Email notifications for Messaging is not working

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: I came here to report this and can't believe it was reported over three years ago in another thread. I haven't gotten email notifications when messaged for about a year. I unchecked and re-checked the box in Settings > Notifications several times. Reset FamilySearch cookies, deleted browser temp files, tried different browsers, turned off my computer after the maintenance and go back and check the box again. I've experimented by having my kids and others send me a message many times and I never get an email notification. I know how to find the messages by clicking Messages, but I am concerned about others who don't know to do that. Some people get very angry when someone keeps messing up their tree and they message them multiple times and they think the person is ignoring them when in reality, the person probably never even saw the message!

FamilySearch's big thing is they want us to collaborate. I have reported this other ways, but have not been taken seriously. I don't think FamilySearch wants to prevent collaboration or worse, have us angry with each other. I know it's happening for others because I experiment by sending messages myself and I have been told by others that they don't get email notifications when someone messages them. I suspect it has something to do with settings on individual computers, because I know some DO get email notifications. I think it's really important that FamilySearch find out why so this problem can be fixed.

So if anybody else out there has noticed the same thing, please report it by hitting Reply at the end of this thread.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: This issue crops up periodically, but right now, the email messages are going out.

Once one message has been sent, another will not be sent until all existing messages have been read and cleared, so that there is no red dot (or number) next to Messages on your FamilySearch pages.

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: It shouldn't work like that. I don't want to clear out all of my messages. Sometimes I want to go back and look at communication I have had with someone. Or I want to see if I already messaged them. There are a lot of times I could email the person, but I decided a long time ago it's a lot easier to keep track of who I have messaged or who has messaged me if it's all right on the website under my messages. It says nothing about this in Settings. It just says check this box and you will get an email when someone messages you, so it's not right. And it hasn't worked for me and others for a long time. Did work, then didn't work. No periodically about it. I don't care for myself, because I know to check my messages often, but there are people who get very upset because someone keeps changing their tree and they would like to discuss it with them but the person never responds. I firmly believe most people are not going to deliberately ignore messages they receive. This explanation that until you delete all of your messages we aren't going to send you notifications of any more is unexceptable and totally ridiculous. If that's FS's plan they have a responsibility to put that information on the Notifications Settings page.

I'm going to try it again right now to see if it's working. I had 5 different people send me messages a week or two ago and I didn't get one email. I just deleted those 5 to see if the red dot would disappear. It did not.

Are you a FS engineer?

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: You don’t have to get rid of the messages, just set it up so they are read.

If the system was not set up the way it is, eventually the messages would be classified as spam and none would get through.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Hold on those. This appears to be a general problem. More than one person has posted to a thread about not receiving emails about FamilySearch messages.

I just checked my box for these messages and the last one I received was back in April...

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: Just to be clear -- I'm not saying I don't receive messages. I do. I just don't get an email telling me someone messaged me. My concern is most people, especially the kind that make many crazy mistakes in the tree, aren't going to know they have to click on Messages to see if somebody tried to contact them. If there is someone making a lot of mistakes and causing us a lot of cleanup work all the time and we try to message them and they don't reply, that is a serious problem. Many of them would reply if they knew someone messaged them. But to the sender of the message it looks like they are obnoxiously ignoring them and continuing to make mistakes just to annoy the message sender. That makes for a lot of angry tree users. So that is a serious problem that needs to be fixed.

LegacyUser

Paul said: I'm still receiving an email each time I get a new message in Family Tree. I don't know about what settings need to be adjusted in your account, but obviously there isn't an overall problem or none of us would be getting these emails.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Dale

Just did a check. I assume your Family Tree Settings / Notifications page looks like this. If you have the Messages From Other Users box checked and are still not receiving emails I believe you should ring Support.

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: Paul, thanks. I do know all that -- how to work settings. I wish I could tell all of you just how experienced I've been with the website for 7 years. I never post here until I have exhausted every other avenue with no results, so if I say I and some others who also do what I do aren't getting notifications even though everything is in place so they should, it's true. So because I know some who know what they are doing are not, it's logical to assume many others aren't. But I know some do, and I did say that in my other posts. There are some things that don't work correctly in Family Tree if you have certain programs like Ghostery, some anti-viruses or pop-up blockers, so they don't work for some people, but work fine for others, and that's why. So I'm thinking it might be something like that for this problem, too. Which would be why some get the notifications and others don't. But I use the website for many hours most days and everything else works fine for me, so I have no clue why some get notifications and others don't. It's frustrating to post something like this here and have everybody assume I don't know what I'm doing or talking about. All I can say is I do. I so appreciate your help, but I had to go UGH when I saw the screen shot of settings. I'm like everybody thinks I have no clue what I am doing.

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: Oh, and I've already contacted support.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Sorry if I have caused you further exasperation, but if YOU can't find the cause of the problem (which appears to relate to something on your hardware) I would have thought it would be just as difficult for another user (even an engineer) to suggest a solution.

I have been in a similar situation in the past (no one experiencing a particular problem except me) and realise how frustrating this must be for you. Hopefully, there will be someone else who can advise what might possibly be causing this to be experienced by either just you, or a very small amount of users.

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: Here is the support article for notifications. https://familysearch.org/ask/productS...

In the section about if you are not getting them it says nothing about the reason Tom said. And I do have two email addresses, but only one on my FS account. And my other account is an lds account that I am required to have and I'm not getting them their either. And I've checked my spam folders many times, but after a while anyone with any common sense will realize it isn't necessary to check it anymore. I've also checked my junk folders.

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: Paul, no problem. You at least entertain the notion that I might have a brain. ha ha. And it isn't just me. I know of others who have been spent more years working the website daily than I have who also have the same issue. And I know of others who are very experienced in the tree that have the same issue. Here is someone in my tree. Send me a message. Let's see if I get an email notification.

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/per...

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I don't think you will. I checked (and posted above) that I haven't received an email notification since April (22nd was the last one dated), and I keep my Message area notifications at zero.

This has happened in the past with not only the notifications, but also with the email of the latest changes to your watch list. The Watch List changes is still going out (i received one in the past couple of days), but not the notifications of new messages.

LegacyUser

JimGreene said: Thanks everyone for bringing this our attention, I apologize that it requires such persistence. I have forwarded this to the engineers. They informed me that they are working on it. Stay tuned.

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: Yay! That's great news! Thank you!

And Paul, I replied in messaging to your message I never received an email notification for several hours ago. You haven't acknowledged that in any way --either by replying in messages or letting me know here, so I'm thinking you probably didn't get an email notification either???

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: That article deals with selecting (or not) to receive email notifications.

What I have experienced is that if I haven't kept my message flags clear, I get the notification, but not for any subsequent messages, unless I first clear (all) the flags. The article does not address any of that.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Sorry for the delay in my reply, Dale. It's 10.00 am here in London and I've just logged back onto here, FS and my email. Surprisingly, yes - I DID receive an email notification of your message.

As Jim acknowledges the problem (above) it must be fairly widespread but, so far, I've been unaffected. Hope it's fixed for all asap.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Have just sent an acknowledgement of your internal message via FamilySearch Messaging.

LegacyUser

Dale Hein said: I didn't get an email notification for that one either.

LegacyUser

Paul said: After replying to Dale with a recent "test" message the red dot against Messages will not go away - still there today after a reboot and all cookies cleared. Have to keep checking in case I have actually received another message. Also, "Conversations" has a "1" against it - don't remember seeing that in the past.