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31 Messages
Email Filter Rules Interrupted Mid-Process
I have 8 Email Filter Rules, each with what ranges between dozens to hundreds of conditions. These 8 rules function as white lists, moving all my incoming email to specific folders. What remains are emails I have not specifically white-listed; and these are moved to a folder I named 'Probable Spam'. I have built up and refined these rules and their conditions over years, and until two days ago (April 9th), this system has functioned extremely well for me.
Sometime after 5:18 AM PST on April 9th, only the first three out of my eight email filter categories continued working, and the following five had no effect.
The result is that incoming email matching the first three sets of conditions are being sent to the three proper corresponding folders; but all subsequent incoming email is being moved to the folder that the third filter was last moving mail when processing stopped.
In other words, after three Filter Rule categories the filtering appears to be frozen while pointing to the last working filter's destination folder.
I have refreshed my connection (logged out, cleared cache, closed the browser, re-launched the browser and re-logged in), and the problem persists. I have disabled the filters, and re-enabled them, refreshing my connection between each step, and the problem persists.
I am using myXfinity in a FireFox web browser, as well as the K-9 mail app on my Android phone.
I have a theory that Xfinity programmers perhaps implemented (without warning) a limit to the number of conditions one could have. Since they process from top to bottom, if a limit was imposed it would explain why my filters stop being applied after this limit is reached, and all subsequent emails are simply moved to the same folder that was operational when the limit was reached.
An agent has informed me that the description of Email Rules he accesses does not list that there is a limit to those conditions...but my sorting problem persists nonetheless.
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user_f2a6e2
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31 Messages
2 years ago
Final update - Last night out of necessity, I had to add a new condition to a couple of my existing rules. This morning when I checked my email, ALL my rules were functioning correctly, and were moving all incoming email to the correct designated folders - especially my final 'Probable Spam' folder. Looking backwards through them, it appears that everything resumed working correctly very closely to the time last night that I hit "Add condition" followed by "Save" inside one of my existing Filter Rules~!
So, while I cannot say for certain that this wasn't a coincidence, I'm going to say there's a HIGH probability that this action was what 'bootstrapped' my filters into working again :-)
SO, if your Email Filters are ever interrupted "mid-process" like mine were (i.e. only the top 'n' function as expected but the rest don't), try adding a new condition to one or two of your rules and hitting "Save". That might just kick start them all into behaving again. It seems to have worked for me :-)
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user_f2a6e2
Contributor
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31 Messages
2 years ago
Update. My agent informed me he has verified that "there are not any set limits" using Filter Rules.
As an experiment I have changed the order of my rules, moving a few from the lower five to the top, and they are sorting my mail as expected...for at least the new top three. It remains to be seen whether this resorting action will have 'jump started' the remaining lower five rule categories to all start sorting properly again. I'll only know after a day or so when I receive enough email to correspond with all the rules I've created...
If it all magically works correctly again, I will mark this rule-reordering approach as a correct answer to this problem, should it occur for anyone else.
But if at some point while moving down my newly re-ordered filter rules and sorting mail correctly all the rest of my incoming email is now moved into a different wrong folder than before my re-sort...then that will point more strongly to my 'condition limit' theory.
It'll take a day or so.
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user_f2a6e2
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31 Messages
2 years ago
Today's update: Yesterday's re-ordering of my Filter Rules has altered the results but not solved the problem. In fact, it further supports the theory that the total number of conditions processed has been limited (as of 4/9/2023) by some arbitrary number that is less than the total number of conditions I have accumulated in my rules.
Before, the first three rules of eight were successful, and all subsequent rules were ignored while moving the rest of the incoming email to the third rule's intended folder.
Today, the first six rules of eight were successful, and all subsequent rules were ignored while moving the rest of the incoming email to the sixth rule's intended folder.
If all rules had exactly the same number of conditions, then this would make no sense; but all my rules have differing numbers of conditions.
In the original case, the top three rules were heavy, with many more rules in general than the bottom five.
In the second case, the new top three were among the lightest, with less rules than the bottom five.
So it stands to reason that if there were a new set limit of conditions imposed, the Rule Filtering routine would reach that limit sooner in the original case than in the second case, and that is what has now happened.
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user_f2a6e2
Contributor
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31 Messages
2 years ago
OK today's update. I called the 'Customer Security Assurance' team number I was given and spoke with someone who after my full description of the problem basically told me to turn off all my filters and turn them back on again (which I of course had already tried). He then had me disable them all again, and he performed a 'reset' (?) on his side. At this point all my email filters disappeared. He then restored them (thank god), and upon refreshing my browser they all returned, still disabled. He then had me re-enable them, and asked me if they were all working again. I responded that that would take me about 24 hours to ascertain, as I needed to receive a day's worth of email to ensure each filter was engaged.
He said he would call me back in 24 hours.
I sincerely doubt that this worked, but who knows. I'll let you know tomorrow~!
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Again
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31.8K Messages
2 years ago
@user_f2a6e2
Are you using webmail? If so, have you considered using a third-party email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird where you might not have so many restrictions?
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