Hotmail users' missing emails returned to their inboxes
Microsoft is calling the January 1st disappearances of hundreds of users’ emails from their Hotmail accounts a “limited issue.”
Fear not, Hotmail users; your missing emails have been found.
On January 1st hundreds of Hotmail users’ emails disappeared from their inboxes; Microsoft called it a “limited issue.” The emails either disappeared from users’ inboxes entirely or were moved to the deleted mail folder. Other users may not have received email during a 24–72-hour period at the start of the new year.
Windows Live support technicians have said in numerous threads that the Hotmail team is aware of the problem and working on a fix.
“At this point it appears to be a limited issue, and Microsoft is working with individual users who are impacted. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers,” Microsoft spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said in statement Saturday. She declined to disclose what caused the glitch.
Microsoft's forum contains 476 pages of complaints about lost and deleted e-mails that date back to early November.
I guess Y2K finally managed to attack us... 11 years too late.
But this afternoon, Catherine Brooker herself announced that the problem had been fixed and the emails recovered. Again, The Globe:
Microsoft spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said Monday that all the affected users have their e-mails back. On Saturday, she noted that the problem only applied to a limited number of people. Microsoft would not say how many people's e-mails were lost.
“Microsoft is still investigating the root cause of what happened in this particular instance to prevent this from happening again,” she said.
This must be a huge relief for aunts from Thunder Bay and kids who chose their email addresses in Grade 6 (I assume that aunts from Thunder Bay and kids who chose their email addresses in Grade 6 make up 90 per cent of Hotmail’s total user base). What a terrible time to lose these emails; I’m sure they are glad that their pictures with family and holiday well wishes didn’t go down the tubes with this screw up.
