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a_lipsey
Community Member

Email notifications delayed

I'm getting notifications from the Upwork mobile app about invitations, then 12 hours later I finally get an email about the job invite. Why is the invitation email so delayed? Sometimes I get the email invite after I've already responded and sent a proposal.

Is anyone else experiencing a similar glitch?
ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Avery, thank you for escalating this. I received a long, mostly irrelevant message from a tech support agent advising me to clear my cache and cookies, try using an incognito browser window, try a different browser, and check my spam filters; and if none of that works, then kindly send as many details as possible including screenshots of the problem and error messages I have received.

 

I responded with as much clarity as I could and I would like to clariy here, as well. During the time period in question (Sept 17-20), I received UW messages from two individuals: an existing client (A) whom I've been working with and corresponding with since May 2020, and a new prospective client (B) who contacted me for the first time on 9/19. I rec'd an email notification about B's message, and went to the Message Center to reply. At that time, there were no other unread messages from anyone. Later in the day on 9/19, B replied to me and I rec'd an email  notification and went to the Message Center and read his message. Again, no other unread messages from anyone. On 9/20, I returned to the Message Center to respond to B. At that time, I discovered an unread message from A which was dated 9/17 but which had not been visible until 9/20. I had not rec'd any email notification of it.

 

The failure of email notifications is a problem but IMO, not a catastrophic one. I can easily work around it by checking the Message Center directly every day. The failure of delivery within the Message Center is a grave problem and it is not going to be resolved at the level of first-line techs suggesting different browsers and cookie clearing. It's obviously not a browser issue.

 

Please do what you can to get this escalated as far as necessary to gain constructive attention.

 

Thanks.

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39 REPLIES 39
AleksandarD
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hello Amanda,

 

I escalated your issue to our Technical team so that they can reach out via a support ticket and investigate this further.

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork


Aleksandar D wrote:

Hello Amanda,

 

I escalated your issue to our Technical team so that they can reach out via a support ticket and investigate this further.

 

Thank you.


Thanks, Aleksandar. Someone did reach out. Today I had an email notification that had been delayed a full 24 hours (and I had already submitted a proposal to the job). 

Same issue here.  Late yesterday a recurring client and I agreed to project terms and contract started.  This morning - around 10 AM EST - the email notification of an invite came thru.

 

Same went for an invite I turned away ... but to have started the job????  The cart and the horse seem to be confused ...

Hi Wendy,

 

I apologize for the inconvenience this caused. I'll go ahead and ask our support team to get in touch with you via ticket and further look into this issue. 

 

Thank you for your patience. 

~ Bojan
Upwork

Thanks Bojan ... and kudos to CS as they "escalated the issue to engineers".

jorgensons
Community Member

Yup. This has been happening to me for the last 2-3 days. My emails are delayed by 12-15 hours, it seems. Luckily, I also get notificiatons on my phone via the Android app and those seem to be showing up right away.

Same here. I'm getting invites to jobs the day after I've either accepted or declined.

 

Can you ask your tech team if they've cleared their cache and cookies?

Hi Signe and Wes,

 

Thank you for reaching out to us. One of our team members will reach out to each of you individually via a support ticket to assist you further. You can access your tickets on this page. Thank you for your patience.

 

 

 

 

~ Nikola
Upwork
09fb3591
Community Member

One of my stats is wrong.  It is stating that I haven't replied to invitations always and within 24 hours which is wrong.  I also did not get a notification nor an email for the last invitation I received.  I noticed it on the home page and still managed to answer within 24 hours, but I could have missed it.  Is anyone else experiencing these problems?

Hi Jakub,

 

We've received reports of email notifications being delayed and the team is currently investigating and working on resolving this issue. I've merged your post into the thread with other reports and will also have a support ticket created for you so the team can keep you updated. As for the responsiveness metric, please note that it's not updated immediately and there is usually a slight delay. As long as you've replied to the invite within 24 hours, it should update shortly and reflect correctly on your My Stats page.

 

~ Nikola
Upwork

Hi everyone,
Same issues here. But I tried to access upwork chat with CS option but Whenever I click that option "Chat with Data" option appears. Did upwork change option of top-rated freelancers instant chat option or is it just a technical issue? I even can't access to open a support request "ticket" too.
there is a client who recently ended contract but She interviewed me with different job title(title1) and I requested to change the title of job and she changed it by withdrawing the 1st offer and replacing it with (title2) of my choice(because the work she asked was different so I requested her to change).
I accepted offer, she paid me, We ended it but Now I see on my profile that the contract title is wrong.
Means:
1. the offer I accepted was with  "Title2"
2.Contract name under Contract section is with "Title2"
3.The Chat room Is with "Title2"
But "the profile job histry section is with "title1"......
Second issue:
The Pre-Packaged Project option shows the cover images related to my offered project but when I see it as "see public profile view". I see no cover images there.
Please Help.
Thank You.

Hi Sehar,

 

I checked your account, and I can see that one of our agents is already assisting you regarding your concern. Please check the recent update on your ticket number: 29567194. Thank you. 

~ Joanne
Upwork

Same problem for me too. Some took about 12 hours. 

Also I will have to visit the messages page (https://www.upwork.com/messages/rooms/)  every time to check if any new message is there as the notifications in the Upwork page also not working correctly.


Hi Ramesh,

 

One of our agents will reach out to you regarding your issue with not receiving notifications via a support ticket. Thank you. 

~ Joanne
Upwork
09fb3591
Community Member

Any update on this Nikola?  I am still experiencing this problem and I worry that one day I might miss an interview and break my perfect score of responding within 24 hours.  

Hi Jakub, and Sehar,

 

Jakub, our team is still investigating and working on resolving the issue. We will update the Community once we have more information.

 

Sehar, one of our team members will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further.

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork
dque12
Community Member

Hi l,
The past few weeks I have been getting delayed feeds from 18hrs to 2 days ago. I have waited it out thinking it's a technical issue but it's like it's getting worse. Someone kindly help.

Thanks

Hi Dickson,

 

I’ve shared your concern with the team. One of our team members will reach out and assist you directly via a support ticket. Thank you!

~ Joanne
Upwork

Hi  Joanne Marie P,

This issue still persists with my account too. I got email notification of invitation in upwork phone app in the morning at 7am(PKT) and the notification to my upwork notifications option and  to my email  at 3pm(PKT).
Please help.

 

 

Hi Joanne,

 

Recenly I notice that I am not receiving email notifications for messages; and sometimes it comes after a long delay -However, I do receive for invitations and contract starting/ending instantly.

 

Please support me on this.

 

Thank you.

/Dawit

Hi Dawit,

Someone from our team will reach out to you via support ticket in order to assist you further.

~Andrea
Upwork
5ac8a2ef
Community Member

Hi Valeria,

I've been using Upwork for months and have got a bunch of invitations.
But nowadays, the invitation notification is not arriving or arriving after 10+ hours.
Because of this, I couldn't reply to the clients and lose opportunities to be interviewed.
I found several people who were facing this problem before.
Please let me solve this problem so that I can provide a better experience to the clients and do not lose opportunities.
Raja

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Raja Ravichandra,

 

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble this caused. We'll have one of our agents reach out to you via a support ticket to assist you with this issue. 

~ Bojan
Upwork
lanakamand
Community Member

This problem has been talked about previously. But I happen to have been receving delayed messages almost a week after I apply for a job. How can I solve this issue? Thanks

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Lana,

 

We'll have one of our agents reach out to you directly via ticket to further assist you with this issue.

 

Thank you. 

~ Bojan
Upwork
dataextract
Community Member

Normally whenever a message comes instantly it displays the message count in the "Message" area on top of the page. But for the past few weeks I am not getting it. Some times there may be a small orange color dot appearing near the bell botton. Sometimes not. I will have to either refresh the page or to visit the messages page to check this. I have cleared the cookies, but still the problem exists.

At the same time I am not getting the job invitations in my email inbox on time. It takes around 12 to 24 hours for them to hit the email inbox. Infact most of the times it comes several hours after I have accepted or declined the invitation. Frustrating. 


Hi Ramesh,

 

I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing this issue and for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We'll have one of our agents reach out to you via a support ticket to further assist you.

Thank you.

~ Luiggi
Upwork
a_lipsey
Community Member

A few weeks ago I posted about invites not getting through to me until sometimes 24 hours after they had been sent (knowing this because I would get notified on the phone app but not via email for 24 hours sometimes). 

 

Now I had a client who has sent me an offer, and I was awaiting an NDA he was going to send for me to sign so I could begin work. I sent a friendly reminder to him this morning, and I received no response. Except I did. Not only did I receive no notification from the phone app or through email, but when I went to my messages, it was marked as read. 

 

I can wave my hand at invitation notices being slow, but I really need to know when a client who has made an offer to me has messaged me, since we're only waiting on finalizing the NDA so I can start - you know, start earning money for myself, and to pay Upwork their fees (which I'm happy to pay but kinda can't until I actually have an accepted offer, and I can't do that if message notifications aren't coming through). 

 

Help? 

tlbp
Community Member

I've been checking the message rooms for my active contracts daily to make sure I don't miss important messages. I probably need to tell my clients to do the same (via non-Upwork means) as they may not be aware when I communicate with them, I just haven't yet. 

Hi Amanda,

 

I am sorry about the inconvenience this has caused. I shared your report with the team handling your case and they will follow up on your ticket as soon as possible.

 

Thank you,

~ Nikola
Upwork

I've been having the same problem. I recommend installing the Upwork app on your mobile (if you haven't already) because I've been getting notifications instantly through that.

I do already have the mobile app installed, which I said in my post. My point was that no notifications came through from any direction.


Amanda L wrote:
I do already have the mobile app installed, which I said in my post. My point was that no notifications came through from any direction.

This was intended more as general advice for all of the people who are experiencing this problem. For me, notifications via the app have not been delayed (whereas my email notifications are still being delayed by up to 24 hours), so I still think that it's worth trying if anyone hasn't installed it yet.

NEW WRINKLE

 

Rec'd email alert of a new UW Message from a prospective client. Went to Messages to respond to that one and discovered a new message waiting from an existing client. The latter was dated Thursday (9/17, three days ago) but had not been visible to me until now. (I was in the Messages window several times on 9/18 and 9/19 and that new message was not visible.) Also, I never received an email notification for it.

 

This seems to be the same problem I encountered in August 2019 -- messages unaccountably delayed for days.

 

A client and I agreed to terms. They were new didn't realize there was an additional step of making the offer. My prompt and reminder took four days to reach them. That delay could easily have cost me a contract and Upwork its commission, not to mention the potential reputation damage for both my business and Upwork's.

The combination of message delays and communications restrictions is destructive, and serves no one. Repeated promises about how much better the voice and video messaging are ring hollow when Upwork can't even get text messaging to work properly.

Hi Phyllis, and Douglas, 


I'm sorry we missed responding to your posts. I have asked the team to look into this further, and they will reach out to you through a support ticket. This will help us investigate the issue further, so if you have more information you wish to share, please don't hesitate to update the ticket thread. 

I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you both. 


~ Avery
Upwork

Avery, thank you for escalating this. I received a long, mostly irrelevant message from a tech support agent advising me to clear my cache and cookies, try using an incognito browser window, try a different browser, and check my spam filters; and if none of that works, then kindly send as many details as possible including screenshots of the problem and error messages I have received.

 

I responded with as much clarity as I could and I would like to clariy here, as well. During the time period in question (Sept 17-20), I received UW messages from two individuals: an existing client (A) whom I've been working with and corresponding with since May 2020, and a new prospective client (B) who contacted me for the first time on 9/19. I rec'd an email notification about B's message, and went to the Message Center to reply. At that time, there were no other unread messages from anyone. Later in the day on 9/19, B replied to me and I rec'd an email  notification and went to the Message Center and read his message. Again, no other unread messages from anyone. On 9/20, I returned to the Message Center to respond to B. At that time, I discovered an unread message from A which was dated 9/17 but which had not been visible until 9/20. I had not rec'd any email notification of it.

 

The failure of email notifications is a problem but IMO, not a catastrophic one. I can easily work around it by checking the Message Center directly every day. The failure of delivery within the Message Center is a grave problem and it is not going to be resolved at the level of first-line techs suggesting different browsers and cookie clearing. It's obviously not a browser issue.

 

Please do what you can to get this escalated as far as necessary to gain constructive attention.

 

Thanks.


Phyllis G wrote:

Avery, thank you for escalating this. I received a long, mostly irrelevant message from a tech support agent advising me to clear my cache and cookies, try using an incognito browser window, try a different browser, and check my spam filters; and if none of that works, then kindly send as many details as possible including screenshots of the problem and error messages I have received.

 

I responded with as much clarity as I could and I would like to clariy here, as well. During the time period in question (Sept 17-20), I received UW messages from two individuals: an existing client (A) whom I've been working with and corresponding with since May 2020, and a new prospective client (B) who contacted me for the first time on 9/19. I rec'd an email notification about B's message, and went to the Message Center to reply. At that time, there were no other unread messages from anyone. Later in the day on 9/19, B replied to me and I rec'd an email  notification and went to the Message Center and read his message. Again, no other unread messages from anyone. On 9/20, I returned to the Message Center to respond to B. At that time, I discovered an unread message from A which was dated 9/17 but which had not been visible until 9/20. I had not rec'd any email notification of it.

 

The failure of email notifications is a problem but IMO, not a catastrophic one. I can easily work around it by checking the Message Center directly every day. The failure of delivery within the Message Center is a grave problem and it is not going to be resolved at the level of first-line techs suggesting different browsers and cookie clearing. It's obviously not a browser issue.

 

Please do what you can to get this escalated as far as necessary to gain constructive attention.

 

Thanks.


This sounds almost exactly like the problem I was reporting in my initial post, and it also sounds like Michael Douglas had the same issue too. So I don't think it's a browser issue. AND, it also wasn't in my phone app messages.  This is a far more serious problem than whatever new feature your devs are working on that's going to throw another wrench in our chain. It would be nice if our reports of UW "bugs"  be taken more seriously. Losing clients means losing money - not just for us, but Upwork. 

UPDATE: After nine days, the Upwork Help rep emailed me this morning to advise me that Tech Support has determined there was no delay in delivering the message, and if it happens again I am to provide details (date, time) along with screenshots. I have replied (as I did last year when this happened) that I cannot provide a screenshot of a message that has not been delivered and which I have no way of knowing has even been sent. Once the message is delivered -- a day late, three days late, two weeks late -- there is no way to tell by looking at the screen that it was delayed.

 

This is unacceptable. It has cost me at least one project so far and made communications with existing clients unnecessarily awkward and cumbersome.

 

The only way to minimize the potential for negative impact on performing work and earning money is to include in my New Client Orientation process the recommendation that we not rely on UW Messages to communicate (once a contract is in place) and instead, exchange direct contact info and use phone, email and/or any other reliable platform(s) the client prefers. 

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