Guild Wars 2

Gaile, just to add regarding G-mail. The recent update to the G-mail inbox has my Anet e-mails going to the “Promotions” tab in the main folder. Players should also look there, in addition to Junk/Spam/Deleted.

Cox communications has been placing legitimate email from guildwars2@ncsoft.com in their spam folder as well.

I find Yahoo mail puts the emails from guildwar2@ncsoft.com in the spam folder,now, as well. I used to get the newsletter delivered to my in-box with no problems. Now, it’s considered spam. I have never received any phishing emails, so that’s not the reason.

Wanted to say that i don’t get any emails. I checked everywhere in my mailbox and i don’t get anything.
I use outlook that was first hotmail.
This started with every time i bought gems that i didn’t got anything that said i bought them even though they where added to my account.
Now that my internet changed i couldn’t get into my account because i didn’t get any email of the Authentication system.
The support helped me to get into my account again. But the problem with not getting emails is still there.

From my experience as a mail admin working with different ISPs, I can almost guarantee what the issue is. Many ISPs allow users to report messages as spam. There are a large number of fake emails being sent that claim to come from a valid anet address. Users will report these fake emails as spam. The filters in use at most ISPs cannot tell the difference between a legitimate email and a fake one, they only look at the “from” address.
In this situation the real emails are being lumped in with the fake, because there are more fakes and they are being reported. This is next to impossible to correct unless Anet can work directly with ISPs, which is a monumental undertaking in itself as most ISPs will not work with anyone.

To actually get around this is to place arenanet or ncsoft on the permissiable list, personally i haven’t seen any of guildwars 2 or any ncsoft newletters, or anything go into the promotions folder in gmail. Also though i always look in the inbox with my phone. So i always see it there but there is a regular ALL mail inbox then a important only inbox which in turns removes and seperates into promotions spam etc etc.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I find Yahoo mail puts the emails from guildwar2@ncsoft.com in the spam folder,now, as well. I used to get the newsletter delivered to my in-box with no problems. Now, it’s considered spam. I have never received any phishing emails, so that’s not the reason.

Question for you, as I’m trying to track this issue: Have you received any phishing emails which you flagged as “spam?” One theory is that since the ISP cannot determine which emails using our address are legitimate as opposed to fake, once someone flags any email from us, or from someone pretending to be us, then all subsequent mails are flagged as spam.

No, as I said in the original post, I have never received a phishing email, nor do I use my mail email address as my game account email address. Never received even one piece of any kind of mail to that address, as it was specifically created for the GW2 game account.

Gaile,

I can confirm your ymail rumour. Receiving arenanet mail in your spam folder is happening a lot and when you mark it as “not spam” you stop getting emails from arenanet altogether as had happened to support ticket #20777.

Wanted to update about this issue. On the 30th of October, I received the usual update/patch release newsletter in my regular Yahoo email in-box. No problem this time.

I can confirm the rumour, i received some mails from ANET on my Spam tab (Outlook), but since i flagged them as NOT Spam i haven’t received any mail…

Extra info: The e-mail that i use for this game haven’t received any Phishing email before, and the only mail that i haven’t received since that day is from the authenticator… i was able to get some mails from support in the week from 23 to 28 of October.

Regards.

I’m having the same problem too. It’s not anywhere on my mail (Yahoo). I was able to log on my account by linking my boyfriend’s cellphone to my account (his network was already saved). For some reason the authenticator app won’t work on MY phone.

I sent in a ticket and replies from the support team seem to be going through fine (even though support wasn’t much help). However, I’m also failing to receive any “reset your password” emails. So in the end it seems like nothing works…

This is only a temporary fix for me, since my IP changes every time I reset my router (for X or Y reason), so I keep on having to authenticate myself over and over again. Please help

My ticket was 20777 mentioned above. Support eventually disabled my email authentication so that I can at least log in.

However, the issue with Yahoo not receiving authentication emails – once the user has been unfortunate enough to mark one as “not spam” – seems to persist. Yahoo has long since stopped sending me any useful information, except to insist that the postmaster at guildwars2.com should contact them directly at the following URL so that the two parties can resolve the matter between themselves:
https://io.help.yahoo.com/ (select product “mail”, and so on)

Can somebody please advise as to the status of investigations (if any) into this matter between Yahoo (and other troublesome email providers, for that matter) and Arenanet? Removing email authentication from one’s account is clearly not an ideal long-term solution so it would be good if this underlying issue could be resolved shortly. (Another option would be to change the email address associated with one’s account, but there doesn’t seem to be any obvious way to do this?)

P.S. Just in case it helps anybody: If you’re in the habit of using the “remember this network” option when you authenticate an IP address, you may still have a range of authorised IP addresses saved. You could therefore check your email for, say, your most recent successfully received authentication email and somehow try to get your ISP to temporarily set you up on an IP address in the appropriate range. My ISP refused to do this, so in the six days it took support to disable my authentication, I tried resetting my router hundreds of times in the hope that a useable IP would come up (I estimate that this had about a 1 in 1000 chance of success, but I wasn’t lucky enough to get it to work). Just putting it out there in case it saves somebody a week-long headache.

Yeah I use yahoo as well, and after clicking “not spam”, I no longer receive the authentication mails. Only option is the remove the authentication, until the problem is fixed.

Hxcgeminix.2501:

Yeah I use yahoo as well, and after clicking “not spam”, I no longer receive the authentication mails. Only option is the remove the authentication, until the problem is fixed.

Another option is to contact support and change the email to one that’s not having this problem. That way you can keep the authentication, which is a powerful tool to block hackers.

This problem is really crucial, because so many people are having this authentication issue with the “not spam”. I hope it is fixed soon. :[

However, the issue with Yahoo not receiving authentication emails – once the user has been unfortunate enough to mark one as “not spam” – seems to persist. Yahoo has long since stopped sending me any useful information, except to insist that the postmaster at guildwars2.com should contact them directly at the following URL so that the two parties can resolve the matter between themselves:
https://io.help.yahoo.com/ (select product “mail”, and so on)

Yeah I messaged Yahoo as well, and I got the same response after 5 emails. My ticket is Authentication Issue (request #31946)

Gaile Gray.6029:

One person reported that marking an email in the spam folder as “Not spam” caused it to disappear and he then was not able to get any of our mails, even in the spam folder. That’s just one incident, and maybe it was unique to that player, but dang!

This issue is not limited to just one person, as I am experiencing this problem as well. Furthermore, I am no longer able to log in to the game. I have sent a ticket in, but not being able to get emails from ArenaNet, I’m not sure what good that ticket will do.

Was the SPF record for the support emails ever fixed Gaile? Last time I had a ticket open the support emails were soft-failing the SPF check – and this may be why its getting dumped into spam.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/forum/SPF-record-for-support-email-incorrect

Received-SPF: softfail (transitioning domain of guildwars2.com does not designate 216.136.162.124 as permitted sender)

That is the error in the header for the support email indicating that there is a problem with the SPF record.

the following is the result of the SPF check on the last promotional email sent out (Tyria Needs Your Help! Tower of Nightmares Begins Today)

Received-SPF: pass (domain of returnpath.bluehornet.com designates 67.216.226.243 as permitted sender)

OK

I just sent an email to the ticketing system (#49608 you can close it) and checked the header of the return email:

Received-SPF: softfail (transitioning domain of guildwars2.com does not designate 50.57.4.208 as permitted sender)

The support emails are still failing the SPF check. This should get resolved and should help clear up a lot of the fraud flags!

Whoever is in charge of setting up the SPF record for guildwars2.com needs to correct it to allow those servers to send mail on behalf of guildwars2.com.

Let me know when you guys/gals get the SPF record fixed and ill drop a retest to verify.

Bumped to page one as I’m seeing several posts about email problems.

Ok I did a little research in my spare time and the following will fix the SPF record for guildwars2.com
From:

guildwars2.com. IN TXT "v=spf1 include:mailgun.org include:bluehornet.com  ~all"

guildwars2.com. IN TXT "v=spf1 include:mailgun.org include:bluehornet.com include:zdsys.com ~all"

I don’t know how much you guys have control over the domain/DNS though. Wish you luck.

I recently went through a slew of hurdles due to my email account not receiving either authentication or support emails. I can make note of a couple things:

1. I was using Yahoo, I had flagged an authentication email as “not spam” which did indeed cause me to stop receiving those messages.
2. I submitted the issue and did get a response, I was told I would be bumped to a Senior Representative. After that, however, I stopped getting any emails from support as well.
3. I read this post and switch to gmail to submit again. It all worked out, and the agent apparently disabled authentication on my account so I could finally play again. If not for that, I doubt the problem would be fixed.

I know it isn’t much, but it is something at least, hope something in there helps!

I noticed the SPF record for guildwars2.com was fixed today.

Mail sent from this IP address: 50.57.4.208
Mail from (Sender): guildwars2.com

Results – PASS sender SPF authorized

Good job getting that addressed. now hopefully the ISP’s will eventually refresh their DNS and start letting it through SPF validation.

test ticket header:
Received-SPF: pass (domain of guildwars2.com designates 50.57.4.210 as permitted sender)

A friend is having this exact same issue as flyVing.5341. He has not heard back from support in over 2 days and asked me to see if he can get some assistance here.

His support number is: Ticket#66311 and IGN: The Ultimate Broski.9832 Disabling account authentication would be extremely appreciated!

Gaile Gray.6029:

DonCorleoneCS.3549:

A friend is having this exact same issue as flyVing.5341. He has not heard back from support in over 2 days and asked me to see if he can get some assistance here.

His support number is: Ticket#66311 and IGN: The Ultimate Broski.9832 Disabling account authentication would be extremely appreciated!

We cannot do this via a forum request, especially by proxy. And asking for a review is premature. Post in the Tickets for Review if he has not heard back in three days or more.

Tomorrow will be the 3rd day, however he can not log into the forums to post as it is stating he needs to open the authentication email which he is not receiving and there is no way to have it resent.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Draygo.9473:

I noticed the SPF record for guildwars2.com was fixed today.

Mail sent from this IP address: 50.57.4.208
Mail from (Sender): guildwars2.com

Results – PASS sender SPF authorized

Good job getting that addressed. now hopefully the ISP’s will eventually refresh their DNS and start letting it through SPF validation.

test ticket header:
Received-SPF: pass (domain of guildwars2.com designates 50.57.4.210 as permitted sender)

To be honest, there is a difference of opinion about whether that change will fully solve the problem, but we’re hoping!!

Yeah, it might not fully solve it but it should help. And of course it takes a while for mail servers to react to changes like this and you still have to fight your way off spamlists/blacklists.

I’m positive it will lead to the removal of the fraud flag from the Microsoft servers at minimum.

I’ve had this problem for 10 days. I have been watching this thread, hoping that the issue would be resolved and that I would be able to login, but no luck. Finally tonight, I gave up and asked support to remove email authentication.

For folks in my boat (and there may be a lot), until we throw away the safety net of email authentication, this thread is the only source of info. There really should be more info from ArenaNet here.

So criticisms to ArenaNet:

• You’re the ones who should have recognized and posted about the SKU issue. Instead, Draygo was the one to find it.
• Having been informed about it, you should have been reporting progress on it. Instead days go by with no progress report. Again, its Draygo who reports that it has been fixed (but is that for all email?). More time goes by before you answer that, and still there’s no real detail from you about what was fixed.
• Several people have reported that after badgering yahoo for a bit, the only response that they get is that the email sender postmaster (i.e. you) needs to contact the yahoo postmaster. I’ve seen no indication from you that you’ve done so. That should have happened days ago (at least) and we should be seeing regular reports on that in this thread.

Again, this thread is where you can talk to people who can’t login because of these issues. There should be a lot more info here and it should be updated more frequently.

Another ArenaNet issue: Throwing away the authentication safety net is not something that we do lightly. But I finally do that tonight, going to the recovery page. I enter my information, and it verifies and… the button to disable authentication is grayed out. I try closing my browser and trying again. I try using a different browser. No go again. Its frustrating to be directed by knowledgebase to do something… and then to find that option unavailable. (I’m only in now, because your customer service rep disabled authentication after a couple of email exchanges.)

Now some details on my situation, in hopes that will help solve this or help someone else:

• I’m on yahoo mail with a “disposable” email address that I use ONLY for communication/logging in with ArenaNet.
• The last authic notice that I received from ArenaNet was dated 05 Nov 2013 05:25:38 -0000 (UTC). The next one that I should have received would have been dated an hour or two after that. (I’m wondering if issues for other yahoo users began at exactly the same time.)
• Re: “Click Not Spam breaks it theory”… I’m not sure. I know I clicked the “Not Spam” several times on one mail around that date, but I’m not sure it was an ArenaNet authentication mail. I will note, that when I clicked it, it did NOT move out of the spam folder (as I was expecting). I clicked it several times, then surprised that it did not auto-move, manually moved it back to the in box. (Again, I’m not sure this was the ArenaNet mail.)
• SPF The SPF from the last Authent message before they stopped arriving:
  Received-SPF: pass (domain of guildwars2.com designates 174.37.226.90 as permitted sender)
• The only GW2 email I’ve received after that date from ArenaNet was the “Face the Nightmares” promo email. However, that comes from a different email address than the authentication emails come from. (Actually it comes from guildwars2@ncsoft.com vs. noreply@guildwars2.com for the authentication emails — so it doesn’t from the same domain name.)

Questions that Occur to Me:

• Clearly yahoo is having particularly bad problems, since we’re not getting emails at all. However, is the “spam” issue resolved for other email providers (gmain, etc.)?
• Is it affecting ALL yahoo email accounts? Or just some? (Keep in mind that people with fixed addresses won’t see the issue until their IP changes to an previously un-authenticated address.
• Did the mail cease appearing at the same time for all yahoo users? (I can nail the time down to within an hour due to my logins.)
• Is the “Not Spam” thing consistent for all yahoo users? (Again, I’m not whether or not this was the case for me.)
• Is the disposable address consistent for all affected yahoo users? Probably only a small percentage of yahoo users use this feature. We can be recognized by email addresses of the form “xxxx-yyyy@yahoo.com” — its the dash in the middle that is the indicator.

Comments on Yahoo:

• Having spent a week trying to get them to do something about this, I’m not encouraged. There’s about day lag time in their replies, and their replies seem to be form responses. There was never an indication that they actually read any of my mail — could have been bot only responses as far as i could tell.
• I’m considering dropping them because of their failure to deliver mail. But that would be a huge pain in the butt to do (and I’m not that thrilled over alternatives). So I would like to know where the problem actually is — on their end, or on ArenaNet’s end?

@Wreave…I use the ‘disposable’ e-mail address from yahoo, and my address has no dash in it. Not sure why you think they all do.

I wonder if the problems with yahoo started when they changed to this ‘new and improved’ e-mail. It seems the issues started about the same time. No notice on the change, just one day open mail service and it’s all different. It takes a bit of getting used to.

@Inculpatus: http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&y=PROD_MAIL_ML&locale=en_US&id=SLN3523

Disposable addresses consist of a “base name” and a “keyword” and appear as: [base name]-[keyword]@yahoo.com.

So all yahoo disposable emails should have a ‘-’ in the email address (unless there has been a change that has not been documented on the help page). Disposable addresses are setup under Settings: Securing on yahoo email.

@Inculpatus: Did authentication requests stop showing up for you? Or was it just that the mail was going into the wrong folder? If your email does not have a ‘-’ in it, yet you still had authentication emails disappearing, then that means that it isn’t the ‘-’ itself that is messing something up.

Re “new and improved” You can switch to a basic version by going to Setting: Viewing Email: Mail Version" But its not the same as “classic” yahoo view. I tried switching to Basic mode to see if it made any difference on authentication, but it did not.

However, they also now have more free (aka ad supported). This did not itself cause an issue for me (I’m paid mail plus yahoo user, and the yahoo change to more free email happened well before I started having difficulties with receiving anet email). However, it they’re doing more free email service, they may have started filtering spam more aggressively.

My email account I use with GW2 is a yahoo account and ive had no issues receiving mail from gw2 support.

One caveat though is I do not have arenanet send me mail very often to that account (only a handful of support inqueries, and a few auth).

I do feel that at this point its in yahoo’s court with getting the emails through. It is possible that they have some sort of account level blacklisting for emails. The odd thing is my yahoo account is receiving support emails just fine, while other people are not – which to me is strange. So it has to be affecting a block of yahoo accounts and not all yahoo accounts.

Are the yahoo accounts with the issue all mail+ accounts? Are there any specific features on your account that may be contributing?

Make sure you double check your blocked addresses list in your yahoo account settings and verify that guildwars2.com is not there.

I created a ticket 3 days ago (request #69855) because I need to reset my password. Support responded immediately and I forwarded all my details as requested by support and then I was totally ignored for days. I created the second ticket (request #74802) and pasted all my previous emails into it. I received the usual automated response but nothing more.
It has now been 3 days since I have heard anything from support and I am locked out of my game. How long does it take them to reset my password? They either do that or they can issue me with a full refund. Why am
I being ignored?
I am using Gmail and all emails come through correctly.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Wreave and IC – Thanks for these insights. I’m following the discussion with interest. We don’t have much insight into Yahoo as users, so your experiences are of value to us in what works, what doesn’t work, etc.

Thank you. But we still don’t have info from you as to what you’ve done with respect to contacting yahoo’s postmaster. For those of us who have contacted yahoo, their last (semi) useful response is that this needs to be sorted out between you and yahoo. How is that progressing?

There is info that you can determine/provide:

• Progress on discussion with Yahoo postmaster. Are you stuck in form mail hell with them or are you making progress?
• Is the problem with yahoo mail users affecting ALL of your yahoo mail users? I.e. have you continued to receive successful authentications from at least some yahoo mail users? If not, how long has it been since the last one?
• For affected players are you sure that the authentication mail is going out from you? (I.e. there may be something internal on your side which is preventing the mail from going out. Or perhaps its going to the wrong email address.)
• Is that SKU thing correct for the mail that is going out?

There are some things that your tech department could actively check out for affected users:

• Trying different yahoo email addresses
• Trying different non-email addresses.
  As I mentioned in my report, I’m willing to help with these.

Also, there’s the issue of the “Remove Email Verification” button being grayed out an unselectable when I tried that. What’s up with that? Is it intentional on your end? (In which case some explanation “e.g. Must be logged in in order to remove email verification” should be on the page. If its an error, then it should be fixed.