No message notifications

[katerusha]

Hello Upwork,

I am writing after contacting your customer support, who suggested me to post my issue here as well.

A couple of days ago I got an issue with message notifications. I missed important messages from my client because I didn't get any email neither web notification (no bell icon). I only saw the message when I opened the chat, even there, no notifications for new messages on the left panel on list of clients.

Customer support agent said it might be because of system maintenance. I understand that you improve your system and this may happen from time to time.

But, honestly, this is the second time I miss important messages because of this issue. And I think I should get a better service especially since you charge me a fee on my every project.

[j_spitler]

I have had multiple instances over the last several months when I am not receiving email notifications when a message from a client has been sent to me about an on-going project. My notifications are on and the problem is intermittent so I tend to think the problem is an Upwork system issue. Is anyone else having this problem? If so, were you able to correct it. 

[h_honcharenko]

I experience the same issue now and then.

[zhon]

This happened to me and a client of mine as well.  For me, the issue seemed to be that I had the message active either on the desktop or mobile app, or in a web browser.

[tinker_bell3]

Hi Jeannie and Heorhii,

Are you also experiencing this using the mobile app?

[j_spitler]

Hi. I don't use the mobile app and the Upwork window is not open when I experience this issue. It occurred twice yesterday. 

[aocumen]

Hi Jeannie, 

Could you please share which clients sent you a message (by sharing their Contract IDs), which you didn't get a notification for? 

[j_spitler]

Happening most often with contract ID 21162909.

[bstojadinovic]

Hi Jeannie,

One of our agents will reach out to you directly via support ticket and assist you further, thank you for following up. 

[namita_shakya]

Hi, 

One of my previous client sent me a couple of messages about his new requirement,14 hours ago. He needed a quick tat and was inquiring about my availability. I didn't receive any email notifications about this. Just logged in and saw his messages. 

Although I received 3 UW notifications today one about closing of a job, about a new job posting and about a community post. 

But not getting important notifications about client's messages is a serious matter... Please do something about this!   😞

[bstojadinovic]

Hi Namita,

I'll share your concern with our team and one of our agents will reach out to you directly via support ticket and assist you further with your messages notifications issue. Thank you for your patience. 

[namita_shakya]

Thank you Bojan!

[chris_bannu]

Hi,

I received two invitations and sent proposals to the clients, I received the emails which tell me that the clients sent me messages (the usual notification email), but the emails don't contain the clients' replies, nor can I see them inside the MESSAGES tab on Upwork. This happend two times today, which leads me to believe that the clients sent me messages, but I can't see them.

The clients in question are the latest two clients that sent me proposals if any mods are going to have a look into my account 🙂

Please help.

Thank you kindly,

Chris

[chris_bannu]

Maybe there are also messages from other clients I haven't received, I wouldn't know.

[aocumen]

Hi Cristian, 

I shared your account information with the Customer Support Team and they will reach out to you to assist you further.

[chris_bannu]

Hi Avery,

Thank you so much, I really hope this gets fixed soon, losing credibility is really bad 😞

Cheers,

Chris

[chris_bannu]

It just happened again, is anyone else experienging this, or is this just on my end?

Thanks,

Chris

[aocumen]

Hi Chris, 

I checked your account and can see that you have update your ticket for this issue. I'll follow up with the team so that they can get back to you, and investigate this further.

[spictor]

I'm having the same issue, One of my clients sent me several messages, and I got no notifications of any sort, no email, no site notification, not even on the desktop or mobile app, now I have to check the site on a daily basis to see if that client messaged me or not. this started happening with the new year.

[tinker_bell3]

Hi Helmy,

One of our customer support agents will reach out to assist you further. Feel free to post any questions you may have on the ticket so the agent can assist you directly. Thank you!

[dmitriy-zubrilin]

Hello to all.
I have difficulty getting notifications about new messages.
I do not receive any notifications. There are no notifications in the application for PС, not on the mobile device, not on the e-mail, even when visiting the site, I do not see a green counter of unread messages above the "messages" link. I can see new messages only when I go to the page with messages.
The strangest thing is that this does not work for just one client. I am sure that I received notifications from other clients yesterday and today.
Is it possible? It can be fixed?

[tinker_bell3]

Hi Dmitriy,

One of our customer support agents will reach out to assist you further. Thank you!

[lee98]

I am also experiencing this issue and posted a reply to a different post that didn't have any replies from December 2018. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one having the problem but it is disturbing. However, while searching for other posts, I did come across an intelligent post that suggested we not rely on the notification technology offered by Upwork, even though we do pay substantial (IMO) fees. We should take the resposibility to check on the Upwork site regularly to make sure we are not missing important messages from our clients.

[aocumen]

Hi Lee, 

I checked your previous tickets about this case, and I can see that the team has shared that the reason why you didn't receive an email notification for the messages you received was because you already read and opened your messages through the Upwork Message Center. You may read more about it in this ticket. 

On your Notification Settings, you will see that it's noted that you will only receive emails for unread activity. Just the same, I will go ahead and follow up your new, open ticket with the Customer Support Team so that they can assist you further.

[lee98]

Thank you for your reply, Avery. As you could probably also see, this issue has been a recurring one for me. If I had already seen the message, I wouldn't be concerned about getting an email notification, so I'm not sure how that is a resolution to the ticket. I always have a tab open to Upwork, either Messages or Reports, sometimes both. I understand there is a setting to only send notifications if I'm not online or not active, I'm not sure how that works, other than to take it literally. In that case, I'd never receive an email because I'm always signed on. However, I should still see a little number on my Messages tab or if I go to the Reports screen, correct?

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Lee,

Yes that is correct, if your messages tab is not opened a little number will appear and indicate that you have new messages. If your tab is opened the number won't be showed next to the Messages field. Thank you.

[lee98]

Do you mean the little number will appear next to the word 'Messages' when I'm looking at my report overview, for example? This must be a new 'feature' because it used to show a little number on my tab with the open Messages screen.

[lee98]

It looks like no one has reponded to your post, I wonder why?

I have experienced the same problem for some time now. The Support Center looks at the screen shots I send, seem to fix the problem in the short term, but then it happens again. While searching the forums for similar issues, I saw a wise post that suggested we, as freelancers, should not rely on the notification system to let us know when clients are trying to communicate with us. You make a good point, however, that we do pay a fee to Upwork and should expect the technology to work consistently. 

Let's find out if this post gets a reponse...

[eltovsky_yan]

Hello everybody. I've experienced the same issues you discussing here. There was no notifications either from current client, or from a new chat. i've missed interview because of it, and every message started by my client after a break..there were no notifications on mobile, desktop or green sticker on the web. Support guy says to me that i've read messages thats why no notifications appear. But i've tested it all week long to check if it maybe was my mistake. So what i propose is to get rid of desktop app, and use it only when needed. cause for me it works today, i've asked my client to do test messaging and we succeed, i have been notified via ios app, Thats maybe not comfy for someone but at least you are notified when you got urgent task. I'll keep testing but i guess it'll work for me. Have a good one all

[lee98]

It is very unfortunate that this notification has changed somehow. It was very helpful to get an email and/or notice that there was a number next to 'Messages' on my Google Chrome tab or even next to the word 'Messages' when I was looking at 'Reports' or 'My Jobs'.

I got an email notification that someone added a post to this thread...

Now it seems we must click on Messages to actually go to that page to see if we have messages - very unfortunate, as I said earlier. If anyone knows of a better way or something I may be doing wrong, please let me know. Thanks!

[katerusha]

My solution is not to rely on Upwork's messaging system. After several
times of missing important messages, I finally switched to other means of
communication with my clients.

[iaabraham]

---

Vitaliy K wrote:
My solution is not to rely on Upwork's messaging system. After several
times of missing important messages, I finally switched to other means of
communication with my clients.

---

I've learned my lesson as well. In the past year, I've missed several messages and invites by clients because Upwork didn't deliver email notifications. Customer support was very unhelpful in each case, so from now on I'll just give my email address to all my clients.

Unfortunately this won't help for brand new clients who send me invites and messages. I don't know what we pay 20% for if even basic site functions don't work.

[sgerb]

Hello. I have not been receiving message notifications from a current client for the last week or so. It just so happens that I check for jobs a few times a day and it's at that point that I see there's a message. I was receiving notifications from him before that, and I have not changed any of my settings.

[bstojadinovic]

Hi Susan,

I've shared your report with our support team and one of our agents will reach out to you directly to advise you further regarding your notifications concern.

Thank you.

[colettelewis]

Is anything being done about this. I had an invitation to which I replied and the client answered two hours ago on Upwork. I had no notification, and I have only just seen it. 

Upwork, we pay for this, we pay for that - we are paying for a service, and when it works it's good. But it is still a service and we are your clients. Our clients are your bread and butter, so it would be great if you could iron out the glitches in client/freelancer communication.  

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Nichola,

I'm looking into your account and it looks like, generally, notifications about unread messages are being sent to your email. Email notification is not sent if a message is registered as "read," and that's what had happened in most cases discussed on this thread. A message would register as "read," when Messages are open in a browser tab on in the desktop app. Did you by chance have Upwork.com open in your browser or had Messages open in the desktop app?

[colettelewis]

Hi Valeria, 

I have to say I'm not sure. It is perfectly possible. However, I didn't even have the little red highlighted "one" (or whatever number of messages) but I had no indication that this client had replied until I happened to go to my message room.

In the event, it wasn't that serious, because I had to refuse the client anyway, but it is a little concerning, if one doesn't even get an indication of a client replying. It has never happened to me before.   

[kochubei_valeria]

I understand, Nichola. Yes, the indicator in the Messages tab on the site works the same way as the email notifications - if a message is read, the indicator wouldn't show. 

If this happens again, could you please let me know and, if possible, note if Upwork.com is open anywhere on your computer?

[colettelewis]

Valeria, 

The first message was read of course, because I answered the invitation. The second message I didn't see because there was no indication. I have always had some kind of indication usually both - email and indicator - whether I have had the window open or not. 

I only saw the second message because I opened the message page to check on an old client.

[kfarnell]

I've also not been getting notification of messages during the last week or so. I receive emails for project invites and other matters, but I haven't been notified of several messages. Upwork has not been open on my computer when the messages have come through so this is not the issue.