Not receiving text notifications.

[Prana electric]

Is there an outage? 
I haven’t been receiving my text notifications all weekend. 
 

I checked all the settings on my Polisy and tried a test but no response…

[mjrush]

I'm having the same problem.  Test email using the default server is not working on my ISY994 or IoP.  I don't know when this started, we were away for a couple of weeks.

[MrBill]

if you are using the default server for email notifications you might want to shoot an email to support@universal-devices.com 

I'm sure @Michel Kohanim will see this thread eventually but it may add more hours until he does...

[Geddy]

8 hours ago, Prana electric said:

text notifications

@Prana electricand @mjrush, What mobile provider are you on? 

As @MrBill asked if you're using the default mail server?

What Firmware are you on?

It's been covered here many times that the texting process is unreliable. Mostly because of cell providers blocking mail to text or making them very low priority that they come in hours (or days) later or might not arrive at all (as you're describing). 

If you're using UD Mobile I would suggest you look up how to setup alerts using network resources. 

Read how to set them up here: https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=UD_Mobile#Notifications_Tab

Also, if you're not using the default email option you might want to check the settings for the server you are using. If you're using Gmail there is also a thread on here about setting up the additional security options. 

There are several options available to move away from the "old" way of pushing an email to text alert that are more reliable. Yes, it takes a little effort to set them up, but doesn't reliability outweigh the setup? 

 

[mjrush]

I'm using 5.4.4 on Polisy and the default email server. I'm just sending email to my email account at mjrush.com.  This has been working ok in the past. I also have an email account at cox.net. I tried using the test button on both accounts.  Yesterday, neither account seemed to be working.  Today the cox.net account has worked several times but nothing to the other account.

[MrBill]

6 minutes ago, mjrush said:

I tried using the test button on both accounts.

Sending from the default mail server to a comcast email account the 'test' email will filter to spam.  check the spam folder, and  a because of this a better way to test is right click a program name that send a notification and choose Run Then.

[mjrush]

I checked the spam folders. I originally tried running the then but when that didn't work I tried test button.

[Geddy]

6 hours ago, mjrush said:

I'm having the same problem.

@mjrush, honestly...you DON'T have the same problem. So now we're troubleshooting your problem in a thread that OP (@Prana electric) stated they weren't getting TEXT MESSAGS. Next time, please start your own thread.

It's quite possible that your host might be blocking messages coming from the UDI Default email server. Depending upon how many messages you might have been sending if they never change some servers can consider that bot attack or spam of some sort and block it for a period of time.

I just tested the default mail server going to gmail and it worked exactly as expected sending 5 test message.

Side note: The messages pass normal spam/spoofing (SPF and DMARC) filters so that's a bonus, and a little surprising the Comcast puts them into spam. 

The easiest solution would be to suggest setting up an ISY only Gmail account. Following the Wiki setup steps and testing from that way. This way it does two things...it gets the burden off the UDI servers for sending timely alerts. But also assures that you've setup and received messages as expected. If once you're using a different sending server you still have issues then you need to check your receiving server for bounced/delayed/undeliverable messages. If you have your own domain for receiving the alerts are you hosting the mail server or is your webhost handling the mail server? It's possible they've blacklisted UDI's server for some reason. 

[mjrush]

Sorry, I didn't mean hijack the thread.  I thought maybe this was a mail server problem. My notifications have been working fine.   I did have mail servers set up but after some updates they got cleared and the defaults have been working. I will try my mail servers again.

[Prana electric]

I've been talking to Michel and we are kinda stumped as too why its not working. 

He helped troubleshoot the problem by me sending my error log but could not find any problems.

Sending email notifications works fine but not text. 

 

 

[Geddy]

@Prana electric what wireless carrier do you use?

@raymondjiii just posted similar issue and mentioned on AT&T. 

If you are too can you send a simple email to text from a different domain? Does it get through?

 

[Prana electric]

I’m in Canada. Bell mobility 

Honestly I haven’t tried sending a simple email to text. 

All I did now was add my email address to the list and modified which notification I really need to get so I’m not completely stuck. 

So I’m just getting email notifications instead of texts. 
 

 

[raymondjiii]

8 hours ago, Geddy said:

@Prana electric what wireless carrier do you use?

@raymondjiii just posted similar issue and mentioned on AT&T. 

If you are too can you send a simple email to text from a different domain? Does it get through?

 

I did a quick test: Sent an email-text message from yahoo.com and my iphone received it within seconds. I see other ATT people complaining about not receiving text messages originating from email and a few people said to contact: abuse_rbl@abuse-att.net but I would be surprised if that changes anything.

[Geddy]

5 hours ago, Prana electric said:

All I did now was add my email address to the list and modified which notification I really need to get so I’m not completely stuck. 

As mentioned above the UD Mobile app now has notifications and there are multiple node servers that can push alerts to your phone. Other options are probably more accurate and reliable for "mission critical" notifications. 

But at least you've got email alerts working. 

 

 

 

 

[MrBill]

6 hours ago, Prana electric said:

I’m in Canada. Bell mobility 

Honestly I haven’t tried sending a simple email to text. 

All I did now was add my email address to the list and modified which notification I really need to get so I’m not completely stuck. 

So I’m just getting email notifications instead of texts.

I downloaded the Spark mail client on my phone, and created a Comcast address for notification and that address only exists on Spark, this way I could let Spark mail always notify and be exempt from Do Not Disturb hours, and it has distinct sound from regular email on my regular email client.

[larryllix]

5 hours ago, MrBill said:

I downloaded the Spark mail client on my phone, and created a Comcast address for notification and that address only exists on Spark, this way I could let Spark mail always notify and be exempt from Do Not Disturb hours, and it has distinct sound from regular email on my regular email client.

I am with Virgin Mobile in Canada, a subsidiary of Bell Mobility (100% owned) , using the same networks and towers, and possibly the same software and servers?  I have the same problem occasionally. I get text messages  hours later, as well as get the same text messages days later after I deleted them. This has been going on for years now and getting worse. I thought it was just my lack of noticing the messages coming in but it has been happening too often lately for messages labeled as new, (in bold)  but the ISY text tells me it was sent 2 days earlier.

IOW: I believe this may be a Bell Canada SMS server problem with messages not being cleared properly and/or handled properly (getting lost).

[MrBill]

22 hours ago, larryllix said:

I am with Virgin Mobile in Canada, a subsidiary of Bell Mobility (100% owned) , using the same networks and towers, and possibly the same software and servers?  I have the same problem occasionally. I get text messages  hours later, as well as get the same text messages days later after I deleted them. This has been going on for years now and getting worse. I thought it was just my lack of noticing the messages coming in but it has been happening too often lately for messages labeled as new, (in bold)  but the ISY text tells me it was sent 2 days earlier.

IOW: I believe this may be a Bell Canada SMS server problem with messages not being cleared properly and/or handled properly (getting lost).

At some point I've learned a 3rd party company manages at least some of the mobile carries email to sms gateways.  I know for a fact (US) AT&T uses a third party.  That came to light a few years when suddenly 168,000's text messages sent on valentines day were suddenly delivered 8 months late.  I was surprised when I googled that this occurred 2019, it seems like it was more recent.

In the 8 month late text messages, I received some from the ISY.  Fortunately I add ${sys.date} ${sys.time12} to the bottom of every notification i send, so I knew immediately they were old messages.    I don't send much email to text anymore, certain alarms are sent by multiple paths tho and those do still go by text as well.

[Prana electric]

Hello again 

So text messages started working again but coming in with a different email address from universal devices and a huge line of digits before it. Each text is different 

The most recent is 

0100018265e87e5d-d9fdc585-8fc1-4392-9b67-59fbfdf6f07e-000000@mail.universal-devices.com

but comes in as a text message 

Every following message has a different numerical value

 

 

[Michel Kohanim]

@Prana electric, we moved to Amazon SES. Please remove the whole thread.

With kind regards,
Michel

[Geddy]

@Prana electric I think @Michel Kohanim means remove the whole thread of texts on the phone. 

I just ran some tests using the default server on IoP and they were delivered to T-Mobile network almost instantly.

They were received from alerts@universal email. So I'm not sure how you got some from multiple long numbers like that. Perhaps it was in the process of moving the server to SES, but try again. Delete all current alerts/tests first though.

 

[Prana electric]

Did all that and still get the same thing. 
Each texts identification number is completely different from the others. 

At least it’s working.

A little annoying that it looks like I’m getting texts from a bunch of different devices/locations  
 

[Michel Kohanim]

@Prana electric, unfortunately it seems that your ISP is looking at the message id instead of From. In order to ensure delivery, we moved the final delivery to Amazon SES. SES adds an envelope around the original message and then includes a message id. It seems that the mail-to-text conversion at your ISP is stripping the From and is using the message id.

With kind regards,
Michel

[Prana electric]

Thank you for making changes on your end to get it working. I appreciate the great technical support and value the years of knowledge that the online forum offers. Cheers!