Why does it take 30-60 minutes to receive email verification message?

[eljass]

Hey,

Why does it take 30-60 minutes to receive email verification message on other emails than gmail? If I register user with gmail account the email comes straight a way, but if I use other email account than gmail it takes 30 to 60 minutes to get that verification message? Why is that?

I'm using sendEmailVerification() function to send that message after signup and after email is changed by the user.

There is also StackOverflow question on this topic from yesterday (not asked by me) but I figure here is better chance to get answer sooner. StackOverflow question

[bojeil-google]

Hey @eljass this is due to some issue with SendGrid service which Firebase Auth uses to send emails (password reset, email verification, etc). In case you are still experiencing these delays, please file an issue there: https://firebase.google.com/support/

---

UPDATE: We are working on fixing this issue and are actively migrating to another email sending solution. In the mean time please use the workaround below.

WORKAROUND: If you would like reliable email delivery today you will need to set up Firebase auth to use a custom SMTP server:

• We recommend you setup an account with an Email Sending Platform (ESP) such as Mailgun (30,000 free emails/day), Mailjet (6,000 free emails/day) or SendGrid. As added value, these platforms will allow you to track your emails sending, delivery, open and click-through rates.
• If you have one, setup your ESP to use your custom domain name for domain of the email address you would like to send from.

• Open your application's Firebase Console > Authentication > Templates > SMTP Settings Click Enable and enter your ESP's SMTP server details and click Save:

  

Your email sending should not face any issue anymore.

We apologize about this issue.

[eljass]

Thanks, it now seems to work as expected.

[mazlanmohdnor]

I’m dealing with the same problem past few days, email verification got delays for about 1 hour.

[imranhadi]

Yeah mine also take about an hour to receive. Is this temporary or always like this?

[bojeil-google]

This is related to this issue which you can track here: https://status.firebase.google.com/incident/Authentication/17005

[tanvirshuvo]

I am experiencing the delay in email delivery, even though the firebase status regarding this issue (https://status.firebase.google.com/incident/Authentication/17005) says it's okay right now.

[mazlanmohdnor]

Yes, same goes to me , it's not consistent. Sometimes the email delivered immediately, sometimes got some delay.

[bojeil-google]

If anyone is still experiencing these delays, please file an issue there: https://firebase.google.com/support/ Firebase Auth team may need more information about the emails getting delays and the timestamps when the emails were sent.

[siburb]

Still happening to us. Have logged it with support.

[camden-kid]

This is a serious problem. It's the users first interaction with an app and can give the impression that there is a bug in the app and not continue to use it.

Sometimes the email arrives immediately and sometimes after 15-30 minutes.

Edit: I have contacted the Firebase team directly and sent them the full details of one of the emails that arrived with a delay and they are looking into it. This is a quote from the original response from the team:

Also, we are considering some other ways to send emails. One possibility is for Firebase to send emails through an SMTP server you may specify. Would you consider that or do you have other preferences?

Just want to put that out there for people to consider.

[bojeil-google]

I completely understand how serious this issue is and how frustrating it can be. I have relayed this issue once again to the relevant parties. You will have a more direct line and a dedicated channel with the Firebase Auth backend team, reporting this through Firebase Support.

[andyngdz]

This issue is still there. Why we have closed this issue without any fixes?

[zaro]

I am experiencing the same issue, with or w/o gmail email address.

[n3at18]

the issue is still active unfortunately (and blocker)

[adamburr100]

I am also suffering from this problem and it threatens the user-credibility of my app.

Is there an ETA on a fix yet?

[JP-bigfin]

I have also seen this problem this morning 12/4/2017. One confirmation email took over 45 minutes to send! This is serious issue and has already caused some headaches for my team as well as some of our users.

The link at: https://status.firebase.google.com/incident/Authentication/17005

Shows this has been resolved... it definitely has not. Filed issue with firebase support as well.

Would be nice if they uploaded a new status for this issue since it is definitely still a problem.

[adamburr100]

Seemed to work fine until a couple of weeks ago. Now so slow as to appear broken to users. Therefore it is of no value to me in its current state.

[siburb]

Any news @bojeil-google? The status is still apparently "Normal Operations" https://status.firebase.google.com/

[JP-bigfin]

This morning, 12/5/2017. I am not experiencing the delays anymore. Conf emails are coming across within 30 seconds of being sent. This one might be fixed but I'm not sure if I am 100% confident in saying that because the problem has seemed intermittent (at least for me).

[kristache]

It still happens from time to time, experienced it last week and now today. I've been waiting for 20 minutes for my confirmation email, still counting. This is a major issue, if the first contact of a lead is to wait 30-35 min to confirm his email it might mean losing him for good, plain wasted marketing effort.

[tpesce]

Still experiencing the long delays here too. Late yesterday the delays were 45-60 minutes, this morning around 20-30 minutes.

[dangell7]

Just had the same issue, emails took 2 hours to deliver. However, if I Request 3-4, I’ll get one right away. Isn’t there a way to do custom email? This failure is absolutely unacceptable and considering it’s a authentication issue, I would say that this should be a high priority.

[bojeil-google]

Hey guys, anyone experiencing these delays should reach out to Firebase Support. This is the best channel to help resolve this issue: https://firebase.google.com/support/ You will need to provide samples of email addresses affected, the average delay time and the timestamp the emails were sent.

[siburb]

@bojeil-google Unfortunately, most of us have already done that and are not having any luck that way. This is a public collection of people with this issue.

Has there been any progress? The status board still says there's no issue, and we get no updates, so it really seems like it isn't being taken nearly seriously enough.

[gmelcer]

I have the same issue. Causing us to need to switch to phone auth. Any updates on fixing this?

[sbauch]

If this issue can't be reliably fixed, can each verification link sent to the user remain valid?

I have a button for "Resend Confirmation". If a user taps that, and emails are delayed, then when the first arrives, it is unusable (invalid OOB code).

So the user has to keep waiting for the last email to arrive.

This is really hurting the experience at a critical moment in the a user lifecycle.

[kmcnellis]

People on this thread - Are you noticing any differences when using the same test account repeatedly, vs new accounts?

[lc-leoniefarmer]

I'm having this problem too. It is intermittent but occurs often.

[RbartovicS]

We are facing the issue with delayed verification e-mails too. This is a critical defect for us! Sometimes e-mail arrives instantly but very often there are huge delays (20-50min).

[sandralaglbauer]

We have the same problem, it takes about 15-60 minutes until the mail arrives. It is working fine with gmail accounts.

[mazlanmohdnor]

Next week is my fyp presentation, i really hope this problem can be resolve. Otherwise i cannot show the verification part of my application. I really need a backup plan for this. Sobs

[kevinhofmaenner]

I am having the same issue. Verification emails are taking 30 - 75 minutes!! This is a massive failure on the part of Firebase. Any solutions that actually work? As is, this is a show stopper and we will have to migrate away from Google/Firebase.

[gmelcer]

It takes some effort but you can move to Phone Auth and do the same process via txt message. We are planning to implement that. I really wish they would fix this.

[kmcnellis]

@everyone We just launched custom SMTP server setup in the console ("Authentication > Templates > SMTP settings"). You should try checking it out if you've been having email delivery issues!

[sbauch]

@kmcnellis some quick testing shows this to be more reliable!! thanks!

FWIW, I'm using mailjet and had trouble with TLS on port 587, so am using port 465 per their recommendation.

I might also mention that some of the console stuff is a bit confusing around this - I'm not sure how the "custom domains for email templates" impacts the SMTP settings, which supersedes, etc.

[siburb]

@kmcnellis Thanks for letting us know about this. Whilst it is great to have this as an option for those who need/want the customisation, it seems a real pity that we would have to use our own servers (or another service) when a lot of the reason why we're using Firebase is to avoid that. Also, the fact that we might be successful using another mail delivery service whereas Firebase are not is a little odd and disconcerting. I hope that this is therefore not seen as "the answer" to the problem when surely that should be your developers actually fixing the problem.

@sbauch question about I'm not sure how the "custom domains for email templates" impacts the SMTP settings, which supersedes, etc. is also very important before any of us can seriously consider using our own SMTP server in production.

[adamburr100]

Completely agree with Simon Burbage.

I chose Firebase because it had a comprehensive set of back-end services in one place. I don't have another mail server option in mind and want to use Firebase for this purpose.

Can we please have a "proper fix". If all that is needed is a working mail service it seems odd that this is taking so long.

Thanks

Adam

On 10 Jan 2018 03:11, "Simon Burbidge" notifications@github.com wrote:

@kmcnellis https://github.com/kmcnellis Thanks for letting us know about this. Whilst it is great to have this as an option for those who need/want the customisation, it seems a real pity that we would have to use our own servers (or another service) when a lot of the reason why we're using Firebase is to avoid that. Also, the fact that we might be successful using another mail delivery service whereas Firebase are not is a little odd and disconcerting. I hope this is therefore not seen as "the answer" to the problem when surely that should be your developers actually fixing the problem.

@sbauch https://github.com/sbauch question about I'm not sure how the "custom domains for email templates" impacts the SMTP settings, which supersedes, etc. is also very important before any of us can seriously consider using our own SMTP server in production.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/firebase/firebaseui-web/issues/234#issuecomment-356487130, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AfvVQyTCnd56pMCW9enPfEHDMa1CGSCxks5tJCpLgaJpZM4QKS-a .

[compojoom]

I agree with @siburb. The service should work in the first place - having the option should be something that we shouldn't use to circumvent issues...

Thanks for adding the option to the configuration, but can we also have a test email option with debug information on this screen? I'm using sparkpost and for some reason when I configure the smtp - I don't get any emails and I don't get any trace of a mail in sparkpost's dashboard.

When I use the sparkpost API in the cloud functions everything is fine. So right now I'm clueless as to why the smtp is not working.

[jjPlusPlus]

Is there anything the community can do to help with this issue? I'm using SMTP for now, but I'd like to someday move over to letting Firebase manage these emails.

@kmcnellis In addition to this, I'm looking for documentation on how to switch to using custom SMTP. I've configured the SMTP panel, is there anything else I need to update in my code? I'm using the [Web version] sendEmailVerification method, and monitoring logs from the Mandrill side but there are no records in their API logs. The emails are no longer being sent at all- despite the sendEmailVerification returning a 200.

[kristache]

Nevertheless, I think adding this option is a step forward. We had case of 30-60min delays for messages in the sign-up process, I'm glad that at least now we can see what it's happening with the delivery.

Still, I don't quite get how to set a proper Sender name while using our SMTP, having sign-up emails coming from someone called "office" or "contact" is quite annoying :) Does anyone have any hints on this?

Thanks!

On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 1:38 AM, Jj Medina notifications@github.com wrote:

Is there anything the community can do to help with this issue? I'm using SMTP for now, but I'd like to someday move over to letting Firebase manage these emails.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/firebase/firebaseui-web/issues/234#issuecomment-357097259, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAOSiDJ8V1F9CebhEUKlchlNNYFHYC80ks5tJpt-gaJpZM4QKS-a .

[kmcnellis]

@jjPlusPlus You should first do a check on your SMTP config. You can use Telnet or any online tool (e.g. https://www.smtper.net/) to test it.

When you do, set the sender address to a real inbox, so that you can receive any bounce emails.

[varungupta85]

I also ran into this problem. Using my gmail ID for now to send out the email since I am still in development phase. I would really like to see this fixed. I wouldn't mind paying the standard rate per email because I don't want to maintain my own SMTP server or a separate service.

[smhk]

This is an absolute blockbuster problem. Firebase is now simply a non-starter, due to this. We implement startups for clients in the $1m - $2m range. The two current early stage projects in the pipe, we are now changing away from Firebase. It's that simple unfortunately. Firebase is now a non-starter.

However it's very important to note that, FIREBASE MAKE IT TRIVIAL TO CHANGE TO USING ANOTHER EMAIL SERVER for sending email ...........

I only learned this myself after talking with the helpful FB crew, well, after complaining bitterly to the helpful FB crew....

it takes 30 seconds to change to your own mail server ... totally easy

[Gillinghammer]

Just wanted to hop in here and say I'm also experiencing a long delay in receiving the password reset email.

[ceac13]

We just released our application on Play Store, we had several interviews about it and we receive a huge amount of user trying to make your first login but they aren't receiving the confirmation email. There's a lot of 1 star ratings because that. It's very frustrating, we spend a lot of time development the best app possible to get very bad rating because the firebase can not send emails with an acceptable time...

I don't recommend Firebase.

[smhk]

Hey @ceac13 and @Gillinghammer - like you we found this to be a breaker,

in fact as I mention above we were moving a client away because of this,

however - I did not realize it's actually trivial to just change the email server used, to send the email -

like, I literally used at first for a test just my own ordinary email server, i.e. I opened settings on my iphone and copied the name of the server and my passwd!!

Of course, you can get a $2 account from sendgrid, godaddy or whatever to send email instantly.

1. At first I was absolutely furious with Firebase that they can't send email

2. Then I was over the moon kissing ass since it is so easy to change email servers

3. Then again I was really furious, because, people have been complaining about this for a year, surely, Firebase should have more clearly yelled out "oh just press the button to change email server!"

Heh!

Important - we verified very carefully, that, the part "done by Firebase" is blazing, it happens instantly. If you use say a sendgrid account, you can clearly watch the email request arriving at sendgrid, as I say instantly (thanks Firebase), and then the only delay is the usual few seconds or whatever that your email server takes. If there was a delay in FBase's system, before, requesting the email, we'd all be screwed. But no, it's instant.

[adamburr100]

There is still no explanation for why Google have not fixed this yet. (The email server thing is a workaround not a fix. And it isn't even a viable workaround for everyone.)

On 7 Feb 2018 18:14, "SMHK" notifications@github.com wrote:

Hey @ceac13 https://github.com/ceac13 and @Gillinghammer https://github.com/gillinghammer - like you we found this to be a breaker,

in fact as I mention above we were moving a client away because of this,

however - I did not realize it's actually trivial to just change the email server used, to send the email -

like, I literally used at first for a test just my own ordinary email server, i.e. I opened settings on my iphone and copied the name of the server and my passwd!!

[image: screenshot] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/3938526/35933396-270d2894-0c00-11e8-82b7-b6c7de36a685.png

Of course, you can get a $2 account from sendgrid, godaddy or whatever to send email instantly.

1.

At first I was absolutely furious with Firebase that they can't send email 2.

Then I was over the moon kissing ass since it is so easy to change email servers 3.

Then again I was really furious, because, people have been complaining about this for a year, surely, Firebase should have more clearly yelled out "oh just press the button to change email server!"

Heh!

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/firebase/firebaseui-web/issues/234#issuecomment-363860021, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AfvVQ0Hp9itXrcpabuJq_vQrb2d4pH-Kks5tSegVgaJpZM4QKS-a .

[bojeil-google]

Firebase Auth has always valued its developers and aimed to provide the best service to them. Once again, we apologize if you have encountered delays in our email delivery. The issue has always been due to some change in a third party email service provider which Firebase Auth used for email delivery, a service which we have no control over. Since then, we have been actively working on migrating to a new service which requires a lot of time and effort to complete. We really appreciate your understanding and patience on this issue.

[jeffminsungkim]

I'm still experiencing the problem and sometimes when I clicked the given link, it throws the following error below:

Error 503 first byte timeout

first byte timeout

Guru Mediation:

Details: cache-hnd18734-HND 1518072219 3756878893

---

Varnish cache server

[smhk]

that would seem to be a different unrelated problem, @jeffminsungkim. maybe start a new issue?