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Question

Why Does My Outlook Express Get Worse Later In The Day?

Jun 7, 2013 11:16PM PDT

I have Windows XP and I use Outlook Express for my email. I use Earthlink as my ISP and I am using a DSL modum. Between 4 AM and 6 AM my Outlook Express works very fast and very well. After 6 AM Outlook Express begins to take much longer to connect and then download my emails. Then about 9 AM my Outlook Express begins to fail to connect to one or more of my five accounts, but it always connects to at least two of them. It's always different accounts that fail with different tries. This slowness and these failures continue until about 8 PM. My modum tests fine throughout the day at about 3 mbps, Earthlink checked and checked and said there must be something wrong with my Outlook Express software; that I should reload it. Another person said switching to Outlook would fix my problem. How can my Outlook express be fine at 4 AM but horrible at 2 PM? Thanks.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Usually as more folk are checking email.
Jun 7, 2013 11:52PM PDT

I'm sure you've heard that folk have changed their polling times downward so that email seems to arrive in real time. So as more folk do that the email server load increases. All the email apps I know of can retry and since it eventually gets delivered, no one says it's broke.

About switching. If the email app would silently check and only report failures after a dozen attempts in say a hour then that could fix it for most folk.
Bob

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Answer
Narrowing it down...
Jun 8, 2013 12:20AM PDT

There's no reason why you should have an issue connecting unless your ISPs mail servers are overloaded or (less likely) there is an issue with your software. My guess is that there is an issue on the ISP side, but you can eliminate a software issue by simply trying out another email client. Outlook is one, but there are many to choose from. Thunderbird is another popular client.

You can also help narrow the problem down by trying to connect from a different computer or, if you have a laptop, from a different location. Assuming your internet connection is fine (no problems browsing websites), then you will want to pursue this matter with your ISP. You might also consider using their webmail service instead.