Client has been messaging me since last Saturday. Messages popped up all at once now.

[#1]

Hello,

I'm completely perplexed here. A client from a significant ongoing project has been messaging me since Saturday, but all of her messages have just popped up at once!

I've been waiting for a response to continue with the project for days, but she's been messaging me on her end.

To my surprise, I received a message from her stating that she would have to pause the project due to my lack of responsiveness, despite the fact that I did not respond because her messages simply did not arrive!

No notifications. No messages. Nothing. I've been using Upwork's messaging platform on my PC, web browser, and Android phone.

This is completely absurd because this is a fantastic project with a fantastic person.

I'd appreciate it if Upwork support could weigh in and explain what's going on to me and my client. I had no idea this was even possible!

When I read her last message, I literally jumped out of bed, and now I'm writing this.

How can she be expected to believe in me on this one? I look like a child making excuses for missing a school exam.

There isn't a single reason for me to apparently ghost her like this. I'm extremely serious about punctuality and responsiveness. 

Thank you,

Rafael.

[#2]

Your best strategy going forward is establishing other means of communication with ongoing clients, such as email or slack.

[#3]

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Farag S wrote:

And Rafael’s client having to pause his ongoing contract, because she was unable to reach him with Upwork messaging for a week…

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Apart from plagiarising Gargana's Gergana's (sorry Gergana for bastardizing your name) post (not a great look), you are also not being truthful: Rafael's client has not been unable to reach him for a week, nor has she paused the contract.

I make sure all my clients have alternative contact details for me and are instructed to reach me there should I not respond promptly, because messages have had outages and issues in the past. That clearly doesn't work in cases where no contract has been established yet.

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Farag S wrote:

Also, with taken ILANNA M’s recent post “The lack of offers even with obvious expertise” into consideration…

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Is there anything that makes you think that clients are queuing up to hire you and are prevented from doing so?

[#4]

LOL. If you call me Gargana, I'll call you Patra! Deal? 🙂 

[#5]

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Gergana K wrote:

LOL. If you call me Gargana, I'll call you Patra! Deal? 🙂 

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I apologize! I'll fix it.

I had a (real life) client who called me "Petrol". For literally YEARS.

[#6]

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Petra R wrote:

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Gergana K wrote:

LOL. If you call me Gargana, I'll call you Patra! Deal? 🙂 

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I apologize! I'll fix it.

I had a (real life) client who called me "Petrol". For literally YEARS.

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Cause baby, you're on fire!

[#7]

Hi Petra,

Yes, I haven't received her messages since Saturday morning. Not a week indeed, but a lot of messages like "Hi Rafael, what's going on" and "Where are you???" have been sent in this period. 

She did pause the contract, though, and that was the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning and grabbed my phone. (Can you imagine my reaction?)

[#8]

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Petra R wrote:

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I make sure all my clients have alternative contact details for me and are instructed to reach me there should I not respond promptly, because messages have had outages and issues in the past. That clearly doesn't work in cases where no contract has been established yet.

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I agree with Petrol - I've also experienced message malfunctioning and it was acutely embarrassing. I recommend exchanging email addresses with clients as soon as you're hired, just as a back-up.

[#9]

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Farag S wrote:

Also, with taken ILANNA M’s recent post “The lack of offers even with obvious expertise” into consideration…

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That's not a bug. 

[#10]

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Farag S wrote:

But…

How could we be sure anymore?

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There are lots of reasons why a client wouldn't hire somebody with obvious expertise. Like, if their expertise isn't that obvious. 

[#11]

Hi, Rafael. I have experienced the same problem 2-3 times (not recently, the last time was last year or the year before), except it was with prospective clients I was interviewing, not ones with ongoing contracts. But same thing: I was using the message center daily and experiencing no issues, only to have messages from a single party delayed by days (in one case a couple of weeks). Because I couldn't provide a screenshot of the problem (!!!) UW had difficulty addressing it. They finally did take it seriously but to my knowledge, did not resolve it.

Please let us know how they get on resolving your situation. I lost at least one substantial project because of it. It would be even worse to be undermined with an active client.

[#12]

On a good day, messages take 4-5 hours to reach me by email. More than once, they've arrived the next day.

(I do NOT want a ticket opened. I don't have time to explain I don't have screenshots of things not happening.)

Whilst there's something to be said for making idle chit-chat impossible, I've got into the habit of checking every morning and end of day even when I'm not expecting anything. That should be unnecessary.

[#13]

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Kim F wrote:

On a good day, messages take 4-5 hours to reach me by email. More than once, they've arrived the next day.

(I do NOT want a ticket opened. I don't have time to explain I don't have screenshots of things not happening.)

Whilst there's something to be said for making idle chit-chat impossible, I've got into the habit of checking every morning and end of day even when I'm not expecting anything. That should be unnecessary.

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Anyone reading the entire thread will think I'm unhealthily obsessed but I want to be sure everyone including UW is clear that there are two distinct issues: message notifications via email not getting through in a timely manner, and actual messages not being delivered -- even when you log into the message center and look, you see no new message even though the client sent it hours ago, or days (or in one case for me, weeks).

[#14]

Hi Phyllis, THANK YOU for bringing me into this thread - I've been losing my mind over this issue (actual messages not being delivered instantly, sometimes appearing a day late, or whenever).  This is not the first time I've had this problem on Upwork.  Very frustrating, since I did all the cache clearing and cookie cutting and browser checking to no avail....

[#15]

Messaging is a fundamental requirement for the platform, yet people have been complaining about it for months/years without it being sorted.

I know I'd be ****ing livid if I lost out because of it.

[#16]

Hi Jamie,

The main issue here is that the client is on a tight deadline, and she's probably thinking that I'm making up an excuse and that I didn't respond to her on purpose for some reason.

In fact, I wouldn't blame her for not believing me. Telling her that I didn't respond because I didn't receive her messages really sounds like a mundane, unimaginative excuse.

I'm hoping that Upwork can contact her and accept responsibility for this incident. 

[#17]

Off topic, but I just wanted to say how much I admire your work, Rafael - especially the product and furniture designs.

[#18]

Thank you so much, Christine! 

I'm really grateful for such positive feedback on my work! 🤗🤗🤗🤗

PS: I just checked out your profile and you have amazing designs as well! I'd love to collaborate one of these days if we have the chance! 🙂

[#19]

And obviously because I looked at Christine's portfolio, I had to look at yours as well.  Very nice work!  Its always cool to see some of the creative work that is adjacently related to what I do.

[#20]

After reading this, I had to look at your portfolio - we may disagree occassionally on topics in here, but your work is excellent and very high quality.  I wouldn't hesitate to hire you for a product brochure.  Very nice!

[#21]

This is one of Upwork's most distressing bugs. I lost a client last year because of it, haven't experienced it since but it's always in the back of my mind when I've not heard from a client for a while.

[#22]

Liz, this is extremely upsetting indeed.

To be honest, because I'm new to Upwork, I had no idea this was possible, and it's caught me completely off guard here. 

I've never had a similar issue with any messaging app in my entire life.

I've been freelancing for a long time, long before platforms like this even existed, and I've never missed a deadline or deliberately ignored a client. 

I feel terrible just thinking about how I may have unintentionally given the impression of being a sloppy professional, which I am not.

[#23]

Hi Rafael and others,

Thank you for reporting your experience. We’ve become aware that many users have been experiencing issues with Messages loading and notifications of new messages being delayed. We understand how frustrating this is as clients and freelancers rely on Messages to communicate in order to get work done. Our engineers have identified the cause of these issues and implemented short-term solutions; you should already be experiencing improvements.

As part of a longer-term approach to improving the user experience in Messages, the team is working on system upgrades that would reduce the occurrence of these issues in the future and improve the overall reliability of Messages and related notifications.

Please let us know if you continue to experience issues with Messages.

[#24]

Thank you very much, Valeria.

It's comforting to know that Upwork is aware of the problem and is working to resolve it.

Would you mind requesting that support contact the client and confirm the issue?

I mean, Upwork has put me in a terrible situation here...I just want the client to know that it wasn't my fault. 

[#25]

Maybe they can send a blanket email out to all clients letting them know as I don't think they'd do that individually as there are probably quite a few people who have been put in that situation with multiple clients. I have to keep apologizing for not replying and it also leads to potential missed opportunities. 

[#26]

Rafael, I checked and it looks like it's already been done by the support agent you've communicated with earlier today.