email and subscriptions

[Mama Kass]

I'm feeling slightly retarded right now. Since April 21st I haven't been getting emails of the latest posts. I've tried private emailing John, but he doesn't seem to have gotten it. Our server had mistakenly taken us off-line for a couple of days (April 22-23), so the problem probably has to do with our server. It was suggested that I try unsubscribing and resubscribing to the list. I got an email notification that I couldn't do it because I wasn't on the list, which makes no sense because my profiles and settings are all here. I've tried re-entering my email address and password. Yesterday I started receiving emails from a thread to which I had replied because it said I had subscribed to that thread, but I didn't receive any other new posts. I used to receive all new posts and never "subscribed" to any of them. I'm wondering if this is happening to others because I've seen a number of new threads that nobody has responded to. Any suggestions?

[Shuffletown Embroidery]

Mama K., I may be in the same mode as you are because I have not been getting a whole lot of mail from the list.
As a suggestion, without knowing a whit about what the real solution is, go into settings, my account, general settings, and change the subscription and notifications setting to instantly, via email. (I hope I remembered that right.) Settings is in the red bar at the top of this page next to the login name, just to the right of "my Profile".
Like I said, I have no idea if this is the solution, or if you have already tried it. Let me know.
Mary

[Mama Kass]

Mama K., I may be in the same mode as you are because I have not been getting a whole lot of mail from the list.
As a suggestion, without knowing a whit about what the real solution is, go into settings, my account, general settings, and change the subscription and notifications setting to instantly, via email. (I hope I remembered that right.) Settings is in the red bar at the top of this page next to the login name, just to the right of "my Profile".
Like I said, I have no idea if this is the solution, or if you have already tried it. Let me know.
Mary

I have tried that, too. No luck. Thanks for answering though; hopefully someone knows a solution.

[John]

OK, I have seen this and will try to explain what I *THINK* it might be - but I'm really busy today. Hopefully will get back to this tonite. It takes more than a few minutes to type the history out and possible causes.

Unfortunately, real life has gotten in the way and I do this site on the side - will explain that too

[Mama Kass]

John, don't worry about it until it's not a hardship for you. It's not like I'm going to die if I don't get the emails. It's just good to know it will eventually be looked into.

[John]

OK, here is the long and short of things. Try to follow along because it may get complicated.

The boards mail and the list mail run from two different servers.

The boards - I run, the list - Freelists.org runs.

Here's what I think is now happening. You mentioned you seem to be getting replies to topics that *you* started here on the boards. That is the thread subscription function of the discussion boards software. That sends mail thru MY server.

The list mail that echo's everything that gets posted to the boards (how some of us stay informed what is going on and know to check in and help others) comes from Freelists.

So if you are getting the former, and not the latter - your email host is either blocking, blacklisting or sorting as spam the freelist.org mail.

To make matters worse, right around the time all this started, my email server got on one of the blacklists because we had a user account that was compromised and sending out a ton of spam. We corrected that issue, PAID to get off the list and things have been fine since then.

Add to that the fact that somehow the list email address on Freelists that is the master account for sending the board mail out got put into vacation mode - which sends NO MAIL.

So, it truly was a perfect storm of email problems.

At this point again - if you are getting replies to threads you subscribed to but not list mail - you should contact your email provider and ask them if they have blocked freelists.org or if there is a way for you to WHITELIST them so their mail doesn't get marked as spam.

That's about as best as I can explain it. Right now, I get all mail as I should and things seem to be working - but different ISP's do things different ways.

[Mama Kass]

Thank you so much, John. We'll contact our server. I wonder if this is why things have been so quiet on the list lately. This must have happened to others. If they are not subscribing to this thread others may not realize that they are not getting everything on the list.

[John]

Thank you so much, John. We'll contact our server. I wonder if this is why things have been so quiet on the list lately. This must have happened to others. If they are not subscribing to this thread others may not realize that they are not getting everything on the list.

Unfortunately, short of moving the list - not sure what else to do. Fact is most discussion boards are just that and don't include a mailing list that mails every post. People just check back in regularly

[John]

Unfortunately, short of moving the list - not sure what else to do. Fact is most discussion boards are just that and don't include a mailing list that mails every post. People just check back in regularly

Mama - checked today - and your email you gave me wasn't on the mailing list which would explain why you weren't getting emails.

Let me know if that fixes things.

Not sure how you would have gotten unsubscribed but who knows.

[MJ]

I'm still not receiving any emails from this forum and I don't understand what to do to receive them again!

[John]

MJ - PM Me the address you signed up to the list with - then I will check if it's there and in the right mode.