Virgin subscribers spent yesterday without access to German websites.

Popular web hosting site 1and1 was one of those hit - and its customers were not happy. But it is now clear that a routing problem at Virgin was the cause.

A spokesman for 1and1 told the Reg: "I can confirm that a small number of 1and1 Root Server customers using a particular ISP had some routing issues which I believe are now resolved."

Thanks to Reg reader "Smokindope" who posted a Reader Comment on the original story offered a proxy fix yesterday evening. We're still waiting to hear back from Virgin.

Fasthosts, owned by the same company as 1and1, also had a fun day yesterday by changing passwords for a number of customers.

New passwords will be sent out by snail mail, which is not terribly convenient for people running ecommerce sites who hoped to make some sales in the run-up to Christmas. ®

Related stories

• 1&1 botches Microsoft Exchange update (8 August 2008)
• 1&1 says sorry to one in ten (12 March 2008)
• Two UK web hosts go down (29 November 2007)
• Virgin Media downed by Manchester arsonists (1 November 2007)
• 1and1's dedicated servers go titsup (31 October 2007)
• Virgin throttles national cable network (8 May 2007)
• Letters 1and1: readers stick the boot in (19 January 2007)
• 1and1 email takes a dive again (18 January 2007)
• 1and1 says problems are over (16 January 2007)