Virgin.net behaving badly or just me... my settings appear to be ok!

Although it is possible to access a POP account with more than one email client, a POP account is designed to be accessed with a single email client only.

Do you leave the email client on your PC used for accessing the account launched and running actively checking the account for new messages while your iPhone's Mail client is doing the same? If so, this can cause problems since only one email client can check the incoming mail server for new messages and download new messages received at the incoming mail server at a time with a POP account.

This is not a problem with an IMAP account which is designed for more than one email client to access the incoming mail server and any server stored mailboxes at the same time along with all server stored mailboxes kept synchronized with the server automatically with each email client used to access the account.

In addition, what is your account setting with the email client used on your computer for accessing the account for removing messages from the server when downloaded?

Hi,

I'm having the exact same problem, and it baffled me. It's because Virgin.net have migrated their email to the Google platform, so if you log on to web mail it's more like google. And what happens is the it only downloads through pop the first time, so it depends on which client gets to it first. Also if you fiddle with the POP3 settings in Setting through webmail it'll seem to re-sync all emails including sent ones!

Apparently you're meant to be able to prefix your username in the email client with recent: which puts it in recent mode, so if your username is john.smith you should put recent:john.smith@virgin.net

Do this for all email clients and ensure the email is left on the server.

However I tried this and it doesn't work as it says my username is not recognised! If you look at the following links you might have more luck than me!

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/Mail-migration-useful-settings-and-som e-common-problems/m-p/6328

http://www.virginmedia.com/help/virginmediamail/4_pop.php

Also I tried to set up imap with imap.virgin.net (as per the instructions) and this doesn't work either, even though I think I've got the SSL and ports set up correctly!

So if anyone can help I'll be grateful too!

Hold on! I've cracked it (I think)! I just found another post on the virgin forum, that said to change the pop server from pop.virgin.net to pop3.virginmedia.com and this will let you use recent mode, so I've now got my username on all my email clients as

recent:username@virgin.net

This worked on iphone and macbook clients.

Have a look at the link below for more details:
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/Multiple-email-client-problems-why-was n-t-I-told-and-can-someone/m-p/5539

FYI... I also changed the imap server to imap.virginmedia.com and that lets imap work too, even though I'm on virgin.net!