Sunflower Broadband Beta Webmail FAQ

Why are you changing webmail?

To provide a more fully featured web based mail client. More people are choosing to use a web based client instead of storing all their mail on a central home system. Our older webmail product was primarily meant for occasional use when away from home. But with more people choosing to access mail online, we want to provide a better client.

What browsers are supported in the new webmail?

The new webmail system should work with versions of Firefox 2.0 or later, and IE 7 or later. It will also work with Safari 2 or greater and Google Chrome. The page is designed for a display of 1024x768 or larger. If you are using an older monitor, handheld system or have an older operating system that does not support any of the above browsers, we recommend configuring a mail client to access your email via IMAP or POP3.

Can I still use the older webmail program?

Yes, for now. We plan to keep it around until we are satisfied that the new webmail is working properly. Our original plan was to keep it until the end of November 2009, but we will keep it around a little longer while working through some problems with the new system To log into the new system first log out of atmail. At the bottom right of the login screen you will find a link to our older webmail application.

How do I change my session timeout length?

This is not currently user configurable. We have set a global inactivity timeout of 2 hours. Almost anything you do that requires webmail to load or reload a page will reset the clock. If you do not interact with webmail for 2 hours your session will end. We have discovered this can cause you to lose an email you were composing. So if you need to leave a message to be finished later save it as a draft. Besides inactivity, starting another session in a different browser or from another computer will end your existing session. For security reasons you may have only one webmail session at a time.

What happens when I click the spam button?

Right now it just moves the message to your spam folder. We are working on adding an automatic reporting function that will submit the message to our spam filter program. To report messages as spam for now, please forward them to spam@sunflower.com

What happens to messages in my Trash and Spam Folders?

They will stay on our servers for 30 days. We have a nightly script that removes messages that have been in these folders for more than 30 days.

How do I send email to a group or to a selected email address?

Atmail plans to add better Email/Address Book integration to future releases. For now the address book is only used when you are typing an address into a recipient field in a message you are composing. Atmail will search your address book for matches and prompt you with them. It will not add groups however. You must add addresses one at a time.

Why are some of my addresses missing or different than in the previous version?

We had to make some changes to get our old address book entries into Atmail's format. For example, Atmail has no nickname field, only first or last. We did our best to match up fields, but you may not see the names you expected. We also converted address book entries with multiple addresses in the email field to individual entries and created a group for them. We did not migrate any address book entries from the old system that had invalid email addresses.

Why do I receive the error "cannot connect to host?"

The email address you are using may be incorrect or recently deleted. All sunflower email accounts are connected to a special mail host name of <username>.pop.sunflower.com. Atmail attempts to connect to this server to verify your account. If it cannot find the server, it will return a "cannot connect to host" error. If you are sure you have the correct address, contact Sunflower Broadband customer service.

Why do I get a security alert when displaying some email?

While we use a secure connection for your webmail, some email may include images, forms or other content taken from other web sites. When this is detected Internet explorer will ask "Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely." If you want to view all content for the message respond "no."

Note, we cannot protect you from all malicious content that might be emailed to you. If you have doubts about a message, it is better to delete it than to view it.

Why are links in some messages unclickable?

Many mail clients detect URLs sent in plain text messages and automatically display them as a clickable link. Our current version of webmail does not. It displays them as they are sent, as plain text.

We expect Atmail will add this as a feature in the near future. For now, you must copy and paste the URLs into your web browser.

Why do messages in the Sent-mail folder show the from field instead of the to field?

The Sent-mail folder is the one the old webmail used and the new webmail does not recognized as an outgoing folder. Like most other email clients Atmail uses a folder called Sent. The Sent folder will display with the To's instead of the From's.

We recommend moving the contents of the Sent-mail folder to the Sent folder. If you don't plan on using the old webmail anymore, you are free to remove the Sent-mail folder.

Why do I receive an unsupported browser notice when I'm using a supported browser?

Some customized versions of IE are not being recognized as version 7 or 8. They are sending an altered "user-agent" string that Atmail does not recognize. Check to see if turning off compatibility mode (found under Tools-> Compatibility mode) will solve the problem.

We don't have a solution for this right now. You could try using a different browser or replacing your version with a fresh one from Microsoft. We have reported the problem to Atmail and it's likely future releases will be able to detect this altered user-agent string and accept the browser.

Why do some of my messages display improperly or not at all?

We have discovered a few bugs related to displaying messages. There are some messages that will not display at all in versions of IE. Some display but you cannot reply to them. Some display but have missing images that display with a red x. Some html pages are not being displayed properly. Messages that have identical attachment names as other messages may display the wrong image.

We have informed Atmail of these problems and they have been working on them. We expect that the next release of Atmail (version 6.1 which is due out before Nov. 26th) will fix most of these. For now, you may use the old webmail to view these messages.

How can I forward a message "inline" rather than as an attachment?

Currently Atmail only supports forwarding messages as an attachment. We have mentioned the desire for an inline forwarding option, and its possible they will add that to a future release.

For now, an alternative to inline forwarding would be to compose a reply and just change the recipient to the person to whom you wish to forward the message. The reply format for the new webmail is similar to the format of an inline attachment.

How do I select all messages in a folder?

There is currently no function for selecting all messages in a folder, only all messages currently displayed. We have requested this feature for future releases.

For now you can increase the number of messages displayed at once up to 200. That should make dealing with messages in bulk a bit easier.

How can I empty the trash?

You must select and delete messages from the trash to expunge them from the system, or wait for them to be removed automatically after 30 days. There is currently no empty trash command. This may be added to a future release.

How can I spell check messages?

There is no spell checker built into webmail. FireFox, Chrome, and Safari all have integrated spell checkers which will check your messages as you type them. For IE you can get plugins that do the same thing. One popular add on for Internet Explorer is ieSpell.

How can I expunge (delete from the server) a message?

The old Webmail had an expunge function that would like you remove a message permanently from the server with a single step. There is no equivalent function in the new Webmail, but we have requested this be added as a feature in future versions. To delete a message from the server in the new Webmail move the message to the Trash folder, then delete it from the Trash folder.

Why aren't all of my messages appearing in my list of messages?

The new Webmail adds support for viewing messages as a thread and we have enabled thread support by default. When Webmail detects multiple messages are part of the same thread it displays them together in the message list. The number of messages is listed in parenthesis after the name of the most recent contributer to the thread. Clicking on that one message should bring up the entire thread.

This may take a little getting used to. If you decide you don't like it, you can uncheck Thread Support in the Settings tab. Upon reloading Webmail all your messages should appear individually.

Why can't I open an attachment?

We have discovered a problem with how the URL for the attachment is created that causes some helper applications, like Windows Media, to fail to open the file.

Until this is fixed, you should right click on the attachment you want to open and choose "Save as..." or "Save Target as..." to save your message to your local filesystem. Then open the file directly. IE will offer to open it for you after saving, and this should work as well.

How do I print an email message?

When viewing a message there is a drop down box to the upper right of the message. It's default action is "Reply" but if you click on the down arrow you will see other actions, including Print. Select Print and Webmail will open a new tab with a version of the page suitable for printing.

If you just try to print from the browser's print menu, you will get unexpected results.

Why does my session end in one browser when I log in from another or from a different computer?

This is a security feature, but one you may not be used to. There can be only one session at a time per email account. Starting a new session will end the old session. Opening another window with Atmail in it will not start a new session, unless that window is in a different browser than the first (like opening Atmail in both FireFox and Safari at the same time.)

Webmail says I have messages in a folder, why doesn't it display them?

We have encountered an error in how the new webmail handles the threading of messages in some folders, particularly those with older messages in them. The tempoary work around is to go to Settings and turn off Threading Support. This problem should be addressed in an upcoming release.