From approximately 20:00GMT Saturday 3rd February 2006 the mail server began producing errors when customers attempted to check mail via POP3 or IMAP.

We did not become aware of the problem until approximately 10:00GMT Monday 5th February 2006. The problem was then resolved by 10:05GMT Monday 5th February 2006.

During the entire period the mail server continued to receive incoming mail and web mail access continued to be available.

Our monitoring system failed to indicate there was an error as it works via checking the appropriate system ports are responding. In this case the system continued to respond and the error was actually during the authentication process therefore not detectable by our system monitoring.

We will now be implementing additional system monitoring checks that will detect when an error like this occurs again allowing for a much quicker and more pro-active response to such errors.

Please note during this period the SMTP service continued to function and receive mail. As such no mail was lost during this time.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.