Activation emails aren't arriving - gmail

[ren87]

Basically as the title states, new users who are using gmail accounts aren't getting the activation key email in their inbox or spam folders from our forum. It has worked in the past, as many of our users use this email service, however it has stopped working in the past few weeks that we can tell.

Is there anything we can do? Telling folks to whitelist the email address so we can send out an email seems like an unnecessary step, considering it worked in the past.

Forum URL: tf-prime-rp.proboards.com/

[🎶Sossity🎶]

ren87
An admin will check our mail log to see whether or not emails are going out or are on gmail’s blocked list.
Business/office hours are: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm Pacific time (-8 GMT)
But, do check back before then as they occasionally make responses outside of those hours.

Meantime, try adding [e-mail] to your contacts / trusted addresses, and try resending. Also ask them to check their spam folders.

[Scott]

ren87 - I am not seeing any issue regarding activation emails being sent. The two new members that have registered with your forum this year have both been online and posted.

[ren87]

Hey Šcott!

The two newest members could register because we temporarily enabled direct registration to the site itself, so they could bypass the email activation entirely. We keep it disabled normally as we have an application process (it's a roleplay forum). We tried sending activation keys to these two users using the admin console but neither member received the email. Myself and another admin on the site tested it, and it didn't get sent to my gmail account either, but her hotmail account did get one (though it was in the spam folder).

[Michael]

Mar 31, 2023 13:25:33 GMT -8 ren87 said:

Hey Scott !

The two newest members could register because we temporarily enabled direct registration to the site itself, so they could bypass the email activation entirely. We keep it disabled normally as we have an application process (it's a roleplay forum). We tried sending activation keys to these two users using the admin console but neither member received the email. Myself and another admin on the site tested it, and it didn't get sent to my gmail account either, but her hotmail account did get one (though it was in the spam folder).

Hi,

If a new account is being created there is no way for you to "disable" email verification. This is not a process that is controlled by the forum.

If you are sending invite keys, that is an entirely different system and bears no relation to email verification.

Edit: I have done a fair amount of testing of the invite system and have not been able to replicate any issue with Gmail addresses or Hotmail addresses. Have the accounts in question marked emails from [e-mail] as spam in the past? This is about the only reason I can think of why the email would not be received if it was sent to the correct address.

[ren87]

Mar 31, 2023 13:40:57 GMT -8 Michael said:

Mar 31, 2023 13:25:33 GMT -8 ren87 said:

Hey Scott !

The two newest members could register because we temporarily enabled direct registration to the site itself, so they could bypass the email activation entirely. We keep it disabled normally as we have an application process (it's a roleplay forum). We tried sending activation keys to these two users using the admin console but neither member received the email. Myself and another admin on the site tested it, and it didn't get sent to my gmail account either, but her hotmail account did get one (though it was in the spam folder).

Hi,

If a new account is being created there is no way for you to "disable" email verification. This is not a process that is controlled by the forum.

If you are sending invite keys, that is an entirely different system and bears no relation to email verification.

Maybe I'm getting a little confused.

Normally in the past, when we wanted to invite someone to the board, we'd go into the admin console on the board under the Login & Registration tab, input an email and the user would get an activation key allowing them to join. In the past, this has worked without issue, and only recently has it stopped sending out keys to gmail accounts.

We have the 'Disable Registration' and 'Restrict Registration' options ticked to 'Yes' for the forum, and turned those off for the two users so they could bypass the need for an invite key, as they weren't getting the email with the code to join.

[ren87]

Just saw your edit, and no - speaking as someone who tested it myself, I haven't marked the emails from proboards as spam. I've got five characters on the board itself, as well as an Admin account, and never had any issues with getting emails from the site. Only recently has gmail stopped receiving the activation emails.

Edit: If it helps, I still get the 'There are new Threads' email once a week from the board, as well as updates if someone has replied to threads that I'm in, so I'm still getting SOME emails from the board, just not the activation key.

[Michael]

Mar 31, 2023 13:45:53 GMT -8 ren87 said:

Just saw your edit, and no - speaking as someone who tested it myself, I haven't marked the emails from proboards as spam. I've got five characters on the board itself, as well as an Admin account, and never had any issues with getting emails from the site. Only recently has gmail stopped receiving the activation emails.

Edit: If it helps, I still get the 'There are new Threads' email once a week from the board, as well as updates if someone has replied to threads that I'm in, so I'm still getting SOME emails from the board, just not the activation key.

Are you sure you're putting in the correct email addresses to send the invite key?

I tested this across several of my test forums and with numerous emails and received every invite key I sent out, all pretty much instantly. I'm not doubting your issue but I haven't been able to replicate this on my own at all.

[ren87]

Mar 31, 2023 14:28:10 GMT -8 Michael said:

Mar 31, 2023 13:45:53 GMT -8 ren87 said:

Just saw your edit, and no - speaking as someone who tested it myself, I haven't marked the emails from proboards as spam. I've got five characters on the board itself, as well as an Admin account, and never had any issues with getting emails from the site. Only recently has gmail stopped receiving the activation emails.

Edit: If it helps, I still get the 'There are new Threads' email once a week from the board, as well as updates if someone has replied to threads that I'm in, so I'm still getting SOME emails from the board, just not the activation key.

Are you sure you're putting in the correct email addresses to send the invite key?

I tested this across several of my test forums and with numerous emails and received every invite key I sent out, all pretty much instantly. I'm not doubting your issue but I haven't been able to replicate this on my own at all.

Absolutely positive  

Edit: Sent out a few more keys to test. One to myself again, one to the email where we have people send applications, and one to the admin with the hotmail account. She received it instantly in her spam folder, whereas none of the gmail accounts got the email at all.

Is there a way you can test it from our site somehow?

[Michael]

This issue appears to be exclusive to your forum for some reason.

Try changing your forum title and see if that makes any difference. Perhaps the title is being blocked by Gmail for some sort of spam reason?

[ren87]

Mar 31, 2023 15:07:10 GMT -8 Michael said:

This issue appears to be exclusive to your forum for some reason.

Try changing your forum title and see if that makes any difference. Perhaps the title is being blocked by Gmail for some sort of spam reason?

omg that actually worked!! Thank you so much. I guess something in gmail changed in recent weeks. The title before was 'Transformers Prime: RP' (And has been since 2011 or so!) and so I took out the : and got the activation email instantly. THANK YOU!! Myself and the other Admin have been scratching our heads over this for ages now. Aaah you're a life saver, thank you! <3

[Michael]

Mar 31, 2023 15:12:03 GMT -8 ren87 said:

Mar 31, 2023 15:07:10 GMT -8 Michael said:

This issue appears to be exclusive to your forum for some reason.

Try changing your forum title and see if that makes any difference. Perhaps the title is being blocked by Gmail for some sort of spam reason?

omg that actually worked!! Thank you so much. I guess something in gmail changed in recent weeks. The title before was 'Transformers Prime: RP' (And has been since 2011 or so!) and so I took out the : and got the activation email instantly. THANK YOU!! Myself and the other Admin have been scratching our heads over this for ages now. Aaah you're a life saver, thank you! <3

Glad that worked! It was honestly a bit of a stab in the dark. I'm guessing some sort of spam filter was catching the forum name specifically (or in this case, just the : part)!