[sbukosky]

Due to the conspicuous absence of a topic on it, I'm thinking the problem might be on my end. However, I'll ask anyway. I've not had a Pocket Quiry since Friday. Might there be a problem?

[OB Jets]

sbukosky, on Dec 29 2003, 04:50 PM, said:

Due to the conspicuous absence of a topic on it, I'm thinking the problem might be on my end. However, I'll ask anyway. I've not had a Pocket Quiry since Friday. Might there be a problem?

Like they say at work " I got mine"


Objets

[Boundertom]

I have had queries scheduled for Sat, Sun, and Mon. Haven't received any of them.

[sbukosky]

In the course of sending someone an email though here, I got a message from http://security.rr.com and another from groundspeak saying that there was problem with the message. I happen to have Road Runner so I'm wondering if there is something there blocking anything from groundspeak? Anyone not getting their quiries have Road Runner by chance?

[Boundertom]

Yes, I am on Road Runner. I haven't gotten any error mesages though.

[nctreker]

I'm a RR user and haven't gotten any pocket queries, cc's of emails I've sent through geocaching.com, or notices of finds on my hidden caches since last Friday. I just noticed this a few moments ago when i received a reply from an email I'd sent to another cacher.

[Hemlock]

Road Runner has issues. I suggest emailing tech support and telling them that they are blocking legitimate email that you want to receive.

The mail server you want to receive email from is signal.groundspeak.com [63.251.163.165]

[sbukosky]

Hemlock, on Dec 29 2003, 07:25 PM, said:

Road Runner has issues. I suggest emailing tech support and telling them that they are blocking legitimate email that you want to receive.

Thanks, that's a good idea. Just for an experiment, I created a new quiry and used my hotmail address to see if one comes through.

[sbukosky]

I just contacted my local tech help and was told to contact spamblock@security.rr.com

[rickrich]

Here is the message I just sent...

To: removal@security.rr.com
Cc: spamblock@security.rr.com
Subject: Please remove the geocaching.com email block
User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i


Apparently you guys are now blocking email from geocaching.com.  This
began sometime on 12/26 or 12/27.  Before that time everything was
copascetic.

Specifically, these addresses appear to now be blocked...

Received: from signal.groundspeak.com (signal.groundspeak.com [63.251.163.165])
Received: from bender.groundspeak.com (bender.groundspeak.com [63.251.163.173])

Please remove these blocks immediately as I am unable to get my daily
report on current geocache locations.  Thus, I am not getting the
exercise I need and am growing fatter and lazier by the minute.

Thank you,

-Rick

--
Rick Richardson  rickr@mn.rr.com    http://home.mn.rr.com/richardsons/
Linux tools for geocaching          http://geo.rkkda.com

Microsoft applications are the heroin of the software industry.  Once
they have you hooked, the quality goes down, the total cost of
ownership (TCO) goes up, and its a long road to recovery.

[Jamie Z]

rickrich, on Dec 30 2003, 12:41 AM, said:

Here is the message I just sent...

Rick,

You're a goof. Love the profile image. That's great.

On topic: I don't have Road Runner, and I've gotten all my PQs.

Jamie

[bitbrain]

I've got the darned RoadRunner and had just fired off an e-mail to them regarding this issue before I read this thread. Darned RoadRunner... I still get the SPAM that they should be blocking. Ugh.

[bitbrain]

You don't suppose this means AOL/TimeWarner is launching their own AOCaching site, do you? They start by blocking access to PQs and then bit by bit they convert the masses to their way of doing things.

There will be AOCaching Buddy Lists. AOCaching Keywords. Bright flashy AOCaching home pages with links to -- to -- ummm...

Nevermind.

[theboonieman]

Yep! Looks like Road Runner is blocking legitimate e-mail addresses again. I just modified my GC profile so it would use my AT&T Worldnet e-mail address instead and now the pocket queries are starting to come in. I wonder what happens to all the bounced/rejected e-mail (i.e. private messages). Do they ever get resent?

The Boonie Man

[sbukosky]

I made a few connections through road runner tech support and the end result is that I was told to have Groundspeak clear this up with .rr.com because something on Groundspeak's end caused them to be placed in the spam filter. What? Too many quiries and cache notifications?

Groundspeak, here's the link: http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm

RR says that some legitimate email is unfortunately blocked. I don't think I like that policy. I'd rather use my own filtering and put up with some of the garbage than miss important messages. Geez, I'm glad we have our own server at work and not using business Road Runner!

[lowracer]

I have also been having my geocaching.com emails blocked since 26 Dec. I'm a roadrunner customer as well. And yes, legitimate spam is still getting through. I've got more Paris Hilton videos here than I can shake a stick at...

[nctreker]

From wading through the RR security website it does appear we subscribers to Road Runner have our hands tied as to determination of spam and who gets put on their list. Customer no-service is alive and well at Time-Warner, no surprise there. I hope groundspeak can get this resolved quickly.

It does look like what happens with the bounce backs is determined by the error message associated with them. Permanently blocked emails are discarded, while others may be tagged for resending. The resends would have to take place from groundspeak so I'm assuming their mailserver settings would determine that.

[Elias]

sbukosky, on Dec 30 2003, 06:53 AM, said:

I made a few connections through road runner tech support and the end result is that I was told to have Groundspeak clear this up with .rr.com because something on Groundspeak's end caused them to be placed in the spam filter.

I contacted them last week about this issue and received no response. I'll send another request.

Elias

[SBPhishy]

No Road Runner here, and i get mine.

[rickrich]

Elias, on Dec 30 2003, 12:08 PM, said:

I contacted them last week about this issue and received no response.  I'll send another request.

They probably bounced your email as well


-Rick

[Elias]

rickrich, on Dec 30 2003, 01:12 PM, said:

They probably bounced your email as well

Yeah, that would be funny. But no, they do make it through. The address given to address these issues isn't subject to the blocking of other RR.com mail, so it goes through. I also get an acknowledgement that the security department received the message too. Maybe they'll respond this time.

Elias

[Rusty O Junk]

I too have roadrunner and all my email from groundspeak has ceased. Just changed my email address on file with groundspeak and now the emails are starting again. Maybe we should all flood RR with complaints. How is it they block legitimate email we want and yet all the viagra, member enlargement, drug and smut emails still get through?

Sure hope groundspeak doesn't automatically start closing accounts because the email address on file bounces.

[rickrich]

Elias, which bounce message are you getting?

Any time Road Runner blocks an inbound piece of mail from a given entity, we
send back an error message, to let the blocked entity know why they are blocked.
The error message will be SIMILAR to the following:
  
550 5.7.1 Mail Refused - 0.0.0 - See
http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm#security
550 5.7.1 Mail Refused - 0.0.0.0 - See
http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm#proxy
550 5.7.1 Mail Refused - somedomain.com - See
http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm#subscription
550 5.7.1 Mail Refused - somedomain.com - See
http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm#spam_source
553 5.3.0 Mail from 0.0.0.0 rejected, see http://mail-abuse.org/rbl
553 5.3.0 Mail from 0.0.0.0 rejected, see http://mail-abuse.org/rss
553 5.3.0 Mail from 0.0.0.0 rejected, see http://mail-abuse.org/dul
553 5.3.0 Mail from 0.0.0.0 rejected, see http://mail-abuse.org/ops
553 5.3.0 Mail from 0.0.0.0 rejected, see http://spamhaus.org/sbl

If you're getting one of the messages above, then there is a *serious* problem
that your ISP needs to talk to us about.

It is *extremely* important that if *you* are receiving these types of messages
when trying to send to a Road Runner subscriber, that you IMMEDIATELY forward
the message to *YOUR ISP*. A good place to start is your ISP's abuse or security
department (abuse@yourisp.com or security@yourisp.com). They should contact us
directly via this address.

Please - don't contact us yourself unless you are the authorized contact for
your IP address (as determined by ARIN or another authoritative rwhois server).
Again - we must talk to your ISP about the problem, and they must let us know
that it's cleared up.

[sbukosky]

Elias, on Dec 30 2003, 12:08 PM, said:

I contacted them last week about this issue and received no response. I'll send another request.

Thanks for letting us know. I'll try to up the pressure on my end too.

[Elias]

rickrich, on Dec 30 2003, 03:22 PM, said:

Elias, which bounce message are you getting?

I get this one:

550 5.7.1 Mail Refused - 63.251.163 - See http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm#security - 20031217

Elias

[SwampRat311]

Can anyone (from Groundspeak or elsewhere) suggest what we should do to harrass RoadRunner into answering/correcting the problem? It would help if we can address it properly and as a group (and all at the same time would be good too!) From the above posts, it looks like there hasn't been much cooperation on the RR end and it looks like folks have tried several different ways to get them to answer. The easy way out is to change your e-mail adddress, but I shouldn't have to that for something I pay poodles of $$$ for! Thanks to the folks at Groundspeak for trying to correct the problem!

[Elias]

I certainly wouldn't harass the tech people at Road Runner; the tier-1 people probably won't understand what you're talking about anyway and none of them have the power to make the necessary change. I've also found with other ISPs that trying to talk to someone in the "Security" department is almost impossible, those folks are pretty well isolated and protected by the tech and customer service agents.

However, if any of you can politely talk yourself past the guards and get someone in the security department who seems willing to work with us to solve the issue, any contact info like a phone number, extension, email address or anything that I could use to talk with them directly would be really helpful. If you can get this info, send an email to admin at groundspeak dot com.

I'm convinced from reading Road Runner's info on their security pages that Groundspeak isn't the target of this block. RR is blocking every IP in the 63.251.163 subnet, of which I only have 32 of them. As I mentioned in my email to RR, our small block of IPs is properly subdelegated per their own Road Runner Security - Subdelegation page. This might be helpful info when taking to a Security person so they know they won't be wasting their time.

Elias

[SwampRat311]

Thanks for the quick reply, that is exactly what I wanted to know......not how to harrass them, just the proper questions to ask. Thanks again and here's hoping we get to the bottom of this soon!

[sbukosky]

I changed my send to account to my normal hotmail and still have not received one in two days. I wouldn't have be removed from a query list because of all the road runner bumps, would I?

This post has been edited by sbukosky: 01 January 2004 - 06:29 AM

[T-storm]

Well, I'm not on RoadRunner, and I noticed a week ago (when I suddenly got my regularly scheduled PQ file) that I had not gotten any others the whole week of December! I'd been too busy to notice until then. So I did get one 12/24, but I did NOT get one 12/31. I'd been receiving them smoothly for months prior to December. I also have not gotten 3 others that I scheduled for Mondays before Thanksgiving and would normally turn back off except that they never came anyway, so I forgot they were on! Very odd stuff...

[jeff35080]

I host my own domain and I'm not getting them either.... it's more than just a RR issue

[CraZy Cache]

I didn't get any of mine today either! I haven't gotten any PQs today that I was suppose to. I even recreated some this morning and didn't get them. I usually always get them as scheduled and when I create new ones, I get them within about 30 minutes. And I am not on RR....I have also noticed a lot of server errors. This was frustrating since we had 6 new caches come up in our area today. Had to do it the old fashion way and print out a bunch of sheets! We will see what tomorrow brings!

[jeff35080]

FWIW, I did finally get yesterday's PQs (Thurday's) about an hour ago on Friday.

[jeff35080]

Another FWIW, it's 11:55PM here on Friday night and I have yet to receive today's PQs.... this is very aggravating. I would greatly appreciate seeing a comment from Jeremy or Elias on this subject. After speaking with other users, I now that it's not just me having these problems. Since I host my own domain and email access, this problem can not be blamed on ISPs using spam-blocking software. I was really looking forward to getting todays PQs to have for the weekend

[Hemlock]

Due to the way PQs are queued, don't expect to get your PQ every day. Especially on Fridays.

To try to put it simply, the PQs that have not run for the longest time, run first.

PQs that are requested for once a week run first, followed by those set for twice a week, followed by those set for 3 times a week, etc. The daily ones run last. On Fridays that means the daily ones may not run at all because most weekly and bi-weekly ones are set for Friday.

So if you order your PQs once a week, like I do, you'll get it like clockwork. Mine comes in every Friday morning about 6am.

[jeff35080]

Quote

don't expect to get your PQ every day. Especially on Fridays

I never had a problem with them until around Christmas. We are given the option of getting them everyday. If we can't really get them everyday, then that option should be removed as it is misleading and deceptive. Granted the PQ page still says 'beta' but this 'beta' period has lasted quite some time now. It's Saturday morning and I still don't have Friday's. Is this a case much like the forum issue we experienced where we were told graphics were causing an issue with 'slowness' of the site, when in reality it was something else? I'm not trying to be negative, it just seems as if there is more to the story that we are being told. Anyways, I'm getting ready to go caching. Hopefully, when I get home this afternoon, I will have received Friday's PQ. Happy caching.

[sbukosky]

I'm puzzled too. I changed two of my searches to be sent to my hotmail account. I did get one yesterday, but it wasn't my most useful one. I created a whole new search last night and as is often the case, expected it to show this morning. It didn't.

What we are asking for is communication. Hey, if there is a problem, let us know. If it is puzzling and will take time to correct, let us know. It it is on some other end and they are not cooperating, let us know. As others have said, it doesn't appear to be only Road Runner.

I can also appreciate that these searches are resource consuming. However, I and many others would like them returned soon after we submit them. Often I'll have a business trip come up and I only have a short time to do a search so I can do some caching out of state in my free time. If the site needs more or better equipment to do this and more money is needed. I will pay more! Geocaching is my main hobby and source of excersize. Lord knows I've spend a ton of money on radios, motorcycles and flying. What's some more money so we get what we want here?

This post has been edited by sbukosky: 03 January 2004 - 06:43 AM

[Possum Posse]

We have also not received any updates. Will be contactiong RR immediately. Thanks for notifying everyone with this post.

[T-storm]

Hemlock, on Jan 2 2004, 11:43 PM, said:

Due to the way PQs are queued, don't expect to get your PQ every day. Especially on Fridays. To try to put it simply, the PQs that have not run for the longest time, run first. PQs that are requested for once a week run first, followed by those set for twice a week, followed by those set for 3 times a week, etc. The daily ones run last. So if you order your PQs once a week, like I do, you'll get it like clockwork. Mine comes in every Friday morning about 6am.

Interesting info, but isn't an across the board problem avoidance. My one regular query runs once a week on Wednesdays (at least it's supposed to). Of the last 5 Wednesdays I have received it once. The other weeks it didn't come at all, not even late. I did double check it, and it is still set up as it has been for months.

T-storm

[Jeremy]

Sorry for the delay folks. I was out of computer range the last week, and unfortunately my backup had the worst case of strep imaginable and was bedridden. This is a bad case of "perfect storm" which resulted in pocket queries having problems last week.

What it came down to was a particular query was locking out the other queries, so the PQ were running fine when you looked at it but one would time out and reset. So any new pocket queries after that particular query would go out fine but anything prior to the query would not. I unlocked that query and reset them to start running.

However, with the added traffic on the site (doubling our busiest week) the pocket queries were running slower than usual. I have been watching the machine running the queries and it is starting to catch up, but there are a lot of queries to catch up on (being a busy Friday). If you need a query immediately, please set a new one up to run today. It does seem to be humming along.

In the future if there is a problem, please escalate it to contact@geocaching.com. We do have someone monitoring that email address and will escalate it to me if it is something that needs immediate attention.

[Hemlock]

jeff35080, on Jan 3 2004, 06:23 AM, said:

It's Saturday morning and I still don't have Friday's.

Jeremy explained most of the issues, but I want to point out one other thing that caught my eye. Once Friday is over, if a PQ for that day hasn't run, it isn't going to. You'd have to go in and check the Saturday checkbox, too.

[jeff35080]

Quote

In the future if there is a problem, please escalate it to contact@geocaching.com

I started to send an email, but any time I have ever done that it has taken anywhere from days to weeks (over a month) to receive a real reply or fix of my problems. I have found that the GC.com Web Site forum is usually the quickest way to find an answer/fix.

Thanks Jeremy for communicating with us what happened. I, for one, can appreciate that sometimes 'it happens'.... it's a shame that 'it' happened over the holidays when many people had time off work. Happy caching.

[Team Flushingrouse]

O.K.

So, according to Jeremy the PQ's were, and maybe are, still running a bit behind/slow...

Does this have anything to do with RR rejecting any email from GC.com? Nothing I'm supposed to be getting, whether a PQ, or cache log notification/etc. gets through... Supposedly RR is calling it all spam.. And have taken the stance of "too bad" whenever anyone is able to get any kind of reply from them...

Is GC working on some kind of fix or way to show RR all is well with GC emails?

Just wondering...

Team Flushingrouse

[Fatboy Slim & Rainey Belle]

I am on road runner and can't get emails to my .rr.com account from within geocaching....pq's or mail from other members. I can change it to @yahoo.com and get both. I set up a dummy account, sent myself an email and got a kick-back message sending me here link for an explaination.

I sent the "This ain't spam" email a couple of times now to rr.com.

The info shown on some of the other threads here, and the content of that error link suggests perhaps Geocaching.com has a part to play here, and it's not just rr.com's fault.

I don't know.

Jeremy, would you clear this up please, and let us know?

Thanks

This post has been edited by Fatboy Slim & Rainey Belle: 04 January 2004 - 07:31 AM

[Fatboy Slim & Rainey Belle]

And here is the reply I got from road runner after sending several copies of Jeremy's request to lift the spam guard:

Dear Larraine,

We understand that some emails being sent to you are being blocked. The
reason could be one of many. The sending Internet Service Provider (ISP)
could have a customer that is sending out massive amounts of SPAM or the
customer could have a virus and is unknowingly sending out virus emails
to thousands of other people and flooding our network. To protect your
service and our network we are forced to block the ISP and their users
until that ISP takes appropriate action and contacts Road Runner
Security. We recommend that you inform that person to have their ISP
send an email to removal@security.rr.com
<mailto:removal@security.rr.com> and to visit
<http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm> for more information. We
apologize for the inconvenience, we hope to have this resolved as soon
as their ISP can contact us.

If you have any further questions or problems, please feel free to
E-mail us again or contact our Technical Support line for further
assistance. When replying to this address, please include this message
as well as all previous correspondence regarding this issue.

Thank you for choosing Road Runner and have a great day!
Road Runner Residential Agent, Mike #1970
Road Runner Technical Support Department.



In an ongoing effort to continue improving our quality of service, we
are conducting a customer survey. If you would like to participate,
please click on the following link:
http://help.rr.com/h...mailsurvey.html
Phone support: 512-531-2345

***********************************************************

Original Message Follows:
-------------------------

referer:

Category: E-mail

Firstname: Larraine

Lastname: Branch

Phone:

Email: garrickbranch@austin.rr.com

OS: Windows XP

OS_Other:

Browser: Internet Explorer 6.x

Browser_Other:

Email_Software: Outlook Express 6.x

Email_Other:

Question: Dear Customer care,

I am currently a member of Geocaching.com. As part of my membership I
receive a number of emails from them throughout the day.

Unfortunately recently I was not receiving my emails so I contacted
Geocaching.com. From their records their mail server
signal.groundspeak.com (IP 63.251.163.165) is being rejected from
sending
email to my email address. Apparently they are being included in a
larger
block of IP addresses that Road Runner is rejecting.

As a customer of your service, I respectfully request that you re-enable
the IP address above so I can continue to receive emails from this
service.

Thank you,

Larraine & Bryan

When will this be fixed?

[Boundertom]

I have received the EXACT same email from Road Runner as quoted above. Twice in fact. I will continue to bug RR, but it looks to me like GC is going to have to contact RR as well. It appears that there are quite a few of us on RR with this problem. I sure would like to be able to get my GC mail and queries again.

Thanks in advance, Jeremy and crew, for anything you can do to help get this resolved.

Boundertom

[Mopar]

Scroll up. Groundspeak has ALREADY contacted them. At least twice. And been ignored, it seems.

[Fatboy Slim & Rainey Belle]

I'm sure we will get results if those of us who are paying customers of both GC.com and RR.com continue to complain. And unfortunately that means complaining to both parties involved. I expect RR.com and GC.com to work on this daily until it's fixed.

[theboonieman]

I just saw a message (see http://forums.ground...showtopic=61665 ) about a user receiving a virus alert from their ISP (Yahoo) indicating that a pocket query file had a virus in it. More likely it's a false positive report, but I wonder if Road Runner is getting the same kind of report and has decided to take action by blocking all connections including e-mail from Geocaching.com.

It might be worth tracking down that pocket query. Who knows. There might be a cache listing out there that looks like a virus.

The Boonie Man

[Elias]

Just thought I'd recap on the Road Runner issue:

I've sent Road Runner two emails about this issue, the first on 12/18, the other on 12/30. Both of those resulted in an autoresponse message indicating that RR had received the emails. Other than that, I've received no communication from RR. I have received reports from a couple other local Geocaching organizations that they've had similar issues with RR and are also not receiving any response at all.

For those of you who have received responses from RR tech/customer support, please reply to those agents and let them know that the "ISPs" have contacted RR multiple times via the removal@security.rr.com email address but have received no responses. Politely asking them to ping the folks in the Security department to respond to their email might prompt some action.

I'll keep contacting RR roughly weekly for the next couple of weeks. But if they continue to ignore me, I'll have to let the issue go.

I'm sorry I don't have better news, but at this point, there's really nothing else I can do.

Elias