Again, I'm thankful for the workaround that Jackal has posted (and re-posted) here -- as well as for the patience of any for whom the workaround doesn't work. We're still trying to fix the emails issue, and have tried on several occasions to sort it out as evidenced by the occasional flood of alert emails received by those who had previously not been receiving any; unfortunately that has so far been shortly followed by more radio silence.

With luck Dick and the tech crew can address this shortly and resolve it permanently.

Paul

I guess the thing that bugs those of us who know how computers work, is that computers do not run on luck. Luck has no factor in this. It's simply down to configuring your system correctly.

Email issues are notoriously difficult to resolve. Between IB and you, there are innumerable places where an email can be lost.

What we have been able to verify is that IB is sending out the email updates.

A small percentage of FTers are not getting their email subscription alerts. Unfortunately this only makes it more difficult to track down where, in the circuitous path between our email servers and your in-box, the emails are being lost. There's much more involved in this issue than configuring the FT email system correctly. It involves independently verifying that *your* system is configured correctly, plus that your provider is properly routing your FT mail -- and that's only 3 out of 1000 steps taken care of.

It's not ideal, but for the time being, I recommend MyFlyerTalk.

I just switched my email to my personal account. I'll let you know if things start working again.

Since I get thread updates at the office I know that FlyerTalk is not blocked by my company.

Good point, aleksir -- everyone should make sure that their email address is current, obviously, before reporting an issue.

Wait a minute! It is not a small percentage. It is 100% of FT'ers not receiving daily Forum updates. In fact we haven't had anybody here report that their forum updates are working now. Are you referring to something else? This has nothing to do with intermediate servers. We are getting thread updates just fine so there is no problem with any other server other than flyertalk.com.

Just to be clear, this is not affecting all FTers. We have evidence only of those who have lodged the issue here in this thread or via a "contact us" form.

Also, this has not been happening for a year. This is a recurrence of an older issue, and it's been going on since mid-July.

Some FTers are getting Forum updates, and most are getting thread updates. It's both sporadic in scope and intermittent in timing.

@:-) My email accounts are all Gmail-based (some Gmail, some Google Apps--currently using a Google Apps one), and I am getting thread updates but not getting forum updates.

Really? Can ANY Flyertalker report here that they are regularly receiving Forum updates? Anyone?

There seems to be an issue with emails of new PMs. I am missing 1 and craz also did not get one. This has been over the last 24hrs.

Just so you know, it could be an intermediate issue. You have application level configuration (the boards themselves, flyertalk2.internetbrands.com is just one server from a previous email), possibly an intermediate layer of a distributed sender agent type machines to perform the mail merge (reading the headers I can't see this, but it's possible that outbound header re-writing is taking place), then the outbound mail relays on the IB side (mx5.internetbrands.com being a recent example, which uses Postfix). Not to mention the inbound mail relays to manage bounces and feedback loop complaints (they appear to be using Google based on the MX settings for flyertalk.com).

Then you have the intermediate hops, whether it be via one of the internet backbone providers like ATT or L3 or something smaller, and then you have the infrastructure at your receiving mail host. Yahoo is notorious for not receiving all email, and other mail relays have filters that can be content or reputation based.

It's also possible that the outbound mail relays on the FT side have poor deliverability due to bounce or complaint management. The former can occur when your own mail relay rejects messages too often with not enough information (I know my GoDaddy secureserver.net domain is a culprit for this).

So with all of that said, you're incorrect about this definitely being an FT issue - you can't say that with certainty unless you have access to the application and postfix logs as well as deliverability monitoring for the Internet Brands IP block - which I am guessing you have none of those.

Sorry to pop your bubble - email isn't as simple as many think. Even so many years later, the RFCs for the area are only loosely followed and there are many areas that lack industry standardization.

With that said, I'm still receiving emails.

As a data point, I am getting email notifications of PMs successfully and have noticed no interruption of that.

There is no intermediate issue. All those servers are under a single administrative management domain. It is up to IB to sort that out. And I am pretty sure that is where the problem is. You are right that the mx records point to Google, but as IB is contracting with Google for this, IB is the one that needs to sort out the problem or switch away from Google. If indeed that is where the problem is.

Not sure if you are familiar with how the Internet works, but backbone providers like L3 do not rewrite mail headers in the core of their networks. Plus it is pretty obvious if you read this thread that the problem has nothing to do with things outside of IB. Please go back and read the posts regarding forum updates.

Right back at you with the bubble popping. Actually mail is pretty simple if you know how it works.

Can you confirm you are receiving Flyertalk forum updates? That would really be news. Otherwise, that's not what the problem is.

You're "pretty sure"... well that helps us.

Any mail relay server can be configured to rewrite mail headers and I have seen it happen in practice.

Email should be pretty simple, we agree on that. Once you start to have multiple services to properly manage load distribution and delivery, problems can and will pop up. I've seen this multiple times over the past 7 years in my role as a technical email architect.

I have no info on where the problem actually exists, but you should know it's not as simple as just looking in one config file and tweaking one number. That was the tone of the messages I was responding to, and I wanted to dispel that thought.

I've never used forum updates (daily? not very useful for me...) - just signed up for one to see if it worked. Will report back.

What I'm reading here suggests that somewhere in the middle, email might get lost/stuck, etc.

So, I've changed from a Google Apps domain email address to an iCloud Apple address. Completely different routing. The email to confirm my change of address came instantly.

My thread updates tend to come regularly (not perfect, but acceptable). My FORUM updates have been dead for months. I'll report back tomorrow if my forum updates arrive or not.