Shoutbox

I did notice that if you sign out then back in, sometimes it'll give you the alerts. Or once you visit the actually hotmail inbox it'll then decide to tell you how many you've got, like you somehow didn't know.

I'd agree with it being server issues, been a lot of those lately. Can't remember when I started having problems, but its pretty recent that it started, maybe about the same time as yours. Its not like I even get that many e-mails either, so its a pain when you don't know you've got any.