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April 28, 2010 7:25 AM Subscribe
Facebook hates my e-mail address. They're haunting me. They say my address is non-valid. How do I get past their automatic systems and fix this problem?
Every other day i receive a message from facebook that my e-mail address is not valid and asking me to reconfirm. I've had my address for 15 years and it's fine. I've tried e-mailing their problem desk but they say they do not respond to individual replies. How can I alert them to their error?
Every other day i receive a message from facebook that my e-mail address is not valid and asking me to reconfirm. I've had my address for 15 years and it's fine. I've tried e-mailing their problem desk but they say they do not respond to individual replies. How can I alert them to their error?
Are you sure the message is actually coming from Facebook, and not some phishing scam? If Facebook thinks your email address isn't valid, why are they sending messages to it?
posted by mkultra at 7:28 AM on April 28, 2010
posted by mkultra at 7:28 AM on April 28, 2010
Facebook accepts multiple email addresses. Perhaps it'll stop bugging you if you make a throwaway webmail address, use that as the default but have the notifications sent to your "real" one. Or just have the throwaway one forward you all the Facebook mail.
posted by griphus at 7:28 AM on April 28, 2010
posted by griphus at 7:28 AM on April 28, 2010
Sorry I don't have an answer for you, but I am having the exact same problem. It is probably them and not us.
It seems to go away for a few days as long as I tell them to reconfirm my original address and then click the link in the message they send me. I assume you have been doing that.
posted by soelo at 7:28 AM on April 28, 2010
It seems to go away for a few days as long as I tell them to reconfirm my original address and then click the link in the message they send me. I assume you have been doing that.
posted by soelo at 7:28 AM on April 28, 2010
Facebook has 400 million users, so getting any kind of personal attention for your issue is, sadly, unlikely.
I suggest setting up a free GMail or Yahoo Mail account and just set it to automatically forward to your regular address so you never have to check it. Once you have an account, Facebook will let you change the email address associated with it, however I think that will run the same validity test that's currently blocking you.
FWIW, the email address doesn't play much of a role in your Facebook membership. If you set up a username, you can log in with that instead (just type it in the "email" login field, it'll work).
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 7:33 AM on April 28, 2010
I suggest setting up a free GMail or Yahoo Mail account and just set it to automatically forward to your regular address so you never have to check it. Once you have an account, Facebook will let you change the email address associated with it, however I think that will run the same validity test that's currently blocking you.
FWIW, the email address doesn't play much of a role in your Facebook membership. If you set up a username, you can log in with that instead (just type it in the "email" login field, it'll work).
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 7:33 AM on April 28, 2010
If Facebook has any clue at all, they test validity by sending a message to the address and expecting you to follow a personalized link back to their web service. Once you close the loop, they should call it valid. That's the only test that works.
I suggest checking your spam filters before you try to get a human on the phone.
posted by cmiller at 7:49 AM on April 28, 2010
I suggest checking your spam filters before you try to get a human on the phone.
posted by cmiller at 7:49 AM on April 28, 2010
TWPL, the OP already has an account. We just get this grey box at the top of the screen saying that our email is no longer valid, so please provide a valid one. It hasn't stopped me from using FB, but I think if I let it go too long it probably would.
posted by soelo at 7:51 AM on April 28, 2010
posted by soelo at 7:51 AM on April 28, 2010
I too have this issue, on the feed page it says "Our systems have detected that [email address] is no longer a valid email. Facebook requires all users to maintain an active contact email. Please enter and confirm a new contact email below"
I've done the reconfirm thing a couple times, but it does indeed keep coming back, so I've decided to just ignore it.
posted by borkencode at 7:53 AM on April 28, 2010
I've done the reconfirm thing a couple times, but it does indeed keep coming back, so I've decided to just ignore it.
posted by borkencode at 7:53 AM on April 28, 2010
Oh sorry, didn't realize you already had an account, I thought you were trying to create one.
It seems Facebook has a special form for reporting this particular problem, so your best bet is to start there.
Also, there seems to be a Greasemonkey script to remove the nag box if you can't get it to go away through the proper channels. Unfortunately, userscripts.org seems to be down at the moment. Google's got it cached but you can't get to the script itself from that page. Maybe check back in a few hours (or days)?
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:04 AM on April 28, 2010
It seems Facebook has a special form for reporting this particular problem, so your best bet is to start there.
Also, there seems to be a Greasemonkey script to remove the nag box if you can't get it to go away through the proper channels. Unfortunately, userscripts.org seems to be down at the moment. Google's got it cached but you can't get to the script itself from that page. Maybe check back in a few hours (or days)?
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:04 AM on April 28, 2010
According to this help question:
posted by chrisamiller at 8:20 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]
The problem is because facebook apparently started using a new domain name "facebookmail.com" on their SMTP server, but facebookmail.com is not a properly registered domain. As a result, many email relay servers that make up the internet will not accept email from facebookmail.com since unresolvable domains are one of the primary sources of spam on the internet. Facebook needs to fix their servers before our problems will go awaySo there's probably not much you can do except complain at the link posted above.
posted by chrisamiller at 8:20 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]
Also see this group, where someone posted the response that they got from facebook back on April 8th:
posted by chrisamiller at 8:36 AM on April 28, 2010
We are aware of the problem that you described and hope to resolve it as soon as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience. Let me know if you have any further questions.So no, there doesn't seem to be much we can do until FB fixes the problem.
Thanks for contacting Facebook
posted by chrisamiller at 8:36 AM on April 28, 2010
Response by poster: I've done the reconfirm thing a couple times, but it does indeed keep coming back, so I've decided to just ignore it.
I did that but now the invalid e-mail notice is highlighted in blue. I'm afraid they are going to drop me (which might not be a totally bad thing).
posted by Xurando at 9:22 AM on April 28, 2010
I did that but now the invalid e-mail notice is highlighted in blue. I'm afraid they are going to drop me (which might not be a totally bad thing).
posted by Xurando at 9:22 AM on April 28, 2010
Response by poster: Maybe we should start a group for people with the problem within facebook!
posted by Xurando at 9:25 AM on April 28, 2010
posted by Xurando at 9:25 AM on April 28, 2010
I just joined a group called "Tell Facebook to quit asking me to re-confirm my email address". There are some others if you search for groups with the word "reconfirm", but this one had the most members, still only 18 though.
posted by soelo at 7:34 PM on May 31, 2010
posted by soelo at 7:34 PM on May 31, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Hiker at 7:27 AM on April 28, 2010