Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2002/03/05/tiscalis_email_service_goes_tits/

Tiscali's email service goes tits up

'Unprecedented hardware failure' - apparently

By Tim Richardson

Posted in Legal, 5th March 2002 11:51 GMT

Tiscali has apologised for losing a stack of emails over the weekend following an "unprecedented hardware failure".

In an email to punters the monster ISP said that even though its engineers "worked throughout the night" to resolve the problem it admits that the messages "will have been lost".

The service went tits up on Friday afternoon and appears to have been fixed by Saturday.

At this stage it's not known how many of Tiscali's UK users have been hit by this glitch.

The Register contacted Tiscali yesterday afternoon for an update on the problem and was promised a statement "in 20 minutes". Apparently, it was "just being signed off".

Despite these assurances, no statement has appeared.

Let’s hope Tiscali sorts out its techy problems better than it handles PR enquiries. ®

Update

We've just received a phone call from Sergio Cellini, the CEO of Tiscali UK. He tells us that the "unprecedented hardware failure" affected around five per cent of Tiscali UK’s user base. Which means tens of thousands of people – possibly more than 50,000 - have been hit by the "unprecedented hardware failure". Tiscali has sent the bust hardware to the US for analysis to see if the lost emails can be retrieved. It will be a couple of weeks before it's known if this is possible.