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http://www.macnn.com/articles/02/10/07/.mac.service/

.Mac service outage affects all services

updated 11:10 am EDT, Mon October 7, 2002

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Several readers report that Apple's .Mac service has been down since 10:30 am ET: "The .Mac network is down again, not allowing users to check email through their client application OR check it through a web brower." We have noted persistent reliability issues with the service since it was introduced in July.

by MacNN Staff

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10/07, 11:21am | report spam | close Reply |
Your link is down!

http://www.macnn.com/rd.php?id=171

Doesn't exist!

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10/07, 11:23am | report spam | close Reply |
iDisk too

Hey,
the iDisk service is down right now too. it really messed me over while i was in class today. all of a sudden my story just wasn't there anymore. grrrr....come on apple. i'm paying for this service.

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10/07, 11:24am | report spam | close Reply |
Again?????

This is getting so old...a service like .mac should NOT be experiencing such problems. So far, .mac is worse than a microsoft product for stability. I rely on that service for my primary email. They better get their sh@t together soon!

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10/07, 11:28am | report spam | close Reply |
DOWN SINCE 9:30 EST

My .Mac service has been down since 9 am EST. It's been two-and-a-half hours and I can't access my primary email!

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10/07, 11:29am | report spam | close Reply |
System Status Page

What's up with the .Mac System Status page (linked from www.apple.com/support)? It's been "not found" ever since I noticed it last week.

Shouldn't Apple have information here about when the service will be back up and running? There should at least be a place holder page. It's very odd that Apple has let something like that go unnoticed for so long--their Web site is usually so meticulously maintained.

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10/07, 11:31am | report spam | close Reply |
iChat, too

iChat (with a .Mac username, at least) isn't functioning, either. How am I supposed to communicate with people using Apple's "services"?

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10/07, 11:32am | report spam | close Reply |
Transition Phase

I know this is discouraging at this point, but remember that Apple is still transistioning this thing. It may seem like the same service as before, but I'm sure they are doing some hardware upgrades and so forth. There is also the possibility that Apple's ISP might be down. If that is the case I sure hope they look for someone else.

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10/07, 11:34am | report spam | close Reply |
what a rip

It's bad enough the iDisk access is so slow compared to ftp which I would be perfectly happy with but since the "re-branding" the service has been lousy and only 10% of the previous users signed up so they can't blame it on traffic.

Apple should refund me for outages like my cable company does when I loose net access. I may just demand this very thing if this level of service continues.

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10/07, 11:39am | report spam | close Reply |
this sucks

I checked my email when I got to work this morning, wrote a reply, hit send, and it just sat there spinning.

Apple seems to have no problem keeping their own web site up, how about giving your paying users the same attention?

and why does the comment area of this site never recognize that I am logged in?

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10/07, 11:44am | report spam | close Reply |
karma...

This is what Apple gets for changing this from a free to fee service...
I hope they learn their lesson this time...

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10/07, 11:45am | report spam | close Reply |
re: Transition Phase

apologist.

they're transitioning to a paid service and as such they should INCREASE the service reliability.

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10/07, 11:50am | report spam | close Reply |
hmmm..

well.. obviously this needs to be resolved asap. I upgraded to the paid .Mac and while I don't use it as a mission critical email account, it should be more reliable than it's been over the last few weeks. I understand that Apple is migrating hardware and ramping up new services like iSync, iCal, etc.. but if they're needing time to update thier hardware, they should be considerate enough to post some kind of schedule. If I knew that 'service will be down' on a particular day/time, I can work around that.., but I can't work around seemingly random outages. C'mon Apple, we know you're better than this..

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10/07, 11:57am | report spam | close Reply |
Ridiculous

It is down so often you would think it's a Microsoft product. Bloody h***. If it reaches four hours, I'll be cancelling my .mac account and demanding my money back. iDisk, backup, everything runs slow as h*** to begin with. I don't need them that bad.

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10/07, 11:59am | report spam | close Reply |
/

Only 10% signed up...the other 90% still are using the service (till 10/14, remember?).

They CAN still blame it on traffic ;-p

As a payed user, I got one thing to say. This better not be happening AFTER 10/14.

jimothy
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10/07, 11:59am | report spam | close Reply |
Some good news

From the .Mac discussion board:

"Alert!
Monday, October 7

We are aware of an issue that is causing users to not be able to access the .Mac services. Please be assured that we are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. I apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused you.
Regards,
Apple Support"

(go to http://discussions.info.apple.com/ then click on ".Mac" in the second column)

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10/07, 11:59am | report spam | close Reply |
again?`

this is the reason why i am allowing my .mac accounts to expire. until they can prove it's worth my money, i'm not going to use it.

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10/07, 12:17pm | report spam | close Reply |
transition

They SHOULD have transitioned before charging for the services, this is soooo Apple.

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10/07, 12:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
Welcome to the new Apple!

Where the 'loyal' early adopters who bought OS-X have paid upwards of $550 Cdn (X.1, X.2 & .Mac) to get all the functionality of the OS...

Reliable e-mail would seem a pretty basic concept...

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10/07, 12:26pm | report spam | close Reply |
What?!?

My electricity went out for a few hours the other day. I am so cancelling that!!!

If this is still happening 1-2 months from now, then I'll look for a refund. Until them, I'll cut them a little slack.

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10/07, 12:27pm | report spam | close Reply |
.Mac Down

Actually, Apple's own servers were having problems over the weekend, their developer server was having serious issues. Whose to say that these issues weren't gonna effect their .Mac servers too?

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10/07, 12:28pm | report spam | close Reply |
Seems to be up

It seems to be up now. 12:28 PM EDT

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10/07, 12:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
Lame

Come on this is so weak. I thought the reason I was paying for .Mac was for better service and relibility, unlike iTools where people would abuse the iDisk. I was able to check my email briefly at around noon but it was very slow. It doesn't seem to be working anymore though. I can still access my homepage though. Apple, get your act together. You got me to pay for .Mac which I hadn't planned on but now atleast deliver on the promise.

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10/07, 12:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
Not acceptable....

When something like this happens with a free service, not a problem.

When I'm paying, BIG problem.

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10/07, 12:51pm | report spam | close Reply |
Yeah, so.

Is MacNN going to report when my ISP's mail is down too? It happens a lot more than .Mac. The same with competing ISPs according to my coworkers.

Why is this news?

BTW, I just checked webmail.mac.com - it seems to work fine.

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10/07, 12:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Not acceptable

It's free until Oct. 14 - so, according to you, not a problem. :-D

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10/07, 01:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
.Mac explanation

...after logging in to my .Mac account:

"We apologize for the outage from 6:30am to 9:30am pdt this morning. There was a network outage due to faulty hardware. We have restored access to the .Mac site and services.

Regards,

.Mac Support"

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10/07, 01:15pm | report spam | close Reply |
Bouncing Emails

Hmm I hope they have accounted for Emails sent to .Mac users when their service is down. I wonder if it bounces back to the sender, if so .Mac users might not receive Emails sent to their .Mac accounts during an outage.

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10/07, 01:15pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: what a rip

It's bad enough the iDisk access is so slow compared to ftp which I would be perfectly happy with

Oh, FTP sucks! Sure, people who do a LOT of file transfers over the internet feel fine with it, but the other 99.9% of us out here find it cumbersome, irritating and a general pain in the a**. I set up an FTP server at work for some of our customers to download updates, but after having to step people through the process of trying to log on through a browser, or getting an FTP client (if they can get one and install it, most people don't have the permissions to do this) or, worst of all, step them through it all from a command-line, I decided to make life easy for me and set up a web server to have them download files from.

Most people would rather spend the time doing normal stuff (like drag/drop from finder windows) rather than find an FTP client, and try to get it to connect to your server, and figure out how to upload/download files.

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10/07, 01:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: What?!?

Electricity is a lot more basic service than .Mac. It's a lot harder to live without electricity than .Mac. And this isn't the first time .Mac has had outages. AND other utilities do pro-rate charges when they have extended outages...

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10/07, 01:33pm | report spam | close Reply |
hardware

maybe they need some hardware from Sun, or some maker that has experience in this..maybe they should runit under Linux....ha ha..

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10/07, 01:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Bouncing E-mails

Don't worry, the internet is way ahead of you here =). Most mail servers will re-try to send your mail for a few hours to a couple of days when they can't contact the destination server. After all, the internet was originally designed to survive a nuclear war.

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10/07, 02:02pm | report spam | close Reply |
iCal schedule

Apple should set up an iCal that .Mac users can subscribe to with iCal that lists the times "planned" outages happen.

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10/07, 02:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
Suckers

Even after this shoddy service, there are a few Mac apologists here. What bloody f-in wimps. .Mac is for .Suckers

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10/07, 02:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
Perhaps

This will cause them to re-evaluate their equipment to include redundancy on things like Power Supply and Fans. Although I don't know how they can squeeze that into a 1U unit like the XServe. But perhaps offer it in the Tower Servers. But the faulty equipment could be 3COM switches, or a bad router (more likely).

And the "Apologists" (patient people) are probably paying for this service too. They just take this in stride. How many really important emails did you miss in that 2 hour period? My cable goes out more than that.

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10/07, 03:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
$39.95/yr at .macRefuge

If you're tired of the .mac outages, check out .macRefuge.com for $39.95/yr. Get 200MB disk space (twice as much space as Apple), 50 MB POP3/IMAP/Web Emailboxes, and you can get YourOwnName.Com too!

http://www.macRefuge.com

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10/07, 03:36pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re Perhaps

My cable goes out more than that.

s**** .Mac, email, whatever. Who cares if it goes down for a couple of hours (Oh no! I won't be able to get the latest get-rich quick offer from my Nigerian General friend!). But if my cable went down for a couple of hours, I would be tearing those incompetents at Comcast a new one so fast, they wouldn't know what hit them. There are such things as priorities.

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10/07, 04:02pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: macrefuge

Hey, no wonder macrefuge is cheaper, they advertise on other people's websites for free...

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10/07, 04:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
cable

If your cable goes out more than than the .mac, maybe you should complain, mine never goes out and if it did, I'd go to another company.

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.Mac service outage affects all services

updated 11:10 am EDT, Mon October 7, 2002

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