Internal Notifications keep bouncing for users

Smart CRM & Sales Hub CRM
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We are currently in discussions with the HubSpot helpdesk on this issue, but as it has been ongoing for months, wanted to post here to see if anyone else is experiencing this.

We use workflows to issue internal notifications for our users, during busy periods hundreds can be sent each day. These notifications are vital for the correct running of our internal processes.

Several months ago we noticed that our workflows started to fail sending to random users, this was accompanied by an error saying the users did not have internal notifications enabled on their account. However, without fail, they always had this enabled correctly.

After some digging, HubSpot identified that the error we were being shown was misleading, and that the issue was actually that an email had bounced with an unknown user error response. As a result of this bounce, the workflows then supressed sending any further emails to the affected users. For clarity, none of the affected individuals should send unknown user responses, they are all current employees with correct email addresses set-up on HubSpot (their HubSpot Single Sign On access continues to work despite the apparent bounce issue).

The HubSpot helpdesk unbounced the user accounts for us (and continue to do this each time it recurs), and we went through checks our side suggested by HubSpot, including ensuring all HubSpot email addresses used for notifications etc were on our allowlists.

Oddly, we have been unable to locate any unknown user bounce responses going out from our side to HubSpot, yet HubSpot are definitely seeing this response coming from somewhere, as we have been provided copies of the details to try and trace what is happening.

Despite efforts to identify the cause of the issue, our users are continuing to see their accounts bounce, which is causing mayhem for our internal processes. I am personally now seeing my own account bounce at least once if not twice per month. I don’t get any sort of proactive error to tell me users have bounced either, it is down to us to spot that emails have failed, or check in manually on how our workflows are doing.

We have used internal notifications heavily for years now, and never had any problems with this in the past, so something somewhere must have changed, but no one seems to be able to identify where.

If you have had the same issues, have you found a way to resolve this?

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Hi @NDunderdale, I hope that you are well!
Thanks for reaching out to the HubSpot Community!
I’m sorry to hear about your experience regarding the workflow internal notifications being bounced.
I can see how this would cause disruption internally for you and how it can be frustrating.
I would like to apologize for the frustration, data issues, and business impact this has caused.
If you have been in touch with the Support Team, I guess that you have already read through this article “Not receiving HubSpot system or notification emails” but I put it here just in case.
I’d love to put you in touch with our Top Experts: Hi @franksteiner79, @karstenkoehler and @danmoyle do you have any thoughts on what could be causing this for @NDunderdale, please?

Have a great weekend and thanks so much in advance for your help!
Bérangère

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@BérangèreL Yes we are in contact with the helpdesk and our Customer Success Manager, and have referred to the article you have provided. All are being helpful, and are now very quick with un-bouncing our users when needed (it would be useful if we could unbounce them ourselves through the UI). It is just proving difficult to pin-point where the source of the issue is - our I&T have so far drawn blanks as to where these unknown user bounce notifications are originating from. My HubSpot account bounced again this week, on the morning of the 18th June with the unknown user error, yet we can see no record of this being sent out from our side - we have examined audits across all our security and email systems. I am hoping that perhaps someone else has had the same problem and has identified what is going on.

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Hi @NDunderdale and thanks for the additional information!
I looked internally and I can see that indeed, a colleague of yours opened several tickets with the Support Team and I can also see how this is frustrating, I am sorry.
So, the best next step here would be to open a new ticket with Support, and share the link to this Community post, and mention that not only you need to have help but you also need the Team to escalate this behavior to find the root cause of the issue, like @danmoyle mentions.
Then the Team will be able to look into this for you!
I have also shared this internally for more visibility.
I hope that you’ll get sorted soon!
Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you, I’d be delighted to do so!
Bérangère

5

I’ve ran into this same issue with internal notifications within a workflow and it has been escalated. They have unbounced our emails but it took a week for this to happen. I have also requested a call from a manager several times and have yet to receive one. I sent an email to our Growth Specialist the moment I realized there was an issue but that email has gone unanswered.

I have been extremely disappointed with the timliness and handling of this issue and am concerned this may happen again.

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Thanks or the tag @BérangèreL - but I don’t have anything to offer @NCantelo other than empathy. That has to be incredibly frustrating. I’m glad HubSpot is helping when it happens, but finding the root cause will be the best result. I wish I had more to offer!

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Hey @NCantelo , did you and your company ever figure out why? My company is currently having the same/similar issues and it’s made our processing slower than ever unfortunately. Any insights are greatly appreciated

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@CLarson13 unfortunately we have not got to the bottom of it, and are still regularly having to contact the helpdesk to unblock our users. Our I&T team simply cannot trace where the bounce notifications are coming from that HubSpot are receiving, our logs all shows successful deliveries to the user from HubSpot and then emails to the user from HubSpot just simply stop landing.

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Replying to say, “Me too”. So far only one user. Gets put on the bounce list, but nothing from our server indidcating we are rejecting the messages. Just started working with support, so no solution yet for us…

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Hi there, @DPapp - Wanted to first of all welcome you to HubSpot Community!
Jumping right in, I’ve pulled up some info on my end in regard to your Support ticket and am sending over a DM - please keep your eyes open for that if you’re still needing our support!
Kindly,
Seala, Community Manager

11

FWIW - found a second user not getting notifications. Had to have support unbounce that user.

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The only “fix” I have found is working with HubSpot support and having them manually clear the bounces from everyone affected. I was told by support that they’re not sure why it happened either, but they were friendly and quick to helping me, so I have no problem doing this again in the event it happens again. Best of luck!

13

We had it happen again. Yes, a chat with support fixes it, but our sales rep has missed many emails in the meantime. This should not be happening!

Why cant they have a mechanism at Hubspot to permanently allowlist our employees? Waiting for employees or a manager to notice that Hubspot has bounced them is not acceptable!

14

All, we did finally identified the issue and so far all is resolved. In our case, this was not a HubSpot issue in the end, but was due to some emails incorrectly overflowing to a legacy server which was then bouncing them. Our IT team fixed that and since then, no further issues.