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MojoRising022 · Jun 9, 2003, 12:51 PM

I would like to get some opinion on other's experiences with .mac.

You might think that after almost a year, Apple would have figured out how to deal with the glitches in their system. Not even close. Lately, their service level has been well below unacceptable.

Legitimate e-mail is either bouncing back to the sender or arrives 24 hours after it was sent. Spam seems to be delivered just fine, though, as is Apple's own advertisements.

Currently, my iDisk is inaccessible and my homepage has disappeared. After 12 or so hours, Apple has acknowledged this problem, but has done little to solve it.

I addition to periodic outages and unpredictable performance, .mac has ONLY we-based support which has been slow to answer and routinely dodges issues. Many of the web shots I deal with guarantee uptime�.Apple does nothing of the sort.

For $100 a year, this is insane. Apple is banking on its loyalist to look the other way and re-subscribe anyway in September. They have done nothing to earn my money a second time.

Am I the only one? How do you all feel?

tikki · Jun 9, 2003, 01:07 PM

The past two weeks have been horrendous. The first 10 months of my service were excellent, however.

Xeo · Jun 9, 2003, 01:19 PM

Well, it's official that I won't buy buying it. I got my account for free and haven't used it nearly enough to warrant paying for it come October. I watch Mail complain far too often about a password rejection when it's using the information from Keychain. It makes no sense. I don't have any of these problems with my other e-mail accounts.

chris v · Jun 9, 2003, 01:37 PM

Sent out an email from my regular Roadrunner address, to five people, and CC'd my .mac adress at work.

They all got my message, and we had a nice exchange.

2 days later, I got my original message at work.

CV

::maroma:: · Jun 9, 2003, 02:25 PM

Has been perfect for me since I got it (about a year ago). Aside from the occaisional email delivery problem, it's been glitch free for me. Guess I'm in the minority.

Mr. Blur · Jun 9, 2003, 03:09 PM

i am quite satisfied with .mac. the problems have been few and far between for me and it gives me the mail, idisk, isync, webspace etc that i need all in one place at a reasonable price.

ambush · Jun 9, 2003, 03:51 PM

Originally posted by Xeo:
Well, it's official that I won't buy buying it. I got my account for free and haven't used it nearly enough to warrant paying for it come October. I watch Mail complain far too often about a password rejection when it's using the information from Keychain. It makes no sense. I don't have any of these problems with my other e-mail accounts.

It does this with my POP account (clichesw.com) too. So it's not .mac specific, but Mail.app specific.

ambush · Jun 9, 2003, 03:53 PM

I bet it has something to do with the new "access from anywhere" thing.

omfg 1000th post yay!

Toyin · Jun 9, 2003, 04:11 PM

The value of .Mac has been more the synchronization thing. Before .Mac my web based email, my phone, and my computers were all different. Now with iSync and .Mac my Powermac, Powerbook, Cell Phone, Web Mail, and PC are all in sync. I change one thing and it filters down to all the other machines eventually.

The 1st year has been worth the $50 to me in the iPhoto rebate alone. The games, virex, and backup are just icing on the cake. Next year when the price goes up to $100 I may be more critical, but I'm not jumping ship yet.

I'm not hugely dependent on my Email so the service has been adequate. I like the option to use the web based email when mail.app starts acting up.

tikki · Jun 9, 2003, 04:33 PM

I haven't decided if it will be worth $100 yet. It is definitely worth $50.

PeterKG · Jun 9, 2003, 07:27 PM

From MacFixit...............

BugBear virus slams .Mac servers; service slows considerably; iDisk problems

In the evening on Friday, June 6th, Apple posted the following message on its Web site following a number of complaints on the .Mac discussion boards and in MacFixIt's inboxes:

"Due to a high volume of incoming mail, there is currently a delay in the delivery of messages sent to .Mac members. The mail is being processed and will be delivered as quickly as possible. No mail will be lost."

The slow-down was apparently due to complications caused by the Bugbear.B virus, which is still making its rounds, and was estimated by analysts to be at its worst on Friday. While the bug apparently only affects Windows executable files, the massive amount of waste e-mail generated took its toll on Apple's already high-load .Mac mail servers.

Some users are still waiting several hours before receiving messages, and are having problems with outgoing mail. Until the backlog of e-mail is cleared, it is advisable for .Mac members to use a separate SMTP server for critical outgoing messages.

UPDATE: Today Apple posted an additional message, detailing problems with the iDisk:

"A small percentage of users are currently unable to access their iDisk. Also, these users will not be able to access their published HomePages. We are working on resolving this problem and will post once it is fixed."

MacFixIt readers report that their iDisks are disappearing from their desktops, and .Mac Web pages are becoming suddenly inaccessible.

I'mDaMac · Jun 21, 2003, 11:35 PM

Anyone able to send email through their .Mac account? I haven't been able to for the past 2 hours.