[The A-Team]

There's a definite problem with notifications. In some cases, not following any noticeable pattern, notification (and owner) emails simply don't get generated. I suspect it hasn't been mentioned in detail before because since the email doesn't get sent, there's no way for the intended recipient to know there was supposed to be an email in the first place. Here are some examples I've encountered:

January 25, 2011 - 3 new caches were published, but no "Publish" notification emails were sent out. I never received any emails, and after talking to other local cachers, they didn't receive them either. The publish logs in question are GL4ZVMAX, GL4ZVMAB, and GC2MX7N. I was able to get FTF on all 3, but only because I had a recurring PQ that captured them the morning they were published.

February 7, 2012 - Another cache was published without any emails being sent (GL7CTN2H is the publish log). I again confirmed with others that they didn't receive an email.

April 5, 2012 - A cacher logged a find on one of my caches (GL7TR49P is the find log). No email. The only reason I realized they had logged was because it's an Earthcache and they had emailed me their answers. I was wondering why it was taking them so long to log their find, so I checked the website and discovered they had indeed logged already.

As I mentioned in the post title, it is absolutely not a spam filter problem. I checked each time just to make sure, but in the case of the new caches listed above, NO ONE received emails, regardless of email provider. They simply were not sent.

If anyone wants more examples, I fully believe I could find many if I match up the emails I have on file to the logs on the site. I seem to remember a few of these occurences a few years ago, and I could probably find them again if needed.

Most of the time, not receiving an email is simply an inconvenience, or even less. However, if the email that didn't get sent was a NM, NA, or Reviewer Note, it could result in badly-needed maintenance being missed, or the archival of a cache. Unfortunately, this problem seems to be very intermittent, which are the hardest type of problem to troubleshoot. Still, it is a problem that needs to be investigated.

[psykokiwi]

I'm not getting notifications to my phone. Most of my friends have a different carrier, and they seem to be getting theirs, but my tmobile isn't. I went in and added a 1 to the front of my number thinking that might help...nope. Went in and updated my notifications themselves...nope. At first this seemed like it fixed it, but it only lasted a day. Not sure what to do...its frustrating to say the least. I miss the FTF parties.

[The A-Team]

psykokiwi, on 28 April 2012 - 07:26 AM, said:

I'm not getting notifications to my phone. Most of my friends have a different carrier, and they seem to be getting theirs, but my tmobile isn't. I went in and added a 1 to the front of my number thinking that might help...nope. Went in and updated my notifications themselves...nope. At first this seemed like it fixed it, but it only lasted a day. Not sure what to do...its frustrating to say the least. I miss the FTF parties.

According to this list, the address should be "number@tmomail.net (MMS or SMS) --number can and by default properly begins with "1" (the US country code)". Also, if you want to test to see if you've got the right address, just try sending an email to it.
Anyway, that isn't what this topic is about. This topic addresses the issue of people correctly receiving notification emails, but some emails never being generated in the first place by the site.

[hirtle]

I noticed tonight that I'm not receiving email notifications. A couple came in for new caches, then that was it. But when I look at the map there are there are others which are published but no notification came in. They are definitely within my radius. The emails are not in my SPAM folder; log notifications of my own caches are working. Anyone else have a similar situation? I checked with a caching buddy, he too did not get the publish notifications.

[Monk-E Arms]

I just received one tonight (only one new in my notify area)

[GWRoss]

I am set up for notifications of any new caches within 50 miles of my home (25 miles for traditional caches.) I noticed a week or so ago that it seemed like there were very few caches being published.

Within the last week, there have been 39 traditional caches published within 25 miles, and 7 other than event caches within 50 miles. I KNOW that I haven't received 46 notification e-mails!

[Keystone]

I merged two threads reporting the same issue.

[The A-Team]

hirtle, on 30 April 2012 - 03:48 PM, said:

I noticed tonight that I'm not receiving email notifications.
...
I checked with a caching buddy, he too did not get the publish notifications.

It seems that sometimes the emails are never generated by the servers at all. Can you post a list of GC codes that you didn't receive notifications for, so TPTB can investigate this problem? I suspect this problem is far more widespread than anyone realizes.

[YankeeDude]

Yes, it seems that this IS widespread because we are experiencing the same thing here in Sweden.

For me I my instant notification was working and I received email until I disabled my notification, because I knew I wouldn't be able to run out and FTF anyhow. That was like in November. In March or so I Enabled the same Notification, but nada. I even tried changing my email address.

I've tried both my own domain address AND my gmail address direct, same result: no notification.

As a premium member I'm pretty perturbed! #-|

Please look into this and fix it Groundspeak!

[GWRoss]

The A-Team, on 30 April 2012 - 08:45 PM, said:

Can you post a list of GC codes that you didn't receive notifications for, so TPTB can investigate this problem?

These caches published within the last day with no notification received.
Or Priscilla
GI Blues
Jailhouse Rock
Blue Hawaii
Elvis or Jerry ?
Never even liked Elvis!
Hound Dog
Viva Las Vegas

[YankeeDude]

I can also say that I receive other automated messages from Geocaching like "Watchlist" from "noreply@geocaching.com"
There are no notifications in my spam box either.

[The A-Team]

Just to add some clarification, this discussion is about cachers who are receiving notifications, but don't receive some notifications they are expecting to receive. For example, I do receive many "Publish" notification emails, but there are some "Publish" notifications that I (and others) didn't receive. I receive many "Found it" log emails for caches I own, but there have been some that I never received an email for. If anyone is having a problem where they are not receiving any notification emails of any type, or aren't receiving any under a specific notification rule, that isn't what this bug report is about, and I recommend you double-check your settings or start a new topic. I'd like to keep this specific problem in its own thread, not mixed together with other unrelated problems, so TPTB can more easily see that there IS a problem.
Thanks

[GWRoss]

I think I figured out MY problem: My e-mail registered on geocaching.com contained an uppercase letter, and either Yahoo mail stopped stopped ignoring case, or Groundspeak stopped lowercasing e-mail addresses.

[JesandTodd]

My notifications are hit and miss, usually I find this out when the GS newsletter comes out via email...

[The A-Team]

Another cache near me has been published without notification: GC3JJPH. It's clear by reading the logs that others didn't receive any notification emails for it either.

[The A-Team]

I went through and matched up emails I received to logs logged on the website for my owned caches, and here are the ones I never received:
GL3ER9R0 - Mar 7, 2010
GL7C861F - Feb 4, 2012
GL7CBY4B - Feb 4, 2012
GL7CGGFV - Feb 4, 2012
GL7TRGKQ - Apr 5, 2012

There were also 4 others in May 2010, but I can't say for certain that those weren't due to email management on my end, so I'm not listing them here. However, I'm 100% positive I never received the above 5 log notification emails.

[YankeeDude]

It would seem as if I'm now getting replies. Not sure if this had something to do with my Gmail filter or not?! Anyone else who is NOT receiving notifications, that is 1) using Gmail plus 2) filter messages?

[BuffaloPennies]

YankeeDude, on 07 June 2012 - 11:51 AM, said:

It would seem as if I'm now getting replies. Not sure if this had something to do with my Gmail filter or not?! Anyone else who is NOT receiving notifications, that is 1) using Gmail plus 2) filter messages?

I've noticed that I am no longer receiving 'any' email from Geocaching.com. I was receiving daily emails for varieties of items, published caches, notifications to me about my hides from seekers, built queries, etc. As of this Monday - all stopped. I've had no changes in my system or setup. I've double checked all rules (Outlook), spam folder, etc.

Thought I'd check here before trying to contact someone there directly.

BuffaloPennies

[java.lang]

Just noticed this problem too. It seems to have happened yesterday or today.

Me and the user "2_chemists" own 3 caches here in my area (I own one, the chemists own the other two). We have each others' caches on our watchlist.

The caches in question are:
http://coord.info/GC2RKGP
http://coord.info/GC2V0F8
http://coord.info/GC31DJA

Neither of us did receive a mail notifying us of the logs for user "moses_was_here" from 2012-06-26.
We neither received mails for the caches we own, nor for the caches we have on our watchlist.

Just to make this clear: I receive notification emails from Groundspeak - so does "2_chemists". Maybe we didn't receive all of them in the past - who checks all the logs for all the caches each day. I just discovered these new logs by accident right now...

[Max and 99]

I had issues receiving notifications about a week ago (could be more recent, but I haven't checked).

[The A-Team]

java.lang, on 27 June 2012 - 05:04 AM, said:

Just to make this clear: I receive notification emails from Groundspeak - so does "2_chemists". Maybe we didn't receive all of them in the past - who checks all the logs for all the caches each day. I just discovered these new logs by accident right now...

Thanks for reporting this.

To reiterate, the issue being discussed here is that users ARE receiving notification emails from Groundspeak, but occasionally don't get some emails they'd expect to be receiving. If you aren't receiving ANY emails from Groundspeak, that's a different issue and I'd appreciate it if you posted in a separate thread. I don't think TPTB realize there even is a problem, and it makes it even harder to convince them it's happening when multiple issues get muddled together in this thread.
Thank you.

[pri0n]

Same here: as of a few days ago some notification emails don't make it to my Gmail account which is pretty annoying (however some get through) - and apparently it is a common problem according to both numerous logs in recently published caches near my home zone and other geocaching discussion forums I am a member of.

This post has been edited by pri0n: 30 June 2012 - 03:26 AM

[The A-Team]

pri0n, on 30 June 2012 - 03:25 AM, said:

...apparently it is a common problem according to both numerous logs in recently published caches near my home zone and other geocaching discussion forums I am a member of.

Do you have some GC codes of caches where you or others have seen the problem? Were there caches published where no one received a "Published" notification email?

[wsbucker]

It has happened to me, as well. I just double checked my settings and the notification seems to be set properly. I use gmail as well. I can't find any blocked emails in the trash or spam box, so I dont know for sure what happened. GC3CH4Z was one that was published yesterday, but I didnt get a notification.

[The A-Team]

wsbucker, on 03 July 2012 - 12:59 PM, said:

It has happened to me, as well. I just double checked my settings and the notification seems to be set properly. I use gmail as well. I can't find any blocked emails in the trash or spam box, so I dont know for sure what happened. GC3CH4Z was one that was published yesterday, but I didnt get a notification.

Thanks for reporting, but it sounds like that one is due to a problem on your end somewhere. One of the FTFs said in their log "Sittin at home when my phone went off", so it sounds like the email did get sent.

[FamVanO]

It is strange, we are having a similar problem. We got the notification that one of our caches was found, but when we recieved the weekly newsletter, we saw some new caches in the area. Unfortunately we are not getting any published caches notifications. We were for a while, but now they have stopped. I checked our account settings, and it is setup to notify me of any within a 25 mile radius, but we aren't getting them. I can't figure out why not. Below are a couple of codes that we missed getting notified of.

GC3PDJQ
GC3PQFC
GC3PQEH

This post has been edited by FamVanO: 08 July 2012 - 01:00 PM

[toba78]

Hello!

Someone I know wanted to register but did not get the validation E-Mail. He try gmx.de yahoo.com and other mail providers.
Tested to get a mail from a friend and that also did not work.

Are there Problems with Mailing at the moment?

Thank you
toba78

[java.lang]

It just happened again:

2 (3) different situations, where I didn't get mail, even though I normally do. All the missing mails would have to be sent today (I guess), so maybe they are still in some queue, but since I got at least one of them I don't think so.

Situation 1:
http://coord.info/GC3QYH4 - A new cache in my area. It is on my watchlist, I logged a "Found it" and never got the email.
http://coord.info/GC3QYHG - A new cache in my area. It is on my watchlist, I logged a "Didn't find it" and a "Needs Maintenance" and never got the emails.
Both caches from the same owner published on the same date.

Situation 2:
http://coord.info/GC3RBFW
http://coord.info/GC3RBF2
http://coord.info/GC3RBEK
I just got the publish notification for the last cache. Just discovered the other two when I was looking at the map.
All three caches of the same owner, published today.

(Situation 3:)
http://coord.info/GC3H7ZV
The latest log (User "Lytsboekemon" from 2012-07-29) - never received a mail for this log, even though the cache is on my watchlist, and I received two mails for the previous logs of the same user (no idea why they logged it three times though)

[Edit]
Just received the DNF-log email for http://coord.info/GC3QYHG. Still missing the NM-log mail
[/Edit]

This post has been edited by java.lang: 29 July 2012 - 07:43 AM

[FredPhil96]

Three new caches were published in my area today. No notification. Groundspeak please fix this!

[MannyMamut]

I have the same Problem. I don't get every Notification.
People i know are getting some of the notifications that i didn't recieve.

Is Groundspeak actually working at this problem?

[FelixII]

Same problem here in Australia too.

I had a new cache published local time of 4pm. As the owner I got the published notification at 5.28pm and then the new listing notification at 6.34pm

then again at 12.15am.

Also have only received about 1/2 of my email logs on my caches logged today.

My new cache was found by 2 people who both logged it over 6 hours ago but I havent received the email notification of that yet at all!

This post has been edited by FelixII: 29 July 2012 - 09:43 AM

[Dgwphotos]

I'm not sure if it's connected, but I have not received any of my pocket queries for the day. They've been generated, but have not shown up in my email.

[Alumin87]

My friend has the exact same problem, i have no solution to it though. Maybe geocaching.com needs to restart the mailserver or something. Lets hope it gets fixed soon, noone can register without validation their email.
/Alumin87

[DanPan]

Same issue here, no LOG owner emails.

[Balswick]

I've tried to create a new account at Geocaching.com, using several e-mail accounts, and we do not receive any e-mails to verify our new account. The problem must be the site geocaching.com, which do not send any verification e-mails.

[fc113]

Hello,

I receive not e-mails as people my cache find.
Can anybody help me?


Regards,

Fc113

[MaxB on the River]

We received only 10 watchlist email notifications for travel bugs from 10:25 am (EST) until not 6:00 pm (EST). We normally recieve 300 or more during that time period. Sounds like others haven't been getting them or other emails either. In the past, email servers needed to be rebooted to solve the problem. Hope all emails are not lost in cyberspace.
Thanks for checking this problem out. MaxB on the River

[The A-Team]

Well, I think this topic is a lost cause. The last 7 posts (as well as a dozen others throughout) have absolutely nothing to do with the originally discussed problem. The issue has now been thoroughly buried so I doubt TPTB will ever fully understand there's a problem, and therefore it won't get fixed. Sigh.

Since we're now talking about the current email server failure, I'll add that I haven't received any Groundspeak emails today, even though there have 2 finds on my caches. Also, last night when I was activating some trackables and moving them to my collection, the emails were all delayed by over an hour and came in out of order.

[Beach_hut]

I've noticed emails not coming in for a variety of scenarios today:

http://coord.info/GC3QZNN a cache I own, FTFed and logged approx 5 hours ago, I've not seen the owner email yet.

http://coord.info/GC3R98H
http://coord.info/GC3R9RN
http://coord.info/GC2XHM7

All published at some stage today and I've not seen the notification yet.

And lastly, I submitted a cache this morning (I will naturally withhold the GC code on the forum as it's pending review!), and the emails notifying that I posted reviewer notes and that I submitted a cache never arrived, and that was at least 12 hours ago now.

[DougDawn]

Apparently two of my new caches were found by seekers by looking at the map. I have yet to even receive notification that they were published. Also not receiving notification of anyone else's new caches or found reports for my caches.
Is the system falling apart or what?

[Redfist]

fc113, on 29 July 2012 - 01:32 PM, said:

Hello,

I receive not e-mails as people my cache find.
Can anybody help me?


Regards,

Fc113

Same here. I'm also not getting a copy email when I contact another cacher. I don't know if my message reached him or not.

[pmolan]

No emails with a copy of an email contacting another cacher..
No emails of anyone logging any of my caches today..

After seeing others have the same problem, I'm relieved that it's not on my end.

[loupdevou]

I have an email address ONLY for notifications. No filters, no forwards, used to receive all the notifications for publications as soon as they where published. I have not received any for over a month!!! I figured people where on vacation and not publishing.

On FB a buddy of mine announced 6 published caches and nobody among my circle of geocachers got any notifications.

The caches are: GC3R1JT, GC3R1JV, GC3R1JW, GC3R1JX, GC3R1JY, GC3R1JZ.

There obviously is a notification issue at Groundspeak. They can claim we are fools and don't know how to verify Spam filters, or fowards or that the the problem is too widespread that we simply ignore it because they don't know how to debug, but THERE IS A PROBLEM. It is obvious that MANY members have the issue of not receiving Publication Notifications. Instead of putting their head in the ground like an osterich, they should look at their email logs, pull a query on emails that should have been notified (based on the multiple examples given in this thread) and compare with their email server logs. This is Programming 101 here!!!!

Do we need to talk about Business 101? Like the primary source or revenue for Groundspeak is membership fees? And what happens if you are unable to deliver a promised service? People start asking why they would want to spend $30USD on a service that has become flaky.

So what does it take for GS to step up to their engagement of service? Denying that there is a bug because some people got a notification is a lame excuse. And blaming the end-user that we have spam filters and don't know how they work is even lamer. Maybe, just maybe, out of all the people who made the effort to notify you on your forum of a notification bug, there *might* be an issue on Groundspeak side? Before brushing us off, why not confirm that for each notification that people did not receive, you do your homework, look at your SMTP logs, compare with the list of users that should have received the email notifications. Get some facts to prove that X number of users where notified successfully at Y time, on Z date. You just might realize that you do in fact have a bug and could even fix it!!!!

Whether it be your mail server, your notification list email generator, your cache publishing workflow, your ISP, your event scheduler, etc. you need to be above of your operations. You need to be able to confirm and prove that every event was sent correctly. You need to be able to identify which events where rejected or not successfully completed. If you're not there yet, then stop charging people and stay in the "amateur run-by-donations" playing field. Otherwise, act like a reputable company and honor your service commitments.

[ruffsranger]

Not receiving PQ's.
Anyone know what is happening?

[BNMac]

Confirming - we had two caches published today - commonly, we get an email stating it's been submitted, an email saying it was reviewed, and an email stating it was published.
Today, we got one email stating the first was published, then nothing more. I sent a message to the first to find on the first cache, never got the copy, which we typically do.

My thought was the same - if they want $30 per year, they best start acting like a professional company. I almost didn't renew recently due to the intermittent problems and occasional poor performance of the Geocaching website.

[GrandpaKim]

I received 1 pocket query out of 5 and my wife also only received 1 pocket query out of 5. I've tried to set up another email account and I haven't received the validation email, even though I've requested it several times.

[noregrets27]

im having the same issue as most. im not receiving emails about my caches that are being found. i happen to swing by one to check on it and noticed it had been found today and checked it when i got home and noticed a new log had been published with no email sent to me about it or my other cache that had been found today. i do get some emails about watchlists i have but thats hit or miss also. i have checked the spam folder and also set up a filter. i dont know if theres been any new caches posted that ive missed out on.

[Rapaladude]

Same thing going on with me. I pay to play this game, which irritates me because I could be missing out on FTF's which was my biggest reason for getting a premium membership. I havent recieved a single email from the geocaching website since 4:30 this morning. I hope it gets fixed soon.

[MAntunes]

Just a confirmation that the problem still remains.

No mails from mail system, even for a disable cache log I made.

[The Blorenges]

Info