Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Incident report: IMAP client service temporarily unstable..

Posted on: November 20th, 2025 by

Last night at 21:50 UTC a large number of client connections hit Kolab Now, which resulted in the IMAP client servers (‘imap.kolabnow.com’) running out of memory. Staff was noted about the issue at 06:00 UTC, and immediately raised the amount of memory for these servers, which brought the issue to an end.

During these ~8 hours users of IMAP clients had issues with unstable connections; some might even have been completely unable to connect.

Mail transport was not impacted. all mails were streaming in and out as they should, and also the webclient (‘https://kolabnow.com/apps’) worked well during the period.

The issue was the unusually large number of incoming client connections. To mitigate the situation and avoid similar issues, the staff has enlarged the memory size on the servers in question, and are now working to improve the monitoring of the service.

We regret the incident and apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

 

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Synchronization problems with the latest update of the Gmail app on Android

Posted on: November 17th, 2025 by

The latest update on Android unfortunately broke the synchronization via ActiveSync, provided by the Gmail app. This affects not only Email, but also the synchronization of Contacts and Calendars.

If an affected version of the Gmail app is installed, all folders will be continuously re-synchronized from scratch, which results in the temporary availability of the contents, and a continuous stream of notifications for new messages which are downloaded over and over again.

This is a regression of the Gmail app, and unfortunately is not fixable on the server-side.

The following app versions are known to be affected:

– 2025.11.02.828149635.Release
– 2025.10.13.822206885.Release

If you can avoid updating the Gmail app, we strongly recommend that.

To downgrade, the following steps are possible, at your own risk. Please also note that this will remove all configured accounts.

– Uninstall the Gmail app from the PlayStore. This will downgrade the version to the one provided with the OS. You can use this version of Gmail if you like.
– The latest unaffected version is 2025.09.15.810231445.Release, to which you can upgrade after downgrading first. Please note that it is not possible to directly downgrade to this version.

WARNING: The following link is from an external source, and we cannot take responsibility for the content provided. Use at your own risk.
You can find the .apk for latest good version of the Gmail app here https://gmail.en.uptodown.com/android/download/1111199927

Changes to Kolabnow password expiry policy

Posted on: July 16th, 2025 by

Today we deploy a change to the Kolab Now password expiry policy, which will affect you only if you:
– have enabled an expiry policy in your profile
– your password expired according to that policy

If both of these conditions are the place, you will be prompted to change your password when you login in to the cockpit with your correct, but expiring, password.

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ActiveSync changes to help with stuck devices

Posted on: July 8th, 2025 by

ActiveSync is the protocol used to synchronize various mobile devices, desktop clients, as well as Outlook.

While mobile device synchronization works mostly without issues via this protocol, Outlook can get stuck in various, hard to diagnose, situations.
This is especially problematic as those situations often are caused by issues invisible to the user. Outlook will simply stop synchronizing partially or completely.

Today we deploy an update with two remediable measures.

1. We force various default folders to always be synchronized, because Outlook does not handle the absence of those folders well.
This is visible in the ActiveSync configuration UI in the webclient:

2. We mark devices that are detected to be stuck in a loop as broken. These devices have to be manually reset according to the procedure outlined in the knowledgebase.

For broken devices Outlook will now report the disconnected state, instead of showing connected while failing to synchronize. This should help to detect this situation and allow you to reset early.

As always, if you have questions or concerns, you are very welcome to contact Support.

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Refurbishing Kolab Now – enhancements on our website about to be launched

Posted on: June 30th, 2025 by

It is June again – the season of spring cleanup and refurbishment: prefect timing to also enhance the Kolab Now frontpage to give it more structure & clarity to communicate in a clear manner what makes us different and special.

> Continue Reading

Incident report: 50% of ActiveSync connections failed..

Posted on: June 17th, 2025 by

On Sunday 2025-06-15 one of the Kolab now ActiveSync servers were getting overloaded and got stuck on failed jobs. In turn, about 50% of the ActiveSync jobs were failing – leading to some ActiveSync users loosing the connections to Outlook or to their mobile devices.

> Continue Reading

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Incident report: Some mails to Microsoft online services was getting blocked..

Posted on: May 7th, 2025 by

Yesterday we dealt with a spammer/phisher who specifically targeted the Microsoft outlook.com service (and it’s affiliates).  One of the Kolab Now MX servers was listed on the Microsoft throttle list (S3150). This meant that some users saw, that mails sent to recipients at ‘@outlook.com’, ‘@live.com’, ‘@hotmail.com’, and other Microsoft online services was bounced back.

> Continue Reading

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Service interruption

Posted on: March 23rd, 2025 by

Kolabnow is currently experiencing a service interruption which affects receiving of email as well as changes in the administration panel and payments. We apologize for the inconvenience while we investigate the issue.

We will update this blogpost as soon as more information is available.

2025-03-23 @ 14:15 UTC: This issue was triggered by an internal container-image storage issue which prevented services from restarting. The affected storage is unrelated to the storage used for customer payload data. The service interruption caused external emails to be temporarily rejected (as well as the above mentioned symptoms for administration of services). External email systems will re-attempt delivery, so no data should be lost, but some delays are to be expected.

2025-03-23 @ 14:25 UTC: Receiving of email as well as administration functionality has been restored.

Incident report: Some mails to Microsoft online services was getting blocked..

Posted on: February 13th, 2025 by

This afternoon earlier today one of the Kolab Now MX servers was listed on the Microsoft block list. This means that some users might have seen, that mails sent to recipients at ‘@outlook.com’, ‘@live.com’, ‘@hotmail.com’, and other Microsoft online services was bounced back with the message that looks something like this:

This is the mail system at host mx.kolabnow.com. 
I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not 
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below. 
For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster. 
If you do so, please include this problem report. You can 
delete your own text from the attached returned message. 
The mail system <some-email@outlook.com>: host  
outlook-com.olc.protection.outlook.com[x.x.x.x] said: 550 5.7.1 
Unfortunately, messages from [y.y.y.y] weren't sent. Please contact 
your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block 
list (S3150). You can also refer your provider to 
http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors. [Name=Protocol 
Filter Agent][AGT=PFA][MxId=<some long number>] 
[SG2PEPF03345FBECA.apcprd05.prod.outlook.com 2025-02-13T<timestamp>Z 
<another long number>] (in reply to MAIL FROM command)

Although the listing was fast discovered, Microsoft was contacted and the listing is reversed as soon as it is possible, it took a while. At this time emails should be delivered to the Microsoft online services.

A few users has misinterpreted the symptoms with error messages from missing the DKIM changes made on Monday (please read this blog post from December 2024 and the follow ups). If you are a group manager, then please make sure that you have the new DKIM related CNAMES added to your DNS zone.

If you have any questions or concerns in this context, then please contact support.

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