"Your account has been disabled for one hour only."

[poelmanc]

I got this message late last night because I set up a new computer with IMAP and it tried to download all my messages and exceeded the 500MB/hour hourly bandwidth quota. I didn't worry and went to bed since it said it was just for an hour, but now almost 18 hours later, I keep getting the same "Your account has been disabled for one hour only" message whenever I try to log in. Has this happened to anyone else? Any suggestions of what to do? Emails to postmaster@fastmail.fm and webmaster@fastmail.fm seem to have gone unheeded.

Thanks for any help or advice that anyone can offer.

[David]

Originally posted by poelmanc
I I didn't worry and went to bed since it said it was just for an hour, but now almost 18 hours later, I keep getting the same "Your account has been disabled for one hour only" message whenever I try to log in. Has this happened to anyone else?

It has not happened to me poelmanc, but I have read a few threads (in the past) where people have complained about this.

[anj]

I haven't encountered this problem, but a few general suggestions:

1. Check your account status.
From the signin page (fastmail.fm) click on "Account problems?". This is below the login box.

2. Browse any relevant info on the "Support" page.
From Fastmail.fm signin page --> click on the "Support" link on the top of the page.
Read any pertinent info.

3. File a support request
From the "Support" page --> Click on "Immediately submit a support request"
Include the info you get from step 1 and you described here.

[JeffK]

poelmanc, have you tried to use the support link on the home page? What membership level are you?

Jeff

[poelmanc]

JeffK,

Thanks for the reply. I've been an Enhanced member since 2002, plus I've paid about $100 extra for quota increases over the year (back before you kindly gave everyone 2GB!) and have convinced at least a dozen friends and coworkers to sign up for your service, in addition to putting links to Fastmail from my web site and posting lots of positive reviews.

As of 9pm Mountain time, my account is back on. There was an email in my Inbox saying "This is an automated notification. Your account/email address has been permanently locked. You have already been sent two warnings to your account ..." No new mail of course - it was all rejected, including possibly important business communications.

Also I've received absolutely zero personal contact from anyone explaining what happened. I sent my first email about the situation from my gmail account to webmaster@fastimap.com at 9:22am as I was instructed by the FAQ entry that came up when I clicked on the "Account Locked?" link, then I sent a second one to postmaster@fastmail.fm around 9:30am as I noticed that link somewhere else on a FAQ or help page. Finally 8 hours later, having heard absolutely no response and having my account still locked, I sent another email to webmaster@fastimap.com, filled out an online support request, and posted two messages here (the first time I accidentally posted in the "general" forum.) How do I know which one worked? Why did it take almost 12 hours from first contact for you to fix the problem? Why did the login page say "Your account has been disabled for one hour only" when in fact it was permanently locked? Why was my account locked permanently simply for trying to synchronize an IMAP folder? The "permanently locked" email said I had used 1GB in an hour, yet in fact I had cancelled the IMAP folder synchronization as soon as I saw the two messages saying I had used 250MB and then 400MB in an hour. If you have bandwith limits, why do you even allow IMAP clients to suck up that much bandwidth? Also why didn't the email tell me what my bandwidth quota was, the email pointed me to the FAQ but in fact the quotas are only listed several clicks away on the "pricing table".

It seems that there ought to be a way to politely reject IMAP connections for another hour, or to throttle back the bandwidth after the user has used some large amount of bandwidth. I guess I feel like, if your hourly bandwidth meter can't distinguish between a spammer and someone synchronizing their large IMAP folders then you should turn it off.

Finally, you really need some sort of "hotline" support that can respond rapidly, and you need to make links to that support consistent throughout your FAQ and help pages. If you want everyone to use the support request submission web site, then point all your links to that. If you want them to email to postmaster or webmaster, then point them there. If you want them to post in these forums for help, them point them here. Again, I don't know which solution actually worked, but it's crazy that in searching for help I found so many different options, not all of which evidently invoke a rapid response. So far JeffK, yours is the only human response I've received.

I'm trying to run a business and having to send emails to anyone who might have sent me some communications today telling them sorry if their emails to me were rejected but I don't have a reliable email service and they need to send their messages again frankly doesn't make me, or you guys, look professional. Sorry for ranting, but I hope Rob & Jeremy take note and manage to stop IMAP folder synchronization from causing permanent account disabling and find a way to provide consolidated, rapid support.

[poelmanc]

Ok, I'm done ranting, I just checked my gmail and saw that in fact I had received (in fact, prior to pressing the "Submit" button on the above rant) a kind email from Kurian explaining the situation, apologizing for the problem, and saying:

"I agree that this shouldn't happen when you sync your mailbox, or there should be some way around this. We definitely will think more about how to work around this issue."

Thanks! That's all it takes to make me happy again :-)

Sorry for the rant!

[poelmanc]

Quite concidentally, moments after posting the above message, I went to my gmail account to start moving messages back over to Fastmail and got the message:

"Server Error

Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

So even the $112 billion market cap big guys have problems...

[anj]

Originally posted by poelmanc
"Server Error

Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

I have gotten this Gmail error no less than 5 times in the last 2 weeks and it is not even an account I check that often.

[JeffK]

Originally posted by poelmanc
Ok, I'm done ranting, I just checked my gmail and saw that in fact I had received (in fact, prior to pressing the "Submit" button on the above rant) a kind email from Kurian explaining the situation, apologizing for the problem, and saying:

"I agree that this shouldn't happen when you sync your mailbox, or there should be some way around this. We definitely will think more about how to work around this issue."

Thanks! That's all it takes to make me happy again :-)

Sorry for the rant!

I don't actually work for FM support but just moderate on this forum. I wanted to check that you had in fact got FM support's attention which it looks like you did.

Jeff