RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: cordley on Tuesday 08 February 22 09:40 GMT (UK)
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Am I the only one having trouble with the probatesearch.service.gov.uk website.
It was 'unavailable' for over a week, and now I am routed to a https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Wills/MyWills page, but I am unable to login to my id.
I have paid-for wills that I want to retrieve...
If it's working for you, I'd love to know, if it's not then where do we go to report the problem?
Thanks
Pam
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Hi Pam,
The site has changed from last time I used it, but I have just tried it, accessed it fine and could search for a Will.
https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate
It does mention 'this is a new service' and it is clear there has been a change to how it used to look.
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Did you log in OK to your account?
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I can look for a will, see the appropriate page using the link above, but that does not take me to my account to allow me to order a will, nor to enable me to download paid-for wills.
Pam
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I am now able to log in okay which is an improvement on last week!
However the old site had a My Wills section where you could see the wills you ordered; this is now missing.
I have contacted feedback at the head of the page.
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I am so pleased that it is not just me!!!!
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I seem to be able to log in, and enter my password, but it then takes me to a screen https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/manage-account which shows
Search for a will or probate
Manage account
which allows me to change email or password, but do nothing else.
At the top there is an entry "My Account" which links back to the same page.
Aaaargh!
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Went on to the site earlier, tried to log-in, but it didn't recognise my user name/account.
Just tried to log-in again and I can't even enter my user name.
Would appear that whatever they were fixing or improving hasn't worked. Another of life's experts been on the job!!
I think I will leave it for another day.
Eric
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So sorry cordley - I misunderstood your original message - I see what you mean now. You cannot progress on the site although you can access it.
My apologies for misunderstanding.
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This is so frustrating - it has been two weeks. I have reported by their Feedback, but there doesn't seem to be any other 'Customer Service' contact.
I was advised on 24 Jan that I have a Will to download, but I can't.
I'll be trying daily.
Pam
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It says my account is not known, same for a friend who is waiting for a will. But I can search.
Tried looking for a will for a Thomas Evans, died in 1894, comes up on anc***ry but wasn't included in the old version of the probate site which had only a few Thomas Evanses then on to those with a second name. Now there are 12 pages, starting with Richard Evans, 1 Thomas at the bottom of the page. Page 2 starts with Daniel, page 3 with Anna. Have found a few Thomases but not the one i want. Page 10 of 12 goes on to other Ev surnames and half way down p12 we are back to Abraham Evans. i will send feedback later.
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I sent an email yesterday to both of these addresses
hmctswillsATironmountain.co.uk
contactprobateATjustice.gov.uk
I ordered two wills on 21 Jan 2022 and I received 2 emails on 25 Jan 2022 saying my wills had been delivered and were available to view. They weren't!
If I get a reply to either of my emails I will post here. But I'm not holding my breath!
But fingers crossed anyway
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If the orders are still being dealt with by the Iron Mountain people, don't expect a reply to your queries. They don't understand the meaning of Customer Service, as was evident during the debacle at the time of the Wills being reduced to £1.50.
Eric
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I can see the calendar entry for my mother who died last year, but I cannot get a search to work for my great great grandfather who died in 1933 and I have a copy of his will.
Patience is wearing thin.
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Why put it back up without testing? And maybe give a bit more info as to the problem / timescale.
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Now it's allowing me to log in, but doesn't recognise my account.
Tried to register a new account, but wouldn't let me as the e-mail address is already in use, so used the forgot my password route.
Can't do that as I have to use a "special character" in the new password. What is a special character? Tried several symbols, but no joy.
Someone has seriously lost the plot and heads need to roll.
Happy days ;D ;D ;D, Eric
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I tried to login, password not recognised, had to reset.
Looks like everyone whose password doesn't match the criteria (so many characters, upper case, lower case, number and special character) will have to reset it.
Still not finding probates from 1933 to 1939 for my surname of interest
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Mine says account not found 🙁
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I've been trying to access paid content, too., for what seems like months, though it's barely a couple of weeks - most things are available immediately, so it gets frustrating when such a delay occurs.
Get nowhere, or rather round in circles....
Hope they sort it soon!
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Thank you all for letting me know I am not alone!!
Tried this morning and got this really friendly error message when I entered my email address:
There is a problem
HTTP/1.1 404 returned for "http://irm31-insight-uk-nuxeomt-hmcts.nuxeomt-hmcts.svc.cluster.local/nuxeo/api/v1/automation/AC_ExternalUserAccess_FindUser".
Now, I am quite techie, but ..... I cannot believe what is going on.
Pam
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Tried this morning and got this really friendly error message when I entered my email address:
There is a problem
HTTP/1.1 404 returned for "http://irm31-insight-uk-nuxeomt-hmcts.nuxeomt-hmcts.svc.cluster.local/nuxeo/api/v1/automation/AC_ExternalUserAccess_FindUser".
Exactly the same thing here. So I tried to make a new account, but nothing doing there either!
And my password DOES have caps, a special character and numbers in it - but I never even got that far!
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A friend of mine tried to reset his password, couldn't, and has had to open a new account loosing access to everything he has ordered recently.
Fingers crossed the price doesn't go back up to pay to sort out the debacle.
HMCTS must be loosing a lot of revenue.
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I am getting the same. I can't log in, nor make head or tail of the cryptic error message. If I try to register a new account, I get another cryptic message that I believe is saying that my email address is already registered. So I can't even get to the stage of being asked for a password.
It seems that the Court Service have outsourced the will service to Iron Mountain. I have used the contact link on the home page to express my dissatisfaction. It might help if everyone else experiencing the problem does the same.
I also tried to complain about the page on the Gov.uk contact link as well, but after almost completing a lengthy message, the web page suddenly cleared the input box and lost my entire message, at which point I have to confess that I lost the will to type it all again :(
If someone else would like to notify GOV.UK though, the link is here:
https://www.gov.uk/contact/govuk
It may help if they are made aware, rather than just Iron Mountain who receive the email if you complain or use the contact link via the Will service page instead.
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I have reported it using your link Phil57. Message has been acknowledged and reply requested.
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Thank you Deirdre. I will have another go later as well. Just need to clear my head and get some fresh air first, to recover from my Victor Meldrew moment ;D
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HMCTS have been using Iron Mountain for over 15 years,
https://www.ironmountain.com/uk/resources/case-studies/h/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service
Do you remember the fiasco when we started ordering wills online? The backlog was huge.
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I have reported it using your link Phil57. Message has been acknowledged and reply requested.
I've just done the same, thanks for the link Phil57.
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If someone else would like to notify GOV.UK though, the link is here:
https://www.gov.uk/contact/govuk
It may help if they are made aware, rather than just Iron Mountain who receive the email if you complain or use the contact link via the Will service page instead.
Thank you very much for posting that link Phil57 - I had been frustrated by the fact that only the developers were seeing the feedback. I have now reported it (along with the rest of you ::) )
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I've had similar problems to those discussed. To try to circumvent it all, I thought I would order a will to see if, when it was ready, they would email me with a link that actually worked.
Still more frustration though - the will I wanted had no Folio number, but the order form would not function without one - it just said 'Folio number required'.
I hope the amount being paid for this update will be reduced to take account of the mess being made of it!
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HMCTS have been using Iron Mountain for over 15 years,
https://www.ironmountain.com/uk/resources/case-studies/h/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service
Do you remember the fiasco when we started ordering wills online? The backlog was huge.
Ah, I hadn't realised that. In that case it must just be the common modern affliction of having to keep changing things for the sake of change, just to keep web developers gainfully employed by breaking things that don't need fixing.
I get so frustrated when they keep changing or redesigning phone apps, by moving icons or buttons back and forth so that they keep changing to a different location on the screen every few weeks, or improving things by requiring the user to click three times when they previously had to only click once to achieve the same result, or TV streaming apps where they keep moving everything around so that you spend more time trying to find where things have gone than actually watching the programs!
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I have now reported on the same page... So annoying...
So glad it is not just me, thanks for the corroboration.
Pam
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I've had similar problems to those discussed. To try to circumvent it all, I thought I would order a will to see if, when it was ready, they would email me with a link that actually worked.
Still more frustration though - the will I wanted had no Folio number, but the order form would not function without one - it just said 'Folio number required'.
I hope the amount being paid for this update will be reduced to take account of the mess being made of it!
There are two threads running in the Common Room on the probate website problems (the other in the “Lighter Side” sub-section for some reason). It was very helpfully pointed out to me on there that if you type NIL into that folio number box, the order form will work, and I managed to order two wills in that way this morning.
Dave :)
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It is very unprofessional to inflict the beta version of a software on a paying customer. How anyone with responsibility for the probate website can begin to imagine that it is currently in any way satisfactory, is beyond me. Beta versions of software are normally tested behind the scenes before entering the public domain. They couldn’t have made a much bigger mess of this if they’d just handed it over to a (not-very-talented) office boy or girl.
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Thanks Davedrave for the tip about putting NIL in the Folio number box. It worked! I will now await the next stage with baited breath.
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This may be a silly question but has anyone ever had a reply from ironmountain? I have just given up waiting for it to be fixed. I sent an email asking them when the My Wills area of the website will be back so that I can download the ones I have paid for......
sigh.
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Don't hold your breath, you'll go blue in the wait ;D
I never get emails from them advising me my ordered wills are ready to download.
However, I do get emails telling me my 30 days to download are almost up.
Go figure?
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No change this morning - allows me to login but takes me to a screen to Manage my account, but nothing else is possible.
https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Wills/MyWills - gives me Page Not Found
Trying again to log in again, I am now getting the msg like yesterday
HTTP/1.1 404 returned for "http://irm31-insight-uk-nuxeomt-hmcts.nuxeomt-hmcts.svc.cluster.local/nuxeo/api/v1/automation/AC_ExternalUserAccess_FindUser".
which I assume is gobbledegook for Page Not Found
I have always been pleased with this site, finding and ordering a Will was simple, I always got an email telling when it was ready to download. (Dawnsh - surprised you didn't get these emails)
DW399 - how did you manage to get through to order a Will yesterday???
What on earth can we do?????? >:( >:( >:(
Pam
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I think I got my order through by luck!
I went to Find a Will, and when I found the will within the apparently randomised pages that came up (my family has a lot of very common names!) I clicked to Open Image. This then allowed me to click another link to Show Form, which produced the familiar order form.
Having filled the form in (putting Nil in the Folio Number box if there is no such number - thanks to Davedrave for that tip) I then put the order in.
At that point I signed in and was admitted! This was pure luck - I had forgotten to do so earlier, but I now see that I would not have been able to sign in earlier!
What a mess it all is. Surely they could just restore the old version, which as many people have said, actually worked.
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This may be a silly question but has anyone ever had a reply from ironmountain?
I got the following reply from them on 7 Feb after telling them I got no results for Smith in 1900 on an android phone:-
Dear Customer
Thank you for your feedback.
The website landing page will be updated shortly with additional information.
We apologise for any inconvenience created.
Kind regards
HMCTS Wills Helpdesk
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Followed DW399 steps, got something in my basket, then tried to logon, ended up at the "Manage Account" page, and could go to My Basket, didn't actually want that Will so logged out, so it looks as if there may be a route in, albeit very convoluted.
Need to go out now, will try again later, and will see if I can actually get to previously ordered wills.
Pam
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I have managed to get an order into my basket but it doesn’t like me. Used the re-set password link and am awaiting an email.
To get the order form i did the initial search then pressed ‘click to open image’. Then when that opens there is a ‘show form’ button. Press that and the old form appears. Having filled that in and added to basket i tried to log in.
Not sure yet if i will go through with the order as I can’t find the actual entry in the mixed up 12 pages of Evanses, but filled in the details from the image on anc****y, but hope this helps snyone trying to order.
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Have now received the email to re-set the password, done that and logged in to the site. Then i could pay for the will (but not done that yet s i'd prefer to find the entry on the actual site). However i'm not able to see previous wills ordered, yet it recognised my email address so presumably knows i exist.
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Having struggled to log into my account and put five wills in my basket - and thanks to previous posters about the NIL tip for the folio number when there is no folio number - I proceeded to payment.
It took all my card details and then told me:
There is a problem
HTTP/1.1 500 returned - please contact your administrator.
I await a reply to my email.
I really can't face having to go through the process of ordering them all again!
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There are braver people than me on here. I certainly won't be putting in any orders until it is more stable. There are too many people here, and on other forums, who are saying they can't access wills they have bought, so I'll wait a few more days.
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Have now received the email to re-set the password, done that and logged in to the site. Then i could pay for the will (but not done that yet s i'd prefer to find the entry on the actual site). However i'm not able to see previous wills ordered, yet it recognised my email address so presumably knows i exist.
I’m in exactly the same boat. I had to reset my password too, and then proceeded to order 2 wills (a bit rash of me, on reflection) but they are all that is now showing up as outstanding. No sign on my account page of the will ordered on 23 January which I’m still awaiting. If I get an unsatisfactory answer from them, or worse still, something to suggest I didn’t order and pay for it, or that I’ve missed the timeframe for downloading it, I’ll get a bit annoyed to put it mildly. I think a complaint to the relevant departmental minister would then be in order.
Dave :)
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I sent an email this morning and I've just received the following reply.
Thank you for contacting GOV.UK.
Your enquiry has been passed to the HM Courts & Tribunals team who manage the 'Find a will' service.
They will investigate and respond to you directly.
If you have feedback about the service or would like to contact them directly, email:
hmctswills@ironmountain.co.uk
So it looks like I'm on a merry go round! I've already sent two emails to ironmountain, without a reply
I have asked them to send the wills I've paid for to my email address if the site is going to be down indefinitely.
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Similarly to torre but a bit different.....
Having raised a "ticket" with the "Government Digital Service" in addition to ironmountain, I received this respose - the first part of which was unhelpful and the "Troubleshooting" bit was just wrongly applied.
Hello again--
Your request (#xxxxxx) has been updated.
If you reported a software bug or error with GOV.UK, and you don't think it has been fixed, you can reopen this request by replying to this email. If your enquiry was about another government department's content or service, it may have been passed on to that department to respond. Please see below.
Thank you,
GDS User Support Team
Dear XXXXXXX
Thank you for contacting GOV.UK.
Your enquiry has been passed to the HM Courts & Tribunals team who manage the 'Find a will' service.
They will investigate and respond to you directly.
If you have feedback about the service or would like to contact them directly, email:
hmctswills@ironmountain.co.uk
In the meantime your original query with GOV.UK will now be closed.
Troubleshooting:
It can take up to 4 weeks for you to receive your documents.
A new probate record will appear online approximately 14 days after a grant of representation has been issued.
Regards,
AM
Government Digital Service
GOV.UK
Feb 9, 2022, 13:41 GMT
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I've had a response from Iron Mountain! Not a personal reply as such, but a fresh email saying my order is ready.
"Sign in to your online account via the following link https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk and go to the “My Documents” page to access your documents."
It sounds like 'my wills' is now 'my documents'. But there isn't a link anywhere to that either! I can sign in and out happily but only have a choice of a new search, the 'my account' page for changing password, the so-called help, or sign out. Has anyone seen a link 'My Documents'? Where should it be?
(Win10 and Firefox, both up to date.)
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A few weeks ago I ordered a Will but omitted to enter the middle name. They diid inform me and I replied with full details. Again they said they couldn't find it so I sent a screenshot of the entry. They replied to say I had to reorder and pay again.
I was ill and didn't get round to it. Now that the updated site is running the form says " enter first name " .
Nothing about full name.
So , what have other people done.
🤔
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Please may I suggest that, unless you need a copy of a will for current legal procedings, you leave the will site well alone for the time being.
I do not work for HMCTS or Iron Mountain, but I am sure, just like you and I, they know there is a big problem to be sorted.
While I appreciate the frustration we are all experiencing, myself included, who ever is supposed to be fixing the problem is most probably trying very hard to do so. Every day, they must be losing hundreds or thousands of £1.50's in revenue. Someone will be accountable for this debacle.
And us bombarding them with emails may not be helping them to achieve their service level agreements and potentially adding to a backlog.
The wills are there, the calendars say so, whether you use FindMyPast or Ancestry to search.
Please have patience.
Family history is not a fast hobby.
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Managed to sign in, get to My Account page, no other options
If I look at HELP it says :
How to get your copy grant and/or will.
You won’t be able to access the grant/will straight after ordering it. You will get an email confirming your order but this will not mean that your copy is ready to be downloaded.
You will get an email when it is ready to download. You will then be able to log in to the system and go to “My Wills” and save each available item to your computer. After you have logged in, the copy will be available for 31 days, so make sure that you save it before then.
Just in case it helps anyone to order a Will, I have documented the process that seems to work now (not obvious sadly).
If I search for a Will before logging in, I get the relevant page from the index, then say "Open Image", then "Show Form" . Now fill in the form - adding NIL into Folio number if appropriate - then "Add to Basket".
Now you can log in and at the top you can see "My Basket", click on that and you have the ability to "Place Order", which I don't want to do unless I am sure I will be able to retrieve it.
I CANNOT see my existing orders which I have been advised are ready to download. Has anyone found their previous orders available?
Haven't found a way of searching whilst logged in ::)
I think Dawnsh is very fair in what she says about not continuing to raise support queries and giving the developers a breathing space to get it up and running; but from what I have seen it will be a different process to follow once they have sorted it. Let's hope that those of us who have paid for Wills will eventually be connected to be able to download them.
Pam
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This morning: We are not alone!!
Rosemary Collins - the features editor of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/users-criticise-new-version-of-find-a-will/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2011%2F02%2F22_1560287_Who%20Do%20You%20Think%20You%20Are%3F_Newsletters_22088123&utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=Read%20the%20full%20story&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2011%2F02%2F22
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Yes WDYTYA magazine has been writing about the issue on its website for a number of days. What is very disappointing is that the DOJ has not responded to their questions regarding what is going on.
The article in the link states that some records are " missing". This includes that of William Ewart Gladstone. Well all I can say is that it took me a couple of minutes to locate his record by simply using a wildcard. Searching for Gladstone in 1898 produces no results but searching for Glad* produces 2 pages, his being on the second page. I also think that when a search produces pages of results it is wrong to assume as things stand that they are going to be in alphabetical or number order!
I am with Dawn on this and am not going to order any more wills until all the current issues have been sorted.
William
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This morning: We are not alone!!
Rosemary Collins - the features editor of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/users-criticise-new-version-of-find-a-will/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2011%2F02%2F22_1560287_Who%20Do%20You%20Think%20You%20Are%3F_Newsletters_22088123&utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=Read%20the%20full%20story&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2011%2F02%2F22
Just a gentle reminder to use RootsChat's URL shrinker when posting a long link.
https://www.rootschat.com/links/
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So it is looks like no doubt millions have been spent on a new website, which has had no proper testing, or checking for completeness and accuracy. Will anyone apologize? Will the taxpayer be reimbursed ::)?
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The article in the link states that some records are " missing". This includes that of William Ewart Gladstone. Well all I can say is that it took me a couple of minutes to locate his record by simply using a wildcard. Searching for Gladstone in 1898 produces no results but searching for Glad* produces 2 pages, his being on the second page. I also think that when a search produces pages of results it is wrong to assume as things stand that they are going to be in alphabetical or number order!
William
Which reminds me, the calendar pages were indexed by 1st three letters only which is why the old system returned so many pages.
Based on that, I searched for my gg-grandfather's will in 1933, searching on the 1st 3 letters of his surname returned too many pages, adding in a 4th letter reduced the number of pages down to four but in the sequence 324, 323, 325, 322.
Moving onto 1934, the 4 pages were in the order 333, 334, 335, 332
A step forward for me but we shouldn't have to find a work around.
A search on the full surname of 5 letters still gives no pages.
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A search upto and including 1996, will only work for the 1st 4 letters of the surname.
Once you get to 1997, you can put in the full surname and then the advanced search kicks in and you can add in more information.
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They are getting there gradually. At last the missing 'My Orders' link has appeared on the black header with the others. (Not 'my documents' as it said in their email.....)
Of course it did say "There is a problem HTTP/1.1 500 returned - please contact your administrator" but that is their problem not ours so I will let it pass! It did not stop me swiftly downloading the ones I have been waiting for all this time.
Now, dare I order another one or not? ;D
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I wouldn't, give them another week to get the site up and running properly and let them clear the backlog of order before adding to the pile.
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There are so many problems with this new site that, as an application designer in a former existence, I would be embarrased beyond belief if I had anything to do with it. Before finding this thread I had already posted a number of problems that I've found:
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=858846.0
I forgot to add to the list that the folio field on the order form cannot be left empty - I use a space or a full stop.
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Good news - partially!
I received emails on the 24th and 25th January to say that the first and then the remaining 2 wills I had ordered had been delivered.
When I went onto the site this morning I found that the first one was indeed there (I had in fact downloaded it the day before the site went down!) but that the other two were still "pending".
There was also still nothing in the "Expired Wills" section, so perhaps they are gradually catching up?
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I haven’t read the 7 pages of comment here but a search for Roberts in 1988, yesterday, returned an alleged 40 pages of results and surprise, surprise none of them was available to be viewed!
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If you click on one of the pages to magnify it, RayT, an order form appears for you to b able to order it.
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If you click on one of the pages to magnify it, RayT, an order form appears for you to b able to order it.
I managed to get the form but the problem was that I couldn’t see anything to order - just a blank screen (or maybe one of 40!)
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If you click on one of the pages to magnify it, RayT, an order form appears for you to b able to order it.
I managed to get the form but the problem was that I couldn’t see anything to order - just a blank screen (or maybe one of 40!)
Hmmm... that's frustrating! I do wonder rejecting cookies might have had an effect.....
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Which reminds me, the calendar pages were indexed by 1st three letters only which is why the old system returned so many pages.
Based on that, I searched for my gg-grandfather's will in 1933, searching on the 1st 3 letters of his surname returned too many pages, adding in a 4th letter reduced the number of pages down to four but in the sequence 324, 323, 325, 322.
Moving onto 1934, the 4 pages were in the order 333, 334, 335, 332
A step forward for me but we shouldn't have to find a work around.
A search on the full surname of 5 letters still gives no pages.
Before the wildcard 'trick' became known I'd followed a similar logic and discovered a page could be found by searching for the first full surname which appears on that page.
E.g. Looking for "PAVELEY" d.1985 gives the following results for each search -
"Paveley" - 0 pages
"Pav*" - 2 pages
"Pave*" - 0 pages
"Pauwells" [no wildcard, first surname on page 6507] - 2 pages [including 6507]
I got this to work consistently in pre-1996 years - although obviously it is only any use if you already know (or can guess) the first surname on the page. (e.g. where you have searched on Ancestry first)
It seems the new indexing/search system is treating the first surname on each page in some different way to others on the page. Note that I wasn't getting results for "Pave*" - I've found it inconsistent whether more than three characters+wildcard works ("Pauw*" in this case does).
"Frustrating" is the word I'd use about this update to a site which previously worked just fine. Another annoyance is not being able to use right-click to save the page image - there are workarounds, but all involve more effort than a simple right-click. :(
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Hopefully it's not just me!!!
I have signed on and found a link to "My Orders" where I have found a list of many previously requested Wills, including the two most recent that I had not been able to Download. I have now done so.
It looks as if they are going back through past orders and re-building. Some previously downloaded are marked 'Documents Pending', others I can download.
So it looks as if we have an almost working system again.
I still cannot find a way to search for a Will whilst logged in - curious, haven't tried this out but might have to search before logging in.
Pam
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Bizarrely i have one old one from 2018 which says ‘pending’ and my latest one which says ‘download’ but nothing happens. And no record of the many previously ordered in the ‘expired’ section. So it is improving - but still hard work.
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I'll second both Cordley and Dierdre784's posts. I now have 8 wills in the MyOrders tab and they were ordered prior to the change. The only ones I can download are 2 that I had been able to download before all this kerfuffle. The rest are marked as pending even though I previously received an email for one of them saying it was ready.
Given that I have been ordering a great many wills over the past few months, this isn't very impressive! Nothing in the "Expired Wills" category
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I searched for a will this morning. The search itself was hard work, as it took numerous attempts using different length partial surname strings before I found the will I was looking for. Strange that using different length strings for the first characters of the name required produce completely different results, even though it is obvious that the search is matching on names longer than the number of characters entered. That part of the system is much more unwieldy than it used to be, and I wasn't offered any calendar page images to review at all during the search process.
But eventually, having found the record I was looking for and adding it to the basket, I was prompted to log in when attempting to pay. That worked seamlessly after the problems with trying to log in last week.
And the best part, totally unexpected, as soon as I had paid I was taken to the "My Orders" page, where there was already a download link highlighted against the record I had just paid for. I clicked on that, and a copy of the will and the grant of probate were both downloaded as two separate downloads, one for each document. If receiving copies of the documents ordered is going to be instant, or a matter of minutes, that is a great improvement on the previous system.
It seems that it is just the searching facilities that need improvement now, but it's getting there. Still seems very odd that you can only search for documents when logged out of your account though.
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Bizarrely i have one old one from 2018 which says ‘pending’ and my latest one which says ‘download’ but nothing happens. And no record of the many previously ordered in the ‘expired’ section. So it is improving - but still hard work.
I wonder if that might have something to do with how your system handles PDF files? I have my browser configured to open them in my PDF viewer (Foxit Reader). As I mentioned in my previous post, when I clicked on the download link against my order, a copy of the will immediately opened in Foxit Reader. After saving that image and closing Foxit, I had a pop-up telling me that I still had one document waiting to download, and when I accepted that, a copy of the grant opened in Foxit as well. It might be worth checking your browser's default download folder, just in case you find them there.
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Will check that, thanks phil57
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Pretty much the same with me.
I left it alone for a week and when I looked yesterday, I was able to finally log-in and potentially place an order.
Today, when I logged-in, a new header appeared showing my orders, of which I apparently have 5. It refers to my last order, placed 30 Nov 2021 and the documents are shown as "Documents Pending". I have long since had them, downloaded them and had the e-mail to say they had expired.
Wonder if they are back tracking on everyone's last orders to cover their backs. All very amusing, unless you are someone who's order goes astray. No more than I would expect from IT Contractors of today. Most are experts at nothing who are grossly overpaid and never seem to be responsible for the havoc they reek.
Only when things settle I will attempt my latest order. It's not that urgent!
Eric
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When ordering when you are logged in....click on the white "Find a Will" above "My Orders". Should take you there. Did with me.
Eric
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You are right - I missed that, thought it was just a Page Title.
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Probably meant to be!!
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I’ve just managed to log into the site using the changed password I had to create the other day, and managed to find a will, ordered well back in January, ready to download. I had been unable to see this order record the other day, only being able to locate two more recent orders (which are still showing currently).
OTOH, I didn’t receive an email to tell me the older order was ready to download. Still, things appear to be looking up on this website, certainly compared to the other day.
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Certainly progress. What I find interesting is that the order I placed just before the 'maintenance' started, and in relation to which I received emails saying the documents were ready while the website was down, has now been fulfilled. (I have downloaded everything quickly - just in case!) As with other contributors, some of my previous orders are now shown, a few available to download, most pending.
Interestingly, I managed to put in an order for a single will (I'm prepared to risk £1.50) when the website came back up, even though most of it didn't work. This is now shown under My Orders, but is pending.
Judging by another user's experience posted above, they seem to be dealing with new orders quickly, but there may be some issues with orders placed during the recent problem period.
I await further developments.
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I purchased another will today. The download link was active in My Orders almost immediately after payment, the same as yesterday, but this time I've only been offered the grant, and not a copy of the will which is referred to in it. Unlike yesterday's order, there is no "Available Until" date next to the download link, so do I assume that I'm still waiting for the will to be delivered? If so, why offer me half the order instead of waiting until it's complete?
Has anyone found a way to still view copies of the calendar pages during a search? I am no longer being offered them at all, just a list of matching (or not so matching) names. Sometimes an image of the calendar entry is all I need, but the information being returned in the names list for the search results isn't half as useful.
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the images are only available for entries upto 1996.
After then, the entries were 'computerised' and fully searchable in the names fields
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Thanks Dawn,
I'd just worked that out by trial and error and came back to add my findings. You beat me to it :)
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I ordered a number of wills (some pre and some post 1996) on 22nd January. I received emails for three of them during the outsge saying they were available but actually only one of them is. I queried this using their "Contact us" button and received this reply
Dear Customer,
We apologise for any inconvenience created. We are currently investigating the technical issue that caused the delay.
Meanwhile, I have retrieved the requested documents for you and attached them to this email.
Please let us know if we can assist you any further.
Kind Regards,
HMCTS Wills Helpdesk
Needless to say, the one they sent me was the only one I had been able to download before..... sigh....
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Thank you to all the contibutors to this thread. I finally got a copy of a will I had ordered before Christmas yesterday and immediately had problems as mentioned luckily as I knew there could be issues I proceeded smoothly through.
Decided to order another will and yet again issues but used the wild card option and scrolled through but had to go to FindMyPast to get the dates as the search seems to use the date of death as date of probate. In the will I searched for
Annie Louisa Glynn died 10/11/1920 was found in 1921 when probate was issued.
Many thanks to you all for ensuring I didn't shout too loud at my computer !
Nesta
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I purchased another will today. The download link was active in My Orders almost immediately after payment, the same as yesterday, but this time I've only been offered the grant, and not a copy of the will which is referred to in it. Unlike yesterday's order, there is no "Available Until" date next to the download link, so do I assume that I'm still waiting for the will to be delivered? If so, why offer me half the order instead of waiting until it's complete?
Just to update this, Iron Mountain replied to my email yesterday, with a copy of the missing will attached, and an apology. This morning, I received another automated email to tell me that my order was ready to download, and the link on the web site also now gives me both the will and grant.
So it does appear that the download link in My Orders becomes active as soon as even part of an order has been retrieved. But whether you just need to be patient and wait for the email to say that the order is ready, or whether the order only became ready because I intervened, I have no idea, as Iron Mountain didn't address my question about that in their reply.
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I have now sent a number of emails (spaced very widely!) on the same topic - my missing two wills from an order placed mid January. On two occasions I received a reply telling me that all was now well with the site and they'd fixed the logons. When I replied asking them to address the actual question I raised, I received no response at all and am still waiting.....
I don't know what else I can now do....
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I decided to give ordering a go and ordered one on 21 Feb. I didn't get any acknowledgement of my order or any indication as to when I might receive my order, as you did in the past. The money went out of my account on the 23rd and I thought I would give them 2 weeks before contacting them.
However, I received an e-mail at 8 this morning to say it was ready to download and there it was.
They may have got the site working, but they seem to have taken several steps back with their lack of communication with the customer, which was pretty dire originally. To be honest, I don't think they care one bit.
Incidentally, viewing the calendar isn't always possible, depending on where the person you want is located on the page. I searched for Edwards d 1928 and the first page to come up began part way through 'C' and the top of the page is obscured. I assume other searches would be similarly affected.
Eric
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Incidentally, viewing the calendar isn't always possible, depending on where the person you want is located on the page. I searched for Edwards d 1928 and the first page to come up began part way through 'C' and the top of the page is obscured. I assume other searches would be similarly affected.
The search results come up in a seemingly random order, although anecdotally I've found more often than not the first few pages of the calendar are found towards the end of the results.
For your search criteria just now I found Edwards starts with Ada--> on image 11 and then with Alfred --> at the top of image 7. It would be interesting to see if other people doing the same search get the same order of images.
If the problem is with not being able to view the whole image, there's a workaround I suggested in Reply #2 on this thread -
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=859102.0
This workaround still seems to work OK.
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I had noticed the same thing about the top entry being obscured sometimes by the 'Back' banner. I haven't tried the suggested work round as I haven't needed to so far.
A further irritation is that you can no longer place an item in your basket and leave it there while you close the site, perhaps to come back and add something else the next day. It simply clears the basket. As a result, it now seems you must check out each time you want to close the site - a small thing perhaps, but why the change???
Has anything improved?
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Just tried Edwards died 1928. 12 pages starting with Charles Edwards, then James, John, Eliasaph, George, Thomas, Alfred, Esther, Marianne, Rees, Rose and William. Hope that is sorted eventually as with more common surnames you could easily miss the one you’re looking for.
I am missing the top record on each page but can’t find out how to use the workaround on Edge.
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I couldn't find a work around on edge, but the work around on firefox works wonderfully.
Happy, not happy
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I couldn't find a work around on edge, but the work around on firefox works wonderfully.
I don't have access to edge (I try very hard to keep it off my computer ;) ) but a quick google suggests that the Firefox "No style" setting - which has the effect of disabling cascading style sheets (CSS) - has no direct equivalent in edge.
More googling leaves me thinking it would be easier to install Firefox than try to get it to work with edge. Unless there are any expert edge users around who know a user-friendly way to disable CSS on a specific site/page without affecting anything else.
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One way of seeing the full pages for a search is to refrain from clicking on the " click to open image and order document form" and use the browser zoom in the top right corner of the screen to enlarge the results page. I am using Chrome and using the zoom to 250% can read and scroll through all the results, including the top of the page. The same method works on edge. I will only open the order document form when I locate one I wish to order.
William
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I've just had a request rejected as "No find".
This apparently is because their "search" facility can not locate the probate, despite it being in the original, printed, Calendar of Probate.
I have demanded that they perform the search again, using the image (from FindMyPast) showing exactly the details I had filled in on their order form.
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I had a number of these rejections recently. The issue I think is that, foolishly, I thought that where they asked for the individual's 'first name' they meant the first name. In fact they mean all the names other than the surname. I have asked for a refund too, and also asked when they will correct the form. I'm not holding my breath.
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How do you get the information about what part of the form is wrong? When one of mine was rejected as "No Find", I was given no clue as to what was incorrect. I have asked what was wrong in an e-mail of 22 Feb., but I've had no explanation.
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I've not found a way of discovering what they think the error is.
A few times I have taken a screenshot of my application, so I can check what I've requested, but frankly I usually can't be bothered!
When I had rejections where I had used a single forename, I remembered wondering on filling in the form whether they really meant 'name' in the singular, but decided that if that's what they asked for, they might reject an application with two or more (okay, it sounds as if I overthought that!). I tried one application again, this time with all the forenames, and got the document. I'm pretty confident therefore that the single forename was the issue. I can't prove it of course!
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I also got a "not found" despite the entry being completely correct as of the printed document from Ancestry and FindMyPast.
However, when I did finally manage to get the page to display on the Probate websote (by searching only on the first couple of letters and paging tediously through the documents) I noticed that their copy has a "folio number" against it, so I wrote off my previous attempt and resubmitted the request quoting the folio number.
Unfortunately, despite many chase-up emails, nothing has so far emerged....
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My experience, which I can easily reproduce but is so bizarre I think it can't be everyone's, is this: when I carefully enter the death date and probate date, those two data are changed when they're copied to the Basket. The change is (always) to subtract 1 day. So for example "07 05 1877" on the order form becomes "6 May 1877" in the Basket. I couldn't believe my eyes so I tried several dates, and found 01 03 1880 went to Feb 29 1880, and 01 01 1877 went to Dec 31 1876.
Of course I didn't notice it at first because it's so strange. And of course it must then fail the subsequent search, and I have had only failures recently.
Any one else see this?
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I'm not very keen to re-ignite this old chestnut, but has anyone experienced any problems of late?
I only ask as the other day I ordered 4 Wills without a hitch, although I've not had them delivered yet. I missed ordering one and tried to do it as another order. All went well until I tried to place the order/make payment, when I was met with a message telling me to " contact your administrator". Coincidentally, this is an order that needs a Folio No.. I've retried several times and keep getting the same error notice. I can, however, place other orders no problem.
Also, how do you contact these people to ask how to resolve the issue?
Eric.
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I have been unable to order any wills requiring Folio numbers for some time now. If you emails them on hmctswills@ironmountain.co.uk you MAY get a reply but I usually don't.
I ordered some wills a few weeks ago that went into the system fine but have never turned up. One that claimed to have Grant and Will available had the Grant but not the will and they haven't responded to my query about that either.
I'm sorry to be discouraging Eric but I can only wish you luck ::)
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You're not being discouraging, I appreciate your reply. It doesn't surprise me one bit. I'm just glad it isn't me missing something obvious.
I thought things had settled down with not hearing much on the subject of late. Maybe people have just given up.
Onwards and downwards. Eric.
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If there’s no folio number present on the image you can add a space (so the system accepts the entry!). At least that’s what i was told recently and it worked. Recent orders have gone in and been returned without a problem, though all my orders pre the update have disappeared.
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The 4 that I managed to submit didn't need a Folio No. and the order form didn't ask for one. The one I am having a problem with does require a Folio No. and the order form knows that, so it very cleverly produces a box to put it in.
My problem is, as I mentioned, is being unable to submit the order.
Eric.
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So is there a folio number in the image?
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Oh yes and I put it in the box.
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In the latest issue of WDYTYA magazine there is a response to letter about the problems people are having which quotes the Ministry of Justice as saying 'We understand the frustration users have experienced and thank them for their patience. We are working on a range of further enhancements to improve the service' I think it is a clear case of if it is not broken don't fix it in the first place.
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Oh yes and I put it in the box.
Apologies then, I obviously got the wrong end of the stick
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That's ok. No need to apologise.
Thanks Crumblie. That seems to explain everything. Maybe they should have thought about doing the job properly in the first place, by having someone on the case who knew something about the site, or as you suggested, just left it alone.
Regards, Eric.
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I think it's only fair that despite their many faults with this service and poor, or even non-existent, customer service, I should give them credit where credit's due.
The 4 wills that I mentioned, that I ordered on 1 May were received today, at the crack of dawn. In fact, the first arrived shortly before 7 this morning! All appear to be 100% complete.
It seems they can deliver when things run right, but if many orders can't be made, then they will be able to provide a quick turnaround for the lucky few that get through.
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Modern ones, not sure how recent, maybe post 2010, come by return! One appeared in my ‘orders’ before i’d left the page. Guessing it’s to do with digitisation 🤔
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The later entries after 1996 where you don't get to see calendar images were scanned and digitised as they were probated.
And a late addition to the thread in case it hasn't been mentioned:
Back in the day when the closure of the probate dept at Holborn was announced, it was mentioned then that as the pages of the calendars were being scanned and digitised, only the first 3 digits of the surnames on the page were indexed because that was how the pages in the huge books in the rooms there were indexed.
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Deirdre - I had heard something along those lines.
The ones I ordered were a mix - 1873, 1948, 1999 & 2000. Who knows? Like everything else with these faceless, nameless people, a complete mystery.
Eric.
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[...] All went well until I tried to place the order/make payment, when I was met with a message telling me to " contact your administrator". [...]
I am still in a protracted email correspondence with them about the "contact your administrator" problem I get when I sometimes, but not always, try to buy.
I last reported this error to them on 22nd April and on 29th April I received the following reply (from hmctswills@ironmountain.co.uk):
Dear Customer,
We are sorry to hear about your issues with paying for your orders.
We are aware that the issue is with our payment provider which is Barclaycard who are having a few issues at present.
If this message has come through to you, and you haven't received an order number back, then it means the order hasn't properly gone through the system to enable us to find and service your order details.
Barclaycard are currently aware of the situation and are aiming to fix the issue as quickly as possible.
In the meantime if you have been overcharged for your order(s) then we will need to investigate this further for you.
Please provide us with the following information:
The Full Name of the person who placed the order(s).
The Email Address you used to place the order(s).
The date and time that you placed the order(s).
And Proof Of Payment.
Once we receive the above we will investigate and refund any monies outstanding.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this is causing.
Please get back to us if you require any further assistance.
Kind Regards,
HMCTS Wills Helpdesk
I'm also still waiting for a reply to a different problem I reported to them on Saturday, 5 Mar, 22 At 15:28
And also the first time I had the "contact your administrator" problem on Thursday, 10 Feb, 22.
I'm keeping a list of all the problem ones I've tried to order to try again when they've fixed things - well I can live in hope!
cservices@ironmountain.co.uk seems to be a better email address to address queries to than hmctswills@ironmountain.co.uk - I have had a reply to another ordering problem from a human at cservices rather than the standard replies hmctswills seems to send out.
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Interesting HMCTS ask for proof of payment.
I raised that recently with them.
I've placed a couple of orders and you don't get one now, and as there is no VAT, they do not have to provide it.
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This gets more bizarre.
Yesterday I tried a few dummy orders. The ones that didn't need a Folio No. got to the payment stage. The ones that needed one didn't get that far. I got the same contact administrator message. I tried the same ones today and they got to the payment stage.
I was then able to order the Will that I originally attempted to order.
As for receipts. I received an e-mail saying "order receipt". However you have to follow a link which then tells you to download the actual receipt to your device. The mind boggles.
Either someone is having a laugh that's got out of hand or someone's continued employment or sanity should be seriously questioned.
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This gets more bizarre.
Yesterday I tried a few dummy orders. The ones that didn't need a Folio No. got to the payment stage. The ones that needed one didn't get that far. I got the same contact administrator message. I tried the same ones today and they got to the payment stage.
I was then able to order the Will that I originally attempted to order.
As for receipts. I received an e-mail saying "order receipt". However you have to follow a link which then tells you to download the actual receipt to your device. The mind boggles.
Either someone is having a laugh that's got out of hand or someone's continued employment or sanity should be seriously questioned.
That is very interesting, Eric - thanks for sharing that! I'm glad that you were able to order the will you've been trying to get originally and it encourages me to think I might be able to get the one I tried weeks and weeks back (if I can remember which one it was ;D )
However, I'm not ordering anything until I get a reply about the one they claim to have delivered and haven't.
I daren't comment on the way this "upgrade" has been handled as I'm sure I would be breaking the site rules on appropriate user behaviour........
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This is one mega thread ! forgive me if this has been bought up before -
My order will/probate - Found the record using the sites search no problem and placed the order - also no problem -
I have not received an email to say my documents are ready to download - however logging in and looking under 'My Orders' I can see two 'document 'Download Links' one for Grant Document and one for the Will Document...Yippeee I thought! However -
When I click on the Download Link for the Grant Document I receive a PDF document - all good !
When I click on the Download Link for the Will Document - nothing happens.!
I then sent an email to ironmountain (a week ago) requesting an update...but alas no response as yet.
Anyone have a similar issue - where one document like the Grant document can be downloaded but the Will document does not?!
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Yes indeed histbak, that has happened to me several times. Eventually, (and in some cases it has been more than a month later) I do get the email and at that point the will is available. I have also sent emails to IronMountain and rarely get a reply so have given up on that front!
It has certainly put me off ordering wills though as I was on a roll with ordering just before the site went off-line and the very long delays (still haven't received one I ordered several months back) mean that I have lost the thread of my researches once they finally appear...
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I have found that you may have to wait quite a while for the 2nd document to be available to download.
From my own experience it could be several hours, in some cases though the 2 documents are available together.
There seems to be no rhyme or reason.
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I tried to place an order this morning.
The website insisted that my email address was invalid?!
I use GMX, and have done for more than 10 years.
I send, and receive, many emails every day.
How can it be an invalid email address?
P.S. Eventually ordered using a secondary, little used, email address!
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This is one mega thread ! forgive me if this has been bought up before -
My order will/probate - Found the record using the sites search no problem and placed the order - also no problem -
I have not received an email to say my documents are ready to download - however logging in and looking under 'My Orders' I can see two 'document 'Download Links' one for Grant Document and one for the Will Document...Yippeee I thought! However -
When I click on the Download Link for the Grant Document I receive a PDF document - all good !
When I click on the Download Link for the Will Document - nothing happens.!
I then sent an email to ironmountain (a week ago) requesting an update...but alas no response as yet.
Anyone have a similar issue - where one document like the Grant document can be downloaded but the Will document does not?!
Yes. Be patient. They respond eventually in my experience. Both times that happened to me they emailed me the missing Grants directly, and also fixed the download link at the same time. Annoying though, nevertheless!
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Yes. Be patient. They respond eventually in my experience. Both times that happened to me they emailed me the missing Grants directly, and also fixed the download link at the same time. Annoying though, nevertheless!
Thankyou Phil and to all who have responded to my post - clearly this service has more than a few issues atm - and patience will be mine ! Cheers
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I'm having the same problem, I can download the Grant but not the Will. Also the 'Contact Us' tab doesn't work for me so I have no way of contacting them. Can someone please give me the email address so I can contact them?
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I'm having the same problem, I can download the Grant but not the Will. Also the 'Contact Us' tab doesn't work for me so I have no way of contacting them. Can someone please give me the email address so I can contact them?
sending you a PM - I got my similar problem fixed today after about a week.
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I can download the Grant but not the Will
I ordered four wills a few days ago and they appeared in my account very quickly. All four show Grant and Will and for three of them I just clicked and downloaded both documents.
However the fourth one shows Grant and Will available. I clicked on Grant and downloaded that and then tried to click on Will but it doesn't work.
A while later I had a good look at the Grant and realised that it says INTESTATE - ie he died without a will so that explains why there is no will to download in this case. But I wonder why they show Will in my account when there isn't one.
alainelloyd - does the Grant say there is a will or does it say intestate - easy to overlook that.
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I had a problem with only one link. Ironmountain were useless and have still not sorted it, but the Wills site soon fixed it and sent me a link the next day.
"If you are only seeing one link then please try using Chrome as this seems to be the browser most compatible with showing both links available to download.
If you have any further problems, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards,
HMCTS Wills Helpdesk"
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I tried to place an order this morning.
The website insisted that my email address was invalid?!
I use GMX, and have done for more than 10 years.
I send, and receive, many emails every day.
How can it be an invalid email address?
P.S. Eventually ordered using a secondary, little used, email address!
An update!
Apparently, I should have used lower case when typing my email address?!
But it's not all bad news:
ordered 3 wills on 25th (Wednesday).
First one arrived on 27th (Friday).
Second arrived today (30th).
Just waiting for the final one!
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And more good news, happy to report that Iron mountain replied to my email after just one business day and I am now able to download both the Will and the Grant :)
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Hi, I have received a document reference number with no link and I don't know how to download it. Would someone mind pointing me in the direction of some instructions?
thanks
Paul
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From the main page, click on "Sign In".
Enter your email address; click "Continue".
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UPDATE: The probate service have identifed the correct probate date for me so I can reorder :-)
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Thank you. Typical! nothing found.... I've sent them the image from the scanned probate documents so hopefully they'll find it with that.
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