Not Getting Notifications in a Timely Manner

[#1]

I have been communicating with a potential client trying to set-up an initial interview. I was waiting to hear back from him. Well, he responded two hours ago and I did not receive a notification on Upwork or to my personal email. I just happened to check to see what's going on and I see he responded. This may put some people at a disadvantage when trying to win business especially when others are being interviewed the same day. I was expecting an Upwork notification and nothing.

[#2]

There is nothing that Upwork can do to guarantee prompt message delivery to your email inbox as intended.

There are potential problems on its end. And on your end. And in the links in between the two of you.

What can you do?

- Communicate with the client via email or Skype or through some other means outside of Upwork.

- Check for messages from Upwork using the desktop application and the Upwork website itself. Don't rely on email relay.

[#3]

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Preston H wrote:

There is nothing that Upwork can do to guarantee prompt message delivery to your email inbox as intended.

There are potential problems on its end. And on your end. And in the links in between the two of you.

What can you do?

- Communicate with the client via email or Skype or through some other means outside of Upwork.

- Check for messages from Upwork using the desktop application and the Upwork website itself. Don't rely in email relay.

---

She didn't. She clearly said that she did not receive notification in Upwork or to her personal email.

[#4]

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Preston H wrote:

There is nothing that Upwork can do to guarantee prompt message delivery to your email inbox as intended.

---

Wrong. There is a lot Upwork can do.

And we're not talking about guaranteeing anything; nothing can be guaranteed besides death and taxes.

We are talking about ensuring all emails deliver with a level of reliability so high there isn't a littany of threads in the forum talking about the unreliability of Upwork's email and notification system.

Upwork doesn't seem to be bothered enough about this problem.

Less than three weeks ago, one of my messages was relayed four hours after I had sent it. I had to send a follow-up message apologising for the message.

Very odd.

What service is Upwork paying to deliver these emails? They can change it.

A bug on their own server? They can (and should) pay for manhours to fix it).

A 5-second delay in 1% of emails is already way too much!

[#5]

Hi Abinadab,

I checked and it doesn't appear you reported this issue previously? I'll ask someone from our team to follow up with you directly to review all the information and investigate further.

[#6]

Catherine, I had this happen last summer, only it was two weeks before the client's message was delivered to me. I lost out on a very juicy project because she thought I ghosted her and hired someone else. I suspect it happened with at least one other client. UW support escalated it, and acknowledged it was a problem. After a few more weeks, they closed the ticket because I couldn't prove it had happened any more. (Because I should be able to prove a negative, right?)

For a while, I included a note in every proposal, asking the client to please contact me via email if I failed to respond to an UW message promptly. But that feels clunky and ungraceful. 

I think this is probably an intermittent problem but when it happens, it's really serious -- for us, at least.

[#7]

Hi Phyllis,

Just wanted to follow up and confirm that our team did investigate your report but due to certain circumstances, which we shared with you both here in the Community and via your support ticket, regardless of our motivation we, unfortunately, weren't able to acquire all the information which was necessary in order to complete our investigation. Please feel free to follow up if you experience a similar issue as we're very interested in investigating reports of such a critical issue and confirming if there is a bug or not.

[#8]

Thanks, Vladimir. What I recall is that I kept being asked, "Has it happened again?" I couldn't know whether or not it had happened again, because it's impossible to know whether a prospective client disappears (after messaging me) because they lost interest or because they didn't receive my reply, or because I didn't receive their reply. I don't recall anyone sharing "certain circumstances" that prevented further investigation. Maybe I misunderstood something?

[#9]

Hi Catherine,

I'm sorry about your experience, we'd like to take a closer look at the issue you reported further. Could you please send me in a private message a screenshot of the message in question, along with the Message room and client's details? Also, could you please confirm if you're using the Upwork Mobile app and was possibly using it within the time frame in which you received the client's message? This information will help us with investigating the issue so we'd appreciate your cooperation. 

[#10]

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Catherine M wrote:

I have been communicating with a potential client trying to set-up an initial interview. I was waiting to hear back from him. Well, he responded two hours ago and I did not receive a notification on Upwork or to my personal email. I just happened to check to see what's going on and I see he responded. This may put some people at a disadvantage when trying to win business especially when others are being interviewed the same day. I was expecting an Upwork notification and nothing.

---

I've noticed this too. Best thing to do is have a tab with your email open so you can see messages. There is still a delay but it will speed it up. I had to apologize to a couple clients for my slow replies.

This morning it seeems to have been corrected. I got replies right away this morning.

[#11]

Thanks for the suggestion, Jennifer.

[#12]

Hello!

I don't get notifications about messages sometimes (All: mobile app, desktop app and email). But settings is correct for this. Spam folder is empty. As if I had read them.

The problem was repeating yesterday. Today I saw that message which I didn't read. But I didn't get notifications about this.

[#13]

Hi Dmitriy,

Thanks for reaching out to us. One of our team members will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further.

Thank you.

[#14]

I'm not getting emails for new Upwork messages sometimes. Even when I am on the Upwork site, it is not giving me a notification that I have received a message about 50% of the time. However when I go to the messages tab, I can read them. This just started a few weeks ago.

Anyone else having this issue?

[#15]

Hi Kendra,

I shared your concern with the rest of our team and one of our agents will reach out to you directly via a support ticket to assist you further.

Thank you.

[#16]

Yes! This happens to me A LOT and has been going on for months. I have triple checked my notification settings and everything is set to "All Activity". I'm glad I'm not the only one but hopefully it is something that Upwork can sort out?! Do I need to submit a support ticket?

[#17]

Hi Suzanna,

Our team will reach out to you via ticket as well and will assist you further. I`m sorry about the inconvenience this had caused you, thank you.

[#18]

I am also reporting issues with the Android version of the Upwork app. Notifications are arriving 10-15 minutes after they hit my email box. Given that we do not always receive email notifications for messages, there is a chance we may miss important communication. What is being done to resolve this? It has not been a problem in the past.

[#19]

Hi Aaron,

We had issues with push notifications earlier and it was recorded on our Status Page. The issue has since been fixed. Could you please let us know you you're still experiencing delays?

[#20]

The upwork notification on Browser  and Mobile App are seriously slow. There is always a huge delay. 

the request is only immediate notification in the App and Browser. which does not happen. there is always a huge delay of 5-15 minutes.

The Browser application and mobile app definitely needs improvement.

[#21]

Hi Tanuj,

Could you please clear your cache and cookies or use a different browser? As for the mobile app, please check if you also have the latest version of the browser. You may also check this help article for more information.