# What's up with Hotmail ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 24, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742 "2005-02-24T18:41:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/1 "2005-02-24T18:41:12Z")
Over the last few days I’ve been getting lots of “Server too busy” “Document contains no data” type error messages or the pages haven’t been loading properly - at home and at work. I know other people have been complaining too. Has anyone else noticed anything funny going on ? Should I start saving precious messages ? Is hotmail about to meltdown ? or is it just 'cos we’re in France 😉 ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/2 "2005-02-24T18:50:30Z")
No problems here. Sometimes when it’s playing up you can get better performance by going to [www.msn.com](http://www.msn.com) and clicking the Hotmail link - presumably it takes you through to different servers etc. ---
**Author:** ![Duderdude2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@Duderdude2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duderdude2)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/3 "2005-02-24T18:58:10Z")
It’s not just you cat. There have been several times this week when I couldn’t log-in. Also, most annoyingly, about 60% of the e-mail I’ve sent this week have taken me to a blank page, as opposed to the confirmations screen, so I never knew whether the e-mails got sent or not. So I kept resending it until I got the confirmations creen. As a result, people either got a shit-load of e-mails from me, or one. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/4 "2005-02-24T19:13:35Z")
Thanks for the tip **GorillaMan**. Ah, **Duderdude2** at least you got a blank page, me if I didn’t get a sent message confirmation it was like groundhog day - forever coming back to the message with that smug little “Done” at the foot of the page :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Danalan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@Danalan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danalan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/5 "2005-02-24T19:25:07Z")
Happened to me, too. Seems OK today though. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/6 "2005-02-24T19:46:12Z")
I had it “too busy” or “unavailable” yesterday when I really needed it to work. A different freakout it gave me, also yesterday, happened when I hit ‘Mail’ to refresh my mailbox. It went from my usual, oh, 30 pages of mail to zero messages. As in “There are no messages in this folder.” (inbox) Whhaaa??!! NOO!! Not today! Any day but today. My lab partner is gonna kill meee. I tried to refresh a few more times and it kept doing the same thing. I tried in IE and everything appeared normal. It was working fine in Opera about 20 mins later, so that’s good at least. Still, no one likes that kind of scare. ---
**Author:** ![Fromage\_A\_Trois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Fromage\_A\_Trois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fromage_A_Trois)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/7 "2005-02-24T19:54:49Z")
I too tried to log on and got a message saying that it was unavailable. It said that it wasn’t all of Hotmail that was down, nor was it only my account, just the server my account was on. Odd. [hijack] In a similar vein, have you guys had the Outlook / Outlook Express fiasco? About 3 weeks ago, my OE stopped being able to log in to Hotmail (having worked for about 4 years). I logged in on the website and it said “you can’t do that anymore I’m afraid, you need to upgrade to Hotmail Plus… what’s our excuse again? Bill? The excuse? Oh yes, fighting spam”. So after a few days of exasperation I weaken and give Microsoft my yearly subscription (cashflow of an anti-osmosis style), and yay, Hotmail works in OE. Then, yesterday, I get an email from Hotmail again “we’ve changed our minds, **existing** users can still use OE for free”. I see you waited till I’d paid you… grrr… Still… managed to get on instant chat and cancel my subscription and get a refund. I hope. [/hijack] Sorry, I should have nested those _hijack_ tags in some _rant_ tags too I guess. Oh, and I know I’m a fool to use OE anyway! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![fatmac98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ec8ea/32.png) [@fatmac98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fatmac98)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/8 "2005-02-24T20:17:15Z")
Mine has been messing up too. Since Wednesday. Stalls, sevice unavailable, blank white screens, error messages where it won’t do anything. ---
**Author:** ![jkirkman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@jkirkman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jkirkman)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/9 "2005-02-24T21:47:28Z")
Microsoft is having problems. [http://news.com.com/Hotmail+outage+peeves+some+e-mail+users/2100-1038\_3-5587906.html?tag=nefd.top](http://news.com.com/Hotmail+outage+peeves+some+e-mail+users/2100-1038_3-5587906.html?tag=nefd.top) ---
**Author:** ![Airblairxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Airblairxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airblairxxx)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/10 "2005-02-24T22:33:53Z")
Oh, good, so it’s not just me. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/11 "2005-02-25T08:02:45Z")
I had that too **jnglmassiv** not a happy bunny I can tell you ! Time to download the vital messages methinks. Thanks for the link **jkirkman** not sure if I feel better now or not. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/12 "2005-02-25T15:01:50Z")
I just had a friend with a hotmail account email me this morning and ask if I had gotten any of his emails from the last couple days. The last one I had received was over a week ago. I thought maybe it was because he was on vacation and trying to email from somewhere other than his usual connection, though I don’t see why that would make a difference. I guess it makes sense now. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/13 "2005-02-25T15:36:31Z")
Why do I now have to log in every single time I go to Hotmail? BTW, I hadn’t had the problem that the OP was talking about, at least not recently, ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/14 "2005-02-25T18:00:15Z")
> [@adam yax](#): > > Why do I now have to log in every single time I go to Hotmail? This is the only problem I’ve had, as far as I know. If I go back through my own history and hit refresh, though, no prob. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/15 "2005-02-25T18:30:20Z")
Ah, not just me then. I have found hotmail to be pretty strange for months now. Psst - anyone want Gmail?🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/16 "2005-02-25T22:39:53Z")
I haven’t been able to sign in with IE for the last month, i’ve been using mozilla. I just get a white screen with IE. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/17 "2005-02-26T02:25:38Z")
Hotmail was acting funny for me a couple of weeks ago. I just assumed they were changing the interface or something, but two days later it was the same as before and working okay. It’s an unpredictable little bugger of a program, though, ain’t it? ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/18 "2005-02-26T02:32:15Z")
I’ve got 50, count’em, 50 brand spankin’ new Gmail invites in case anyone needs one. ---
**Author:** ![olefin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d78d45/32.png) [@olefin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olefin)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/19 "2005-02-26T02:34:03Z")
I stop using hotmail after they upgraded last year. The big reason, after the upgrade I couldn’t “Forward” anything containing HTML. I like Gmail but they have the same problem with HTML… hopefully they will correct that before they finish beta testing. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2005, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742/20 "2005-02-26T15:20:24Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > I’ve got 50, count’em, 50 brand spankin’ new Gmail invites in case anyone needs one. I’d be interested but your email adress isn’t listed. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-hotmail/291742.md?page=2)