Comcast Email Hit By Server Issues Again

If you had difficulties accessing your Comcast email over the weekend, you weren’t alone. The cable provider’s servers suffered some technical problems on Saturday that took the SmartZone email system down for several hours. Potentially millions of subscribers were without email during the outage.

Comcast suffered a similar outage in October. This time, however, the company was very open with its customers, using its @comcastcares Twitter account and its blog Comcast Voices. Some customers continued to experience issues through Sunday. Frank Eliason, Comcast's director of digital care, tweeted frequently over the weekend to update customers regarding the outage. Comcast’s Twitter updates and the Comcast Voices blog promised fixes several times that failed to materialize, but did keep customers informed as to what was happening.

While Comcast’s Twitter feed and blog were updated, the company’s Live Chat feature on its Help page provided much less information, simply acknowledging the issue, apologizing for the blockage, and assuring customers that technicians were working to restore the service.

According to a Comcast Voices blog post, it appears all services are now restored. Comcast apologized for the outage and assured customers the company is taking the situation very seriously. Comcast’s engineers are investigating the issue and working with a small number of customers to address specific questions.

After the issues were resolved, some users were reporting lost email. Comcast says subscribers who access their Comcast email through external POP clients may notice a discrepancy between the number of new emails displayed on the company’s site and what’s actually in their inboxes. The company says this discrepancy may lead some people to believe they have lost email when they haven’t. Other issues with the service are being handled on a case-by-case basis.