Still having problems with hotmail

[sunshinesteve]

So we seem to be back to the same problems with hotmail.
When I try to open the page, with the new bookmark or thru aMSN, I keep getting the message that windows live hotmail is not available thru this site and an option to sign up or try again later.
When I hit the sign up option it takes me to a page listing my options and when i click the free srevice it reverts to the page (after a few moments) telling me that windows live is not available thru this site.....a rather frustrating loop!
This is after yesterday when everything seemd ok
Is it a silly question to ask if my mac could have some sort of virus?
Thanx
Steve x

 

[justgofaster]

Hotmail has a long history of being notoriously unreliable and inconsistent. Outages will affect some users while others with similar equipment will have no trouble accessing the site at the exactly the same time.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...m=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=hotmail+problems&spell=1

Summary: It's apparently common to have trouble accessing Hotmail. Unfortunately there is no clear reason why or even a clear direction to take.

http://ask-leo.com/why_cant_i_access_hotmail.html

I finally had to switch to yahoo mail myself. Gmail is also free, of course. I'm sure there are lots of others.

 

[Dameon]

Is it a silly question to ask if my mac could have some sort of virus?

Yes. If it truly was a virus on your Mac, I'm pretty sure that the world (Macworld, at the very least) would have exploded already.

It's likely a problem with Hotmail and not your Mac. I know that there's already been suggestions for Yahoo and Gmail accounts - I suggested so in the other thread - but you'll still need to check your Hotmail account regularly even if you get one of these, as Hotmail doesn't allow you to forward to accounts that don't end in hotmail.com, msn.com, live.com, or aren't 'custom domains.' So, even if you do change to Gmail or whatever, you'll be stuck with checking your Hotmail once a month - if you can even log onto to it.

If you're going to switch to a new service, I'd recommend Gmail. Unlike Hotmail, Gmail has free POP3 access, so you can access your email in Apple's Mail. And there's a ton of Gmail applications you can download for your Mac, and Quicksilver has a Gmail plug-in, too.

Lastly, despite what may appear like shilling, I can assure you that I do not work for Google.

 

[Matt1809]

The problem isnt with hotmail, I have been able to get it just fine in both Windows and OSX. Have you tried opening the site in a browser other then safari, like Camino?

Also, are you sure your using the url:
http://mail.live.com

 

[andysayshi]

I'm experiencing this exact issue on one of my 7 Macs (a G4 Powerbook) while all the others are fine. It seems to bounce around a loop of 4 or 5 URLs that ultimately ends in the Hotmail error page.

I'll install Firefox on the Powerbook shortly and see if the same thing happens.

 

[sunshinesteve]

The problem isnt with hotmail, I have been able to get it just fine in both Windows and OSX. Have you tried opening the site in a browser other then safari, like Camino?

Also, are you sure your using the url:
http://mail.live.com

even trying with your suggested url i go on the same loop

 

[andysayshi]

The problem seems to be a corrupt or confused cookie. I did a full reset to Safari (Safari/Reset Safari...) on my problem PowerBook and now have no problem with Hotmail.

If you try it, be aware you will lose all your other cookies as well. So sites with logins (like JUB) will need to be re-logged in before full use.

 

[sheep]

I think your problem may be related to aMSN which is in Beta. Avoid it like the plague. Believe it or not aMSN is flakier than Microsoft Messenger. A friend and a brand new Mac convert called me in a panic. All of her stuff disappeared. The poor girl was crying on the phone. It all showed up in the aMSN prefs folder. Who Knew?
Don't use Beta software without doing a full backup before using it. Good practice is to revert to your backed up file after beta testing.

I learned the hard way using N***** Utilities beta. It screwed up my file system. Thank heavens for backups.

 

[Kins123]

I just went back to the person who I know had the same problem. It is to do with Cookies. What you can do, instead of resetting Safari, is going to the Cookie list and deleting all Cookies to do with Hotmail.

Safari Preferences -> Security Tab -> Show Cookies

It sucks, but seems to fix the problem.

 

[sunshinesteve]

wipped out some cookies and all sems ok now
thanx guys

 

[bedbugy]

i too had problems with hot mail
i have two computers on my main one i was unable to get past the sighned in stage cannot disply this page on the other i could sign in and what i did was get the new hotmail live now i can sign in both computers that could help aslo was told if you can't sign in go to msm home page and use the link to hotmail

 

[sheep]

Maybe micro$oft is running MSN on their own servers instead of Linux. My msn IM is up and down like a whore's drawers on a Saturday night.

 

[star-warrior]

I don't use hotmail anymore. As I type Chinese, it comes back as garbled rubbish when I post it. It can't seem to handle non-alphanumeric text properly.

I've been using google's mail for about a year and a half now, and I reckon its very good. It allows you also to pick up mail from your pop email. Attaching files is much simpler than hotmail, and you aren't bothered by the excessive annoying advertising either, even though there is, it's low key.

The size of your googlemail account grows daily. Currently, I'm using 6%, which is 300 MB out of 4762 MB.

http://www.googlemail.com/

Sign up today, and forget hotmail.

 

[kibashyho]

Use G mail it solves all problems