No Mails At All From GC

[+Eric K]

Read the whole thread.

 

Sorry if I offended you by not reading 148 posts in this thread.

Just thought I may have been contributing to the thread by posting AOL was still having the problem.

Edited July 31, 2006 by Eric K

[+Markwell]

Sorry, I was a little cranky today after trying to get my website downloaded and uploaded to a different location, forward all of my old saved e-mails, and make sure all of the accounts and online information that has my e-mail address as somethingsomething@aol.com is now updated to somethingdifferent@gmail.com.

 

To summarize the thread so far, AOL may or may not be letting these e-mails through now, but the ones that were held up during their throttling will still be eeking through, as Geocaching.com doesn't cancel trying to send the e-mails.

 

Bottom line: It's not a Geocaching.com problem, but an AOL problem.

[+Bill & Tammy]

So I dump AOL in response to the above issues and set up a Gmail e-mail account. But now I am trying to change my account details and it says my brand new Gmail e-mail addy is INVALID. So what the heck do I do now???

[+JimmyEv]

I cannot believe that AOL is still causing all these problems. I have e-mails trickling in from more than 10 days ago, some pqs being sent twice, some e-mails sent through gc.com not coming at all, and the dates are all mixed up. I just ran a pq. It was generated, nothing came. Re-sent it to my yahoo account and there it was. Still not in the AOL account. This bites. Is there a way we can have everything sent to two e-mail accounts? Then I wouldn't have to regenerate pqs to send to yahoo.

[+Markwell]

Start with your Yahoo Account as a main one, and set a filter to have it forward to your AOL.

 

Me, I'm cancelling AOL.

[+JimmyEv]

Start with your Yahoo Account as a main one, and set a filter to have it forward to your AOL.

 

Me, I'm cancelling AOL.

 

Thanks Markwell, I'll see if I can figure out how to automatically forward. I'd cancel too, but then I wouldn't have dial-up when traveling to those stupid motels that still don't have high-speed.

[Elias]

AOL Update:

 

AOL is still throttling us, but the mail backlog has been reduced to an insignificant amount. The oldest message in queue is less than 1 hour old. It'll be interesting to see what happens on Thursday with the emailer.

 

AOL did finally set up our Feedback Loop yesterday, and I have to admit its rather insightful as to what people are marking as spam. Insightful is too nice, its actually rather appalling. People who have been members for some time are marking as spam every email they receive as a result of the multiple caches they've added to their watchlist. Even more disturbing is that roughly 25% of the complaints are cache owners marking log notifications (found, not found, etc...) to their own caches as spam. The top of the email reads, "You are receiving this email because you are the owner of this listing." What part of that isn't clear?

 

So somehow AOL has trained their customers into thinking that marking emails as spam magically makes things go away. This irresponsible behavior is even less appropriate when it comes from cache owners who have physical containers hidden in the real world. And I consider those who are too lazy to click on the remove link at the bottom of the watchlist emails to be engaging in a denial-of-service attack against the site.

 

We'll be talking internally over the next few days how to address this situation. I fully expect that we'll be taking a very hard stance towards those who choose to behave this way.

 

Elias

[Hillbilly-Rockstar]

I contacted tech support the other day, they told me to just turn spam controls off. But that isn't the problem is it? Isn't the problem with AOL blocking the GC.com servers? I'm confused . The only reason I have AOL is that my parents *GASP* like it. So I use it for email, and use it in Thunderbird. I don't really like webmail. Of course never use AOL to browse the web with, use Firefox...duh.

 

Another thing is in AOL's browser, it seems that Google Maps beta doesn't show up.

 

-Eric

[+JimmyEv]

This is still an AOL problem. The 'report as spam' line and the 'delete' line are easily confused, and they do the same thing -- they delete the e-mail. I know I've accidently hit 'report as spam' things I've meant to 'delete.' This has the potential to cause a lot of problems for people that rely on paperless billing. Lots of late fees from bills that you never got because someone's been reporting them as spam.

[+The Leprechauns]

I've been an AOL user, since 1992 before it became the "internet for the unwashed masses." That loyalty has come to an end, much as it has for Markwell and others. Permit me to observe that AOL doesn't make it clear that pressing the "this is spam" button has the potential for blocking others from receiving legitimate e-mail that they wish to receive.

 

Because I am such a longtime user, I have a very common username -- let's say I'm "Signal." Other users come along, and finding that "Signal" is not an available screen name, they add a few numbers or other characters so that there's now hundreds of them -- "Signal1," "Signal!" "Signal90210," and so forth. These follow-on Signals then go and sign up at various websites, and screw up their own e-mail address, putting "Signal@aol.com" on the registration form. I then get their e-mail. Two people who did this are a dentist and a high school student with stellar test scores. I get all sorts of promotional e-mails for dental equipment, dental seminars and dentist magazines. And about 50 different colleges are begging for me to come pay them a campus visit. I've marked all of these as spam. My only goal was to get those messages to stop coming to MY inbox. If I've put a major university onto AOL's blacklist, that's an oopsie that was not my intention.

[+Mopar]

Sorry for going a little off-topic, but just today AOL announced that all you cachers quiting for greener pastures will still be able to hang on to your AOL email account for free.

 

Linky-dink

 

That might help some others who have dread changing their email address make the jump.

[+Haggis Hunter]

After a written complaint I spoke to a manager from AOL yesterday. I told him that I wasn't bothered about anyone elses complaints and that I wanted my mail. His one worded reply was quite simply.............

 

 

 

'NO'

 

 

It was a mere few seconds after getting his details that I hung up on him. I am just convincing my wife to allow me to change her email address and then I will be saying goodbye.

[+Runaround]

Is it any easier to quit AOL today than it was a decade ago? When I dropped them in the very early 90's (back in the 2800 baud days) I called and cancelled my service per the TOU. Unfortunately, the billing didn't stop. I made at least a dozen calls over 3 months yet I still was billed monthly for service I wasn't using. AOL personnel told me it was taken care of but the billing continued. It wasn't until I filed a fraud report with my credit card that the billing stopped. IIRC, they were sued over this behavior.

[+Eric K]

AOL Update:

 

AOL is still throttling us, but the mail backlog has been reduced to an insignificant amount. The oldest message in queue is less than 1 hour old. It'll be interesting to see what happens on Thursday with the emailer.

 

AOL did finally set up our Feedback Loop yesterday, and I have to admit its rather insightful as to what people are marking as spam. Insightful is too nice, its actually rather appalling. People who have been members for some time are marking as spam every email they receive as a result of the multiple caches they've added to their watchlist. Even more disturbing is that roughly 25% of the complaints are cache owners marking log notifications (found, not found, etc...) to their own caches as spam. The top of the email reads, "You are receiving this email because you are the owner of this listing." What part of that isn't clear?

 

So somehow AOL has trained their customers into thinking that marking emails as spam magically makes things go away. This irresponsible behavior is even less appropriate when it comes from cache owners who have physical containers hidden in the real world. And I consider those who are too lazy to click on the remove link at the bottom of the watchlist emails to be engaging in a denial-of-service attack against the site.

 

We'll be talking internally over the next few days how to address this situation. I fully expect that we'll be taking a very hard stance towards those who choose to behave this way.

 

Elias

 

If you figure a solution please let me know. I've had the same issues with some mailing list I do. People join it and verify they want to join. Then instead of removing themselves or asking to be removed they just mark your e-mail as spam. I feel your pain.

[+Eric K]

Start with your Yahoo Account as a main one, and set a filter to have it forward to your AOL.

 

Me, I'm cancelling AOL.

 

Thanks Markwell, I'll see if I can figure out how to automatically forward. I'd cancel too, but then I wouldn't have dial-up when traveling to those stupid motels that still don't have high-speed.

 

I can relate here also. While AOL can be a major pain they are still the easiest to use for us folks that make trips to the middle of nowhere. Worse case even if they dont' have a local number they have the 800 number you can use.

[+Tharagleb]

Somebody probably already said this but AOL just messed this up. Gmail has all the "spam" going to a spam folder. Then I have the option of whitelisting a sender by choosing "not spam" on the message. With AOL's implementation you never have any options because the blacklist they whole domain.

 

BTW, email me for gmail invites if needed.

 

[Edit: I am totally incapable of doing a single post, no matter how short, without a typo.]

Edited August 3, 2006 by Tharagleb

[+Tharagleb]

...they are still the easiest to use for us folks that make trips to the middle of nowhere. Worse case even if they dont' have a local number they have the 800 number you can use.

 

You could still use AOL's dial-up to access a gmail account via your web browser.

[+Markwell]

While AOL can be a major pain they are still the easiest to use for us folks that make trips to the middle of nowhere. Worse case even if they dont' have a local number they have the 800 number you can use.

Earthlink does this - we use them for work.

[Hillbilly-Rockstar]

I'm like the bigget Anti-AOL guy you can find (Well maybe I'm a bigger Anti-IE fan also ). Today in my local paper they had a huge article on how hard AOL is trying to stay on a compeitive level. No more of those free trial CDs' (Finally!), more free features, and now free @aol.com email address.

 

Take it from a guy who has 2 ISP's, one for connectivity, and one for his parents email address. My parents will NOT change their email address, because to them it's to much of a hassle. So they sit on the computer, and when AOL screws up (every 10 minutes) they call me to fix it. But NOW! They will cancel their service, get the free @aol.com email addresses, AND START USING THUNDERBIRD AND FIREFOX WHOOT WHOOT!!!!

 

I could get into a HUGE geek rant on how much AOL (and IE ) suck. But I will control myself for now.

[+pghlooking]

Sorry for going a little off-topic, but just today AOL announced that all you cachers quiting for greener pastures will still be able to hang on to your AOL email account for free.

 

Linky-dink

 

That might help some others who have dread changing their email address make the jump.

Now that would be a good thing. So to get rid of the billing and get free service with your own broadband, you have to call them. Anyone else notice that they have their 1-800 number nowhere on their website? At least not anywhere easy to find. If someone sees it how about posting it. Thanks.

[+Tharagleb]

I remember cancelling my AOL account many years ago. You could not do it online, they claimed that was a security feature (my butt). Then when you called they just argued with you about cancelling but if you persisted it worked.

 

Probably best to tell them you are going to prison and will have no income.

[+BirdManOfCT]

USA Today shows the number as 888-265-8008

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/t...02-aol-qa_x.htm

[+Glenn]

AOL Update:

 

AOL is still throttling us, but the mail backlog has been reduced to an insignificant amount. The oldest message in queue is less than 1 hour old. It'll be interesting to see what happens on Thursday with the emailer.

 

AOL did finally set up our Feedback Loop yesterday, and I have to admit its rather insightful as to what people are marking as spam. Insightful is too nice, its actually rather appalling. People who have been members for some time are marking as spam every email they receive as a result of the multiple caches they've added to their watchlist. Even more disturbing is that roughly 25% of the complaints are cache owners marking log notifications (found, not found, etc...) to their own caches as spam. The top of the email reads, "You are receiving this email because you are the owner of this listing." What part of that isn't clear?

 

So somehow AOL has trained their customers into thinking that marking emails as spam magically makes things go away. This irresponsible behavior is even less appropriate when it comes from cache owners who have physical containers hidden in the real world. And I consider those who are too lazy to click on the remove link at the bottom of the watchlist emails to be engaging in a denial-of-service attack against the site.

 

We'll be talking internally over the next few days how to address this situation. I fully expect that we'll be taking a very hard stance towards those who choose to behave this way.

 

Elias

Obviously, the first thing that needs to happen is that their email address listed here needs to be set to unvalidated so that they are no longer sent any "spam" from geocaching.com.

 

Next I would disable all their active caches with a note explaining that the owner, by marking GC.com email as spam, is no longer able to properly take care of the listing.

 

Finally, I would allow their caches to be enabled but only after providing a valid email address.

[+Geo13]

I get everything from Groundspeak at my AOL email address; however the Pocket Queries come three days after I request them. On my alternate email address, I can get the Pocket Query almost instantly. What is wrong?

 

I never have anything from Groundspeak that shows up in my spam folder.

 

Geo13

Edited August 4, 2006 by Geo13

[Elias]

I get everything from Groundspeak at my AOL email address; however the Pocket Queries come three days after I request them. On my alternate email address, I can get the Pocket Query almost instantly. What is wrong?

AOL never stopped blocking us but the backlog did clear up a couple of days ago. But first thing Thursday morning, we sent out the weekly new cache notification emailer and the backlog is, well, back. Given the weekend email activity, I suspect it will take almost 4 days for the backlog to clear.

 

Elias

[+pghlooking]

USA Today shows the number as 888-265-8008

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/t...02-aol-qa_x.htm

You can now go to AOL and type in keyword CHANGE PLAN to make the change to a free account. You will be charged for any premium service of course. Beware of the fine print of a $5 monthly fee if you use a checking account for this payment.

[Hillbilly-Rockstar]

USA Today shows the number as 888-265-8008

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/t...02-aol-qa_x.htm

You can now go to AOL and type in keyword CHANGE PLAN to make the change to a free account. You will be charged for any premium service of course. Beware of the fine print of a $5 monthly fee if you use a checking account for this payment.

 

THANK YOU!

[+Shilo]

Somebody probably already said this but AOL just messed this up. Gmail has all the "spam" going to a spam folder. Then I have the option of whitelisting a sender by choosing "not spam" on the message. With AOL's implementation you never have any options because the blacklist they whole domain.

 

Hotmail has the same folder and options as well. Just named differently.

I haven't had any trouble with hotmail after the first gc.com mail and I had to add it to my 'list' to let through. I haven't missed a gc.com mail since

[bogleman]

AOL Update:

"snip"

 

We'll be talking internally over the next few days how to address this situation. I fully expect that we'll be taking a very hard stance towards those who choose to behave this way.

 

Elias

I'm not one to complain but too bad there is not a slap button I never really kept a close watch on this issue until the past few days and I can see why this would cause frustration on both ends.

 

waddles off to figure out gmail

[+Mudfrog]

waddles off to figure out gmail

 

I too am annoyed that i had to start another email account just to recieve my GC.com mail. Thanks to Jennifer and Dean (they sent me an invite), i ended up with a gmail account and so far it has worked out good. I set my GC.com mail to go to my gmail address. Then i set my gmail to automatically forward to my AOL address and to delete any mail in it's inbox. Seems to be working perfectly so far and i get to use my AOL email as if nothing has changed!

[hide & seekers]

I get everything from Groundspeak at my AOL email address; however the Pocket Queries come three days after I request them. On my alternate email address, I can get the Pocket Query almost instantly. What is wrong?

AOL never stopped blocking us but the backlog did clear up a couple of days ago. But first thing Thursday morning, we sent out the weekly new cache notification emailer and the backlog is, well, back. Given the weekend email activity, I suspect it will take almost 4 days for the backlog to clear.

 

Elias

 

Yep, AOL is still throttling or whatever it's called. I AM getting my emails, but at LEAST 24hrs late, usually more. By then, I've already discovered the finds on my own caches or TBs. I did get my weekly cache notification but I think I got it on Sunday and I usually get it on Friday (?). Anyway, problem is not gone, but better.

[+Markwell]

My problem is. I cancelled AOL all together

 

They had the unfortunate luck of asking me why. I gave them a piece of my mind on the way out.

[+emb021]

I've never used PQ before, but I've requested one mutiple times and have yet to receive any. I've requested them sent to both my gmail and yahoo email accounts. When I check the list of PQ, all say they never been generated. This is been going on for a couple of weeks.

 

I still get my weekly cache notification to my Yahoo email with no problem.

 

Why am I having this problem with PQs??? I've read thru the threads and I can't figure out what to do.

[+The Leprechauns]

I've never used PQ before, but I've requested one mutiple times and have yet to receive any. I've requested them sent to both my gmail and yahoo email accounts. When I check the list of PQ, all say they never been generated. This is been going on for a couple of weeks.

 

I still get my weekly cache notification to my Yahoo email with no problem.

 

Why am I having this problem with PQs??? I've read thru the threads and I can't figure out what to do.

If they've never generated, the most likely cause of the problem is failing to check a day of the week on which you would like the pocket query to "run." If they query runs but isn't delivered, then it's maybe an e-mail problem. If the query doesn't run, it's probably a query problem.

 

Assuming you've selected a day, have you previewed your query results online to make sure that caches are returned by the query?

Edited August 10, 2006 by The Leprechauns

[+Markwell]

The only time I've heard of this is when someone hasn't agreed to the Terms of Usage the first time.

 

Click on your profile, and go to the Premium Members stuff. Does it give you an option to agree with the TOU?

[+emb021]

I've never used PQ before, but I've requested one mutiple times and have yet to receive any. I've requested them sent to both my gmail and yahoo email accounts. When I check the list of PQ, all say they never been generated. This is been going on for a couple of weeks.

 

I still get my weekly cache notification to my Yahoo email with no problem.

 

Why am I having this problem with PQs??? I've read thru the threads and I can't figure out what to do.

If they've never generated, the most likely cause of the problem is failing to check a day of the week on which you would like the pocket query to "run." If they query runs but isn't delivered, then it's maybe an e-mail problem. If the query doesn't run, it's probably a query problem.

 

Assuming you've selected a day, have you previewed your query results online to make sure that caches are returned by the query?

 

As these are a 'run once' PQ, I didn't think a day of the week needed to be check (I assume that's only for repeated PQ).

 

A preview of the query results gives me all the GCs in question. (PQ is of one of my bookmarks, btw).

[+FamilyDNA]

 

As these are a 'run once' PQ, I didn't think a day of the week needed to be check (I assume that's only for repeated PQ).

Nope, you still need to check the day of the week, even for "run once" pqs.

[+SerenityNow]

I am having a problem with hotmail for the past 2 days. Occasionally a message from GC.com will come through but not often. I'm not getting any notifications from my watchlist, PQs, or e-mails from other cachers. My spam filters have not been changed and the mail is not going in my junk mail folder. Any suggestions?

[+Shilo]

I am having a problem with hotmail for the past 2 days. Occasionally a message from GC.com will come through but not often. I'm not getting any notifications from my watchlist, PQs, or e-mails from other cachers. My spam filters have not been changed and the mail is not going in my junk mail folder. Any suggestions?

I'm using hotmail and I am not having any trouble. I've received my normal amount of gc.com mails today.

[+SerenityNow]

Today I received absolutely NO mail from GC.com. Three of my caches were found and we went to an event that was on our watch list. We did not receive once single watchlist notification of the hundreds that were posted to that site for the temporary caches placed.

 

All other mail comes though our hotmail account just fine. Only GC.com is not coming through. We have NO filters set, the lowest security setting, and the mail is not going in my junk mail file. The problem is clearly on Groundspeak's end and needs to be fixed. I have used this hotmail account since 12/26/2002 and have never had any problem before. I do NOT want to switch my account to another service. Why the heck should I went it works fine for all other mail!!!

 

Groundspeak, Please HELP!

 

SerenityNow

Edited August 13, 2006 by SerenityNow

[Elias]

Today I received absolutely NO mail from GC.com. Three of my caches were found and we went to an event that was on our watch list. We did not receive once single watchlist notification of the hundreds that were posted to that site for the temporary caches placed.

 

All other mail comes though our hotmail account just fine. Only GC.com is not coming through. We have NO filters set, the lowest security setting, and the mail is not going in my junk mail file. The problem is clearly on Groundspeak's end and needs to be fixed. I have used this hotmail account since 12/26/2002 and have never had any problem before. I do NOT want to switch my account to another service. Why the heck should I went it works fine for all other mail!!!

 

Groundspeak, Please HELP!

WOW do we send you a lot of email! Whew!

 

Unfortunately, the bad news is that of the 668 emails we sent to you yesterday, every single one of them was successfully delivered to Hotmail. Every one. Sorry.

 

I'll send you a PM with the log entries showing delivery of your email. You'll have to contact Hotmail to figure this one out.

 

Elias

[+SerenityNow]

Well, after some careful digging I found the problem with the e-mail. Hotmail has changed it's format recently and somehow I managed to block my GC.com mail along with a yahoo group. It's working now but I have to say I'm sure glad that 668 e-mails from an event we attended yesterday DID get blocked by Hotmail! Geeeze! That's a ton of mail!! There were 57 temporary caches that folks were allowed to log on the event site and like a fool I left it on my watchlist when I left home for the event!

 

Thanks for your help Elias! It was very much appreciated even though it turned out to be on my end after all!

 

Today I received absolutely NO mail from GC.com. Three of my caches were found and we went to an event that was on our watch list. We did not receive once single watchlist notification of the hundreds that were posted to that site for the temporary caches placed.

 

All other mail comes though our hotmail account just fine. Only GC.com is not coming through. We have NO filters set, the lowest security setting, and the mail is not going in my junk mail file. The problem is clearly on Groundspeak's end and needs to be fixed. I have used this hotmail account since 12/26/2002 and have never had any problem before. I do NOT want to switch my account to another service. Why the heck should I went it works fine for all other mail!!!

 

Groundspeak, Please HELP!

WOW do we send you a lot of email! Whew!

 

Unfortunately, the bad news is that of the 668 emails we sent to you yesterday, every single one of them was successfully delivered to Hotmail. Every one. Sorry.

 

I'll send you a PM with the log entries showing delivery of your email. You'll have to contact Hotmail to figure this one out.

 

Elias

[bogleman]

AOL Update:

 

AOL is still throttling us, but the mail backlog has been reduced to an insignificant amount. The oldest message in queue is less than 1 hour old. It'll be interesting to see what happens on Thursday with the emailer.

 

AOL did finally set up our Feedback Loop yesterday, and I have to admit its rather insightful as to what people are marking as spam. Insightful is too nice, its actually rather appalling. People who have been members for some time are marking as spam every email they receive as a result of the multiple caches they've added to their watchlist. Even more disturbing is that roughly 25% of the complaints are cache owners marking log notifications (found, not found, etc...) to their own caches as spam. The top of the email reads, "You are receiving this email because you are the owner of this listing." What part of that isn't clear?

 

So somehow AOL has trained their customers into thinking that marking emails as spam magically makes things go away. This irresponsible behavior is even less appropriate when it comes from cache owners who have physical containers hidden in the real world. And I consider those who are too lazy to click on the remove link at the bottom of the watchlist emails to be engaging in a denial-of-service attack against the site.

 

We'll be talking internally over the next few days how to address this situation. I fully expect that we'll be taking a very hard stance towards those who choose to behave this way.

 

Elias

 

Things have been good for me since I switched email but if this continues to be a problem why not remove the ability to "watch" a listing and just use bookmarks set up for the PM's. I am assuming that many members who are inactive (or uninformed) have several listings being watched - not knowing (or wanting to know to update their watchlist) mark the mail as spam.

 

I personally have very few listings I watch and I have found the "public bookmark" feature that PM's use as a great asset to my caching needs and would feel that this would be a better long term solution.

 

I do not know how the system works but I would think that if you want to watch a listing save it to your bookmark list and if you find that you no longer want to maintain your PM status the bookmark feature is disabled.

[+Tprints]

Hehehehe. I was team-mates with Serenity Now at that event but unlike them, I was a fool and left the event on my watch list. I had over 1000 emails from GC through Hotmail when I got back home a couple days later. Yikes!

 

I've had major problems getting GC email from Adelphia so I switched to my Hotmail account for GC mail and all is well now. For some reason my Adelphia account was delaying GC email for days which really sucked.

 

Well, after some careful digging I found the problem with the e-mail. Hotmail has changed it's format recently and somehow I managed to block my GC.com mail along with a yahoo group. It's working now but I have to say I'm sure glad that 668 e-mails from an event we attended yesterday DID get blocked by Hotmail! Geeeze! That's a ton of mail!! There were 57 temporary caches that folks were allowed to log on the event site and like a fool I left it on my watchlist when I left home for the event!

 

Thanks for your help Elias! It was very much appreciated even though it turned out to be on my end after all!

[Elias]

The AOL issue has been resolved for now, so I'm going to close out this thread.

 

I would like to acknowledge and thank our German AOL users for their assistance in getting this resolved with AOL. I never did get to speak with someone on AOL's US Postmaster team that actually knew what was going on, but the German Postmaster team proactively contacted me in response to complaints by our German AOL users. They were extremely helpful and after just a couple of emails, they added us to AOL's main whitelist.

 

Elias