The problem, which cropped up on Tuesday morning, is ongoing and prevents customers from accessing a number of Microsoft sites, including Hotmail email and the MSN portal, according to a Road Runner representative and reports from readers.
"A portion of our customers are having trouble reaching Hotmail and MSN," the Road Runner representative said. Customers told CNET News.com that they were unable to access news site MSNBC, authentication service Passport and small business information site bCentral.
Although Road Runner has not identified the cause of the problem, the company is optimistic the issue will be resolved by Tuesday evening (PST).
According to the Road Runner representative, the outage came as AOL was updating its routing tables and as Microsoft was doing some routine maintenance. However, in the past, the combination of those events has not prevented AOL customers from reaching Microsoft sites, the representative said.
David Rahrer, who does computer consulting work, said he had about 10 clients call with problems, primarily with MSN Messenger. Rahrer said the connection problem was compounded by the fact that his clients were getting an error message from the instant-messaging program that said there was a firewall problem and offered instructions on how to fix it.
"Everybody was reconfiguring their settings," Rahrer said. "None of them realised they were having problems with the connection. They just thought the computer needed to be reconfigured."
The glitch is the latest issue to affect Microsoft, following a virus that tried to attack its site for security updates and a separate denial-of-service attack that knocked out its corporate Web site.
In a statement, Microsoft said it has made no changes to its services or network infrastructure and said it is not seeing any technical problems on its end. "Customers accessing MSN from an open Internet connection are still able to enjoy the breadth and depth of MSN's content and services," the company said. "At this time, MSN has only been notified of access problems to MSN properties from a limited set of customers, and MSN has made no changes which would affect those or any other customers."
Microsoft recommended that those experiencing problems contact their Internet service provider.
Talkback
Roadrunner in Central Florida claims this is a Microsoft problem, and is no longer doing anything to fix this problem according to a technical support guy that I waited nearly 3 hours to talk with. He says I should contact Microsoft and complain. Meanwhile, Microsoft websites, including Windows update, Microsoft software (e.g., MS Money) that depend on Passport, and the MSN portal are all non-functional and non-working for Roadrunner customers.
The Microsoft sites are all accessible from other ISPs, including even a slow-speed dial-up account I still have for when I travel. I am pricing DSL service to replace Roadrunner.
AOL's earnings from former Time Warner high-speed cable modem customers will no doubt falter if all the high-speed customers bolt for another high speed ISP who isn't blocking Internet access.
The problem should be fixed by Tuesday evening? Well it's now Wednesday evening and the problem still isn't sorted!! As AOL attracts a lot of users on the free trial basis I wouldn't be surprised that the conversion rate of trial users affected during this period will now be abysmal. I'm one of them!
roadrunner in florida!, im on dial up in England and it still dosent work, i talked to aol and they said that they are in no position to tell me when it will be fixed, and i need to access my mail!
I was unaware that I use aol roadrunner service... I'm connecting from the uk on dialup and I'm having the same problem on my pc, and that of my parents which uses aol broadband.
Well i am reassured it is an AOL conflicting problem with MSN(including all sites as well as .net passport services such as messenger) - but no one has any idea on it's timescale. I spoke to an aol representative who says: " there could be a possible server outage causing these issues with our servers with that of msn,s . we are working to resolve this and it will be resolved as soon as possible"
-If you are an AOL user, and you can't get MSN, well now you know why...it's because you use AOL.
I think AOL has fixed the problem. Neither msn nor hotmail.com was working few mintues ago, but now they are fine. So, finally they have made it. Thanx
Does anyone know what AOL are doing about this ? There is no information on there web site ! I
I've had the same problem from dial up AOL from California in the US. Roadrunner does not appear to be the critical variable.
What a mess, spent hours trying to sort out my system only to find out it was down to AOL, still AOL have now given me a free months connect for my troubles
This is ridiculous!!! It's Friday eveining and you still cannot get on msn!!!! AOL is seriusly overpriced for the shabby service they provide.
I am not an AOL user. Im on Telewest Broadband and though I can access all Microsoft sites and MSn from my main computer, I cannot access from my laptop (which uses the main computer as the gateway to the internet! Microsoft site and MSN is the only thing not working. So.... is this related to settings or patches?