Facebook has confirmed it is investigating a problem that means that some users are failing to receive notification when a contact sends them a private message through the site. Normally a copy of a message is sent to a user's registered email address. However over recent weeks some users have noticed this was not happening, …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections

This topic is closed for new posts.

Wednesday 7th July 2010 10:52 GMT Tatsky

I wonder if it is an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) failure?

I don't know a huge amount about this, and I would have though the powers that be at Facebook would, but it seems to me that the server I receive notifications from does not have permission to send email from Facebookmail.com.

I have check the DNS records for facebookmail.com and the allowed mail servers under SPF are 69.63.178.128, 69.63.184.0 and 66.220.144.128

However, the IP address I get emails from on this domain is 69.63.178.173. I got this by checking the headers of the emails.

I then checked how googlemail sees this, and sure enough there is this error:

Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: best guess record for domain of transitioning notification+m-h3ki1d@facebookmail.com does not designate 69.63.178.173 as permitted sender) client-ip=69.63.178.173;

So google mail is saying there is an SPF failure here, which googlemail treats as a soft fail.

Maybe other email providers see this as a hard fail, and so no emails.

Just my 2 minutes of investigation.

Pass it on to Facebook. Invoice is in the post.

0 0
1. Wednesday 7th July 2010 12:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  AAARRRRRHHHH
  
  I had exactly the same problem latley !!!
  
  it seems more people are implementing SPF checks now.
  
  Had me stumped for a while
  
  Felt really really stupid when i figured it out !!!!
  
  anon cause i feel stupid !!
  
  0 0
2. Wednesday 7th July 2010 13:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  SPF
  
  The SPF record is now:
  
  ip4:69.63.179.25 ip4:69.63.178.128/25 ip4:69.63.184.0/25 ip4:66.220.144.128/25 mx -all
  
  So 69.63.178.173 should be covered by 69.63.178.128/25
  
  Any more errors?
  
  0 0
3. Wednesday 7th July 2010 23:46 GMT Gannon (J.) Dick
  
  Me too
  
  Yesterday, with Yahoo mail. The problem was, the server was "not permitted" but the spam came to me anyway.
  
  In other words SPF failed to implement the SP in the F.
  
  Exactly what the F it was supposed to do I'm not sure.
  
  0 0
Wednesday 7th July 2010 10:53 GMT Jimmy Floyd

Thought it was just me

I've hardly received any Facebook notifications in nearly a year. I thought it was just an overzealous spam-filter at my new e-mail host ... p'raps not.

0 0
Wednesday 7th July 2010 10:53 GMT EddieD

Not really an issue.

If you have mail, you normally have Facebook access - something on FB screwed up for me in February so my email advices stopped arriving, the support has been roughly the equivalent of a chocolate teapot, and I don't miss it particularly, and it also means at least google no longer get to see what I'm doing on Facebook.

0 0
Wednesday 7th July 2010 12:34 GMT JeffyPooh

Facebook programmers...

Not exactly the best and brightest...

(And I'm basing this on more than just this one report.)

0 0
Wednesday 7th July 2010 12:51 GMT Anonymous Coward

May I refer my fellow commentards

to the following article. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/05/facebook_saddos/

AC as I don't want saddos burning down my house.

0 0
1. Wednesday 7th July 2010 14:28 GMT Jamie Jones
  
  Thank-you!
  
  I knew there'd be some post calling facebook users saddos.
  
  Thanks for not disappointing me, moron!
  
  Facebook is great for keeping up with real life friends, and organising nights out etc.
  
  But I guess you need real friends to appreciate that.
  
  0 0
  1. Wednesday 7th July 2010 14:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    For crying out loud
    
    Get a sense of humour would you.
    
    1 1
Wednesday 7th July 2010 13:03 GMT Anonymous Hero

I wondered what happened to all these notification mails

<aol>

The last one I got was around June the 10th as well.

</aol>

0 0
Thursday 8th July 2010 08:33 GMT Anonymous Coward

I was actually quite relieved...

Since I'm online more than I check my email, I normally see stuff in FB *before* I would see the equivalent notification email, and I haven't mastered where in the maze I have to go to turn it off...

0 0
Thursday 8th July 2010 08:52 GMT Winkypop

NOT getting emails from FailBook...

....now THAT is a service!

Saddos, etc.....

0 0