Introduction. Sometimes people have trouble sending, seeing and receiving their messages in Google Groups. This unofficial troubleshooting guide gives some tips on how you might be able solve those problems. Reporting a problem. If you report a problem on the Google Groups forum about having trouble sending and seeing your messages, some information might help the group regulars or Google employees to figure out the problem, so you might want to tell the following information: Can you or anyone else post or see messages sent to a particular group? Are you using an email client program (for example Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.) or an email service (for example Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.) to email the messages. Or are you using the Google Groups web interface to post messages? If you are using the Google Groups web interface, which web browser are you using (for example Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, etc.)? Do you get any error messages, and if so, what are they exactly? Emailing messages. If you send an email message to the email address of a group, check that you send that email message from an email address that is used as a member (or manager or owner) of that group. Also, check that the group email address is correct. If you are using file attachments, make sure that the size of the email message (including the file attachments) is no more than 1 MB in size (which seems to be the current size limit at the moment). File system and encoding issues may lower the actual size limit of a message (including file attachments). If you are trying to send a simple small email message with no file attachments, then maybe there is something wrong with your email service provider or your internet service provider. Sometimes email service provider may block email messages from a certain internet domain if a lot of spam messages are sent from that internet domain. If you are using an email client program or an email service, check it's settings. If you are using a forwarding/vacation setting or a spam filter with your email client program/service, that can cause problems, so check your spam/junk mail box and also the email address you are using to forward your messages to/from. Security software such as firewalls may prevent you from sending email messages, so check the settings of your security software. If you are trying to send email from work, maybe there is a computer/company firewall or other settings that do not allow you to send email messages with every email service to every internet domain, in which case you may need to contact the system/network administrator. Posting messages using the Google Groups web interface. If you are using the correct email address, make sure the email address you are using is a member/manager/owner of that group. Make sure the email address you are using is not moderated, removed (unsubscribed) or banned. To see the settings for the email address you are using with a group, go to the main page of that group and sign in to Google Groups (if you haven't already). Then look on the right hand side of the page. If you see a link "Join this group" then you probably are not a member of that group, so click that link to join that group. If you are a manager or owner of that group, then click the "Management tasks" link. Then click the "Manage members" link. Search for the email address you are using (the search box should be at the bottom of the page next to the "Find member" button, which you need to click after you have typed the email address). Click the "Edit" link on the same line that mentions your email address. If the setting is "Member's posts are moderated" then you are moderated and you need to approve each message you post. If the setting is "Member is not allowed to post" then you can not post messages. Change the setting to "Member is allowed to post" if you want to post messages and without being moderated. Check the group settings. If you are the manager or owner of the group, go to the main page of that group, sign in to Google Groups (if you haven't already), click the "Group settings" link on the right hand side of the page. Click the "Access" link quite at the top of the page. If the setting "Who can post messages?" is "Managers only" then only managers can post to that group. If you are using the setting "All messages are held for moderation" then all messages need to be approved first. Now click the "Email delivery" link quite at the top of the page. If the setting "Replies are sent to the whole group" is not used, then your group might not receive any messages. Check the settings of the members of the group. If you are the manager or owner of the group, go to the main page of that group, sign in to Google Groups (if you haven't already), click the "Management tasks" link on the right hand side of the page. Click the "Manage members" link quite at the top of the page. Look at the "Delivery" column. If the setting is "No Email" then person will not receive messages emailed or posted to that group. When you invited/added that member you may have used other than the "No Email" setting, but each member of the group may change their delivery settings if they wish to do so. Other members. If a group has many managers, maybe one of them has changed some critical settings in the group, so check the group settings mentioned above. Or maybe a manager has accidentally changed the email delivery settings for a member or even removed/banned that member, so the check the settings for a member who has problems in sending, receiving or seeing messages. Moderated group. If the group is moderated (uses the "All messages are held for moderation" setting), your messages won't appear until the group owner or manager approves your messages. All the managers of the group may be on a vacation, in which case it may take days or even weeks before anyone checks the moderation queue of the group and approves messages. One possibility is that a manager may have accidentally removed your messages and if you suspect that is the case, then you might want to contact the group owner of the group by going to the main page of the group and by clicking the "About this group" link and then the "Send email to the owner" link (or send email to the group address, which should be shown on that "About" page). Private group. If the group is private (uses the "Only members can view group content" setting), then only members who are signed in can view the contents of the group using the Google Groups web interface. Invitation-only group. If the group is invitation-only group (uses the "People have to be invited" or "People can request an invitation to join" setting) you need to be invited to that group (and then you need to accept that invitation) before you can post messages to that group. Automatic spam filtering. Sometimes the automatic spam filtering system in Google Groups marks some messages as "Message may be spam" so if you are the manager or owner of the group, go to the main page of that group, sign in to Google Groups (if you haven't already), click the "Management tasks" link, click the "Review pending messages" and see if your message is in the moderation queue. Invited and added members. If a person who is trying to post a message has been invited to the group by using the group's invitation function, that person needs to accept the invitation before that person begins to receive messages emailed or posted to the group. If a person has accepted the invitation to the group or has been added to the group, that person may post messages to the group via email but if that person wants to post messages to the group using the Google Groups web interface, that person needs to create a Google account for that person's current email address to be able to post messages using the Google Groups web interface. If a person who has been tried to be invited/added to a group already has a Google account, that person might be using the Google Groups settings "Do not allow group managers to invite me to their groups" and "Do not allow group managers to directly add me to their groups" in which case that person can not be invited or added to the group and he will not receive messages emailed or posted to the group, because only group members can receive messages sent to the group. Problems in Google Groups. If Google Groups servers have problems, sometimes it can take hours or even days for some or all the messages to appear to the discussion section of the group and emailed to the group members. You may need to post the same message again if you see for example a "Server Error" or "Oops" (or similar) message when you are using the Google Groups web interface to post a message. With any discussion service it's wise to save your messages to a text file before pressing the "Post message" (or similar) button, in case the discussion service is encountering problems, your internet connection disconnects, your web browser hangs, etc. Gmail's Inbox. Gmail has a feature where you might not see your messages in your Inbox if you have sent messages to yourself or to a discussion service: "Mail you send or forward to a mailing list you subscribe to, or to an account that forwards messages to your Gmail account, will only appear in 'Sent Mail.' This is intended to help prevent clutter in your inbox. If a message isn't successfully delivered, you'll receive an error message in your inbox."http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10314Cookies and cache. Sometimes cookies get corrupted and cause problems when using the Google Groups web interface, so try deleting your cookies for Google. Your web browser's cache may be full and cause problems, so try emptying your browser cache: http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=497&topic=8998 See also these help pages: http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=46491&topic=9253http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=46490&topic=9253http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=502 If the above instructions didn't help, then it might be a bug in Google Groups. If you don't want to mention your group in the forum (so other people can take a look at it), contact the Google Groups team using the below feedback form: http://groups.google.com/support/bin/request.py P.S. Google's services have the habit of changing, so for example the text used in the links mentioned above may change or the help pages mentioned above may disappear, so the above instructions may be partly or entirely outdated in the future.
Last modified: February 18, 2007
Author: Tomi Häsä (tomi.hasa@gmail.com)
URL: http://sites.google.com/site/tomihasa/google-groups-sending-messages