email account from a service such as Yahoo! or Hotmail. This will not allow you to gain access to your cox.net account; however, you will be able to send and receive email while your cox.net email is inaccessible.
We want to reiterate our commitment to restore services to our customers as soon as possible. As we stated earlier today, the multiple components and processes that make up our email system require care, and some time, to bring them back online.
Impact by Residential Customer Scenario
Customers who have and actively use a cox.net email account (username@cox.net).
Customers attempting to access their cox.net email account through webmail (Classic and/or Enhanced Webmail) will not be able to access their messages and cannot send or receive email.
Customers attempting to access their cox.net email account through an email client such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, iPhone and Android smartphones, or an iPad may be able to access messages received prior to Friday evening, however no new messages will be downloaded; they will receive an error message when attempting to retrieve new messages. When cox.net email service is restored, any queued messages will be downloaded at that time. They should be able to successfully send messages from their cox.net account.
Customers who have and DO NOT actively use a cox.net email account (username@cox.net).
While their cox.net email account is impacted as described, they will not see any direct impact, as they do not use their account.
Customers who have an email account from a service such as Yahoo!, or Hotmail.
These email accounts are not impacted by this issue. Only cox.net email accounts (username@cox.net) are impacted by this outage.
Customers who have created a new temporary email account from a service such as Yahoo!, or Hotmail since Friday evening as a result of this outage.
These email accounts are not impacted by this issue, however do not allow customers to gain access to their cox.net email account. Only cox.net email accounts (username@cox.net) are impacted by this outage.
Product FAQs
Q: Are all Cox High Speed Internet Customers Impacted?
A: No, only Residential Cox High Speed Internet Customers in the East and Midwest who have and use a cox.net email address (username@cox.net) are impacted. Customers who use other email services such as Gmail or Yahoo! email will not see any impact to those services.
Q: If someone is trying to send an email to my cox.net account, will they get an error message?
A: No, people who send email to your cox.net email account will not receive an error message; they will not know you are unable to receive emails.
Q: What will happen to the emails that are being sent to my cox.net email address during this outage period?
A: Currently, all incoming messages are queued in our system and we expect to deliver messages to customers on a rolling basis as we bring our system back online. Full message delivery may take several days.
Q: If I must send an email during this outage, what options do I have?
A: If you must send or receive an email during this outage, you may want to create a temporary new email account from a service such as Yahoo!, or Hotmail. This will not allow you to gain access to your cox.net account, however you will be able to send and receive email while your cox.net email is inaccessible.
This alert will be updated around 6:00 pm ET.
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