Some Customers of UK ISP Virgin Media Suffering Email Problems UPDATE
Some customers of broadband ISP Virgin Media, specifically those with one of their legacy addresses that use the ntlworld.com domain, are having trouble sending and receiving email today. The issue appears to be rooted in the fact that the domain has stopped resolving. But the provider is working on a fix.
According to Thinkbroadband, which spotted the issue, the registry whois information for ntlworld.com indicates that the domain is currently in a “clientHold” status, which usually means the registrar (Network Solutions) has put the domain on hold, and it is not published in the Domain Name System (DNS).
Quite why this is occurring remains unclear, although it doesn’t appear to be a domain expiry issue (often the cause of problems, when people forget to renew an old domain). A spokesperson for Virgin Media said: “We’re aware that customers with ntlworld email addresses are currently unable to send or receive emails. Our teams are working to fully restore services as soon as possible, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
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UPDATE 10th April 2025 @ 9am
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “Following an earlier technical issue, our teams have now fully restored email services for ntlworld customers and users can now send and receive emails as normal. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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If Virgin is their ISP they have bigger issues.
I crack me up.
The whois record says the domain was last updated at 2025-04-08T19:13:08Z. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the issue started last night.
About clientHold, the ICANN website says
“It is an uncommon status that is usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.”
I am wondering if it was simply forgotten…
If I remember correctly the hold period is after the domain expires but before it is released (it’s an additional period you get to renew after expiry if you forget to renew before someone else can purchase the domain)
I reported this problem about 3 weeks ago, although I suspect it’s been going on since mid-February, when I first noticed that I was no longer receiving daily emails from a couple of Survey organisations. When I eventually managed to get through to VM, (which was extremely difficult because their automated call handling system doesn’t include inquiries about emails), they didn’t know who to pass my call onto and apparently weren’t aware of the issue. As a company, they are a complete joke!
Email services are provided to VM customers via a 3rd party provider.
VM have changed the 3rd party provider at least twice in the past 15+ years, that I know of.
From my experience, regardless of the domain, the email servers have stopped accepting valid passwords every 6 months or so, regular as clockwork, across the same period. And also randomly at other times in between.
The issues have lasted anything from a couple of hours to several weeks.
When issues are reported, and they actually admit they know what email is, the VM Support team invariably state that email is provided as a free additional service and as such is not supported by them.
Relating to this issue, this sounds like someone forgot to renew the domain on time.
Which happens regularly with large companies more than you would think.
For this reason, I bought my own email many years ago. Never will I rely on any ISP provded email service. aS long as I have an Internet connection, I can access my own domain email.