Email Delay

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I saw the Groundspeak announcement re Yahoo throttling email and don't think it affects me, but we've been noticing something interesting on our dixiecachers.com website that makes me curious as to how to resolve it.

 

If you are a Premium member and sign up for Insta-Notify you are sent an email notification when certain triggers that you select are fired - in my case when a new cache is published or activated within 50 miles of my home.

 

I sometimes like to hunt FTFs, and over the last couple of weeks began using Insta-Notify.

 

More often than not the cache was found by the time I got there!

 

I thought it amazing that folks could get there so quick!

 

I knew something was fishy, however, when a listing was published about 8 p.m. one weeknight less than three miles from my house. I was on the computer at the time, saw the email come in, slipped on my shoes and drove straight to the cache - and it had been found.

 

Then we began comparing notes and it turns out that they are getting their notification hours before I do.

 

Some of us have been comparing notes on what time the Insta-Notify email came in to our mailbox, and we're discovering receipt times measured in hours, in one case in days!

 

So, assuming that Groundspeak sends the notification email to all subscribers at once, what would make people with different services (I use RoadRunner Premier from BrightHouse Cable, (server bham.rr.com)) receive the email at such wildly staggered intervals?

 

I don't think it's RoadRunner; if I am talking to someone on the phone or in IM and they tell me "I just sent you an email" I get it within a minute or so.

 

I don't think it's Groundspeak; when I run a PQ I generally get it within 5 minutes or so.

 

What then makes Insta-Notify emails any different?

 

I am considering getting a PDA/phone and having the notifications sent to it, but won't make that investment if the notifications are not timely. No way I can be competitive in the FTF chase if another chaser gets the notification hours before I do!

 

Any suggestions on what I can do to get Insta-Notify email messages as soon as they are sent?

[+wiseye]

After comparing times with others, move in with the one who gets it first!

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

After comparing times with others, move in with the one who gets it first!

Ha! You just want to see a cacher get killed! After 32 years of marriage that's what would happen if I said "Honey, I think I will go live with Bamagirl for a while!"

[+Harriet the Spy]

sent you a pm

[+Cpt.Blackbeard]

My brother e-mailed me some info last summer and it took two weeks to reach me, I have no idea where it was for those two weeks, he only lives 3 miles away.

[+gof1]

Sent email.

[+Tallahassee Lassie]

I had an issue last weekend with this. I put in a new cache Saturday. It was published and notified okay, but all day Sunday and most of Monday---nothing. No emails of anything. I looked on my cache page and saw that it had been found. Then suddenly I received a bunch of notifications all at once, like a flood gate had opened. Weird.

[+VeryLost]

I am considering getting a PDA/phone and having the notifications sent to it, but won't make that investment if the notifications are not timely. No way I can be competitive in the FTF chase if another chaser gets the notification hours before I do!

Any suggestions on what I can do to get Insta-Notify email messages as soon as they are sent?

 

I agree that it's probably not a GC problem. My impression is that all email is getting flakier lately, probably due to the sheer volume of spam overloading email servers.

 

As an experiment, you might try setting up an identical notification that goes to an altogether different email service, just to see if it arrives faster. If you'd like a free email account, send me a message with your current email address and I'll send you a gmail invite.

 

There are other free services you could try as well, though I suspect that Google has the best hardware to accounts ratio, and thus should suffer least from spam volume.