Computer Woes

[electricaldoctor]

Before I start, I would like to make it crystal clear that my computer knowledge is extremely limited. That being said, please keep your responses as non-technical as possible.
On my home network, I have (1) PC, (2) Toshiba laptops, (1) Microsoft Surface Pro tablet & (1) BlackBerry Playbook. When I receive email messages (MS Outlook) they all show up on the two laptops, but it is hit or miss on the other three computers. WTF is going on here? Why do I not get all of my email messages on all five computers? :smt089

 

[KevinC]

I would check how the accounts and specifically the incoming servers are configured in Outlook. Then we can look at what is going on. I see this often the accounts are set for incoming as POP3 and the messages are downloaded and removed from the server and not all the computers get to download the message. How to check this depends on the versions of Outlook you are running.

-Kevin

 

[electricaldoctor]

PC is Windows-7
Surface Pro tablet is Windows-10
Toshiba #1 is Vista
Toshiba #2 is Windows-7
Playbook is BlackBerry O.S.
They all have incoming as POP3

 

[electricaldoctor]

This problem has just reared it's ugly head in the past 10 days.

 

[KevinC]

Next I would check the advanced settings on the accounts and look for the "leave message on server". It sounds like a couple may be set not to leave a copy on the server. When that machine would download the message it would automatically remove it, hence the others would not get a chance to download it before it is removed.

Let me know.

-Kevin

 

[electricaldoctor]

The leave messages on server box is checked on all of the computers.

 

[KevinC]

How long were they set to leave messages for and are they all the same? Are all the computers checking within this time set? (ie: if set to leave message on the server for 1 day will they all check within that time?) Did you add any new device like a phone checking mail when this started?

 

[electricaldoctor]

Thank you for your efforts Kevin. I'm going to bed. Hopefully it will heal itself overnight.

 

[KevinC]

PM me if you want more help. Since my company hosts and manages mail services for businesses we deal with all kinds of these issues. Unfortunately sometimes tracking down the culprit is a pain.

-Kevin

 

[Bob & Sue]

Couple questions before trying anything.

1) Are you using MS Outlook ie (hotmail) web based on all 5 ?

2) Are you using Outlook or Windows Live Mail on any of the machines? ( Outlook comes with Office ) (Windows Live Mail comes with newer ver of Windows)

If your using Outlook from Office you may need to download an updated connector they made some changes that affected some versions.

Try using the web based client on all 5 ie Windows Live or Hotmail.

Let us know what the results are.

 

[Boater420]

Might be time to just go back to smoke signals...

 

[electricaldoctor]

Everything seems to be working fine for now. Why, I do not know. The messages that did not show up on some of the computers never came back. They are gone and that is okay as long as this does not happen again. All 5 are using MS-Outlook through MS-Office.
Thanks to all who offered their assistance.