This morning (5th October 2007) we became aware of an issue with the mail server platform. SMTP connections to the main mail server were extremely slow or being rejected.
This meant that customers were unable to send mail or receive mail. The incoming gateway servers continued to work normally. Therefore incoming mail was accepted and queued by these servers.
We managed to resolve the problem with the main mail server at around 12:10GMT. The incoming gateway servers were then able to begin forwarding the queued mail to the main mail server for delivery to individual accounts.
As a result customers may find that mail may be “out of order” from when it was sent to them. There is also the small possibility that some messages may arrive twice. However becuase of the redundant set-up we have no incoming mail should have been lost during the problem period.
We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.