Recently flooded with Confluence page notifications even with all notifications turned off

[Nick Denniston]

Starting around the end of December 2019, I started getting notifications any time a page in the company Confluence space was edited or created, regardless of whether I was watching it or not. I've turned all my email notifications off, but I'm still getting 40-60 emails a day about pages I've never been involved with before.

I ensured that I'm not watching the whole space, which I thought might do it, but I can't find anything that indicates I am.

I know that I can redirect all emails to a folder automatically, but I would like to see edits and comments to pages I've created. I used to get exactly that until the last few weeks, and as far as I can tell I haven't made any changes.

[Zak Laughton · Accepted solution]

Hi Nick,

With Confluence email notifications, it should give you some sort of indication of why you were notified at the bottom of the email with an option to turn it off.

For example, this email was sent to me for a space I watch with a "Stop watching space" link at the bottom:

...and this Confluence notification email was sent to me with a "Stop following this user" link because I follow the user who made the change:

Do you see any links like these that indicate why you're receiving these emails?

It also may be worth double checking that these emails are being sent to your email address rather than to some group email distribution list.

I hope this helps!
– Zak

[Nick Denniston]

I do see the "Stop watching space" link at the bottom. I have been unable to find any other location in Confluence where I have enabled watching that space, but I clicked the link anyway. It brought me to this page with an error:

The captures shows that the only space I'm watching is my personal space, not the space where the page generating the notification is located. I navigated to the page and confirmed that I'm not watching; tried again, same error.

I'll see if the notifications continue to generate and report back.

[Zak Laughton]

Interesting. The error seems to indicate that Confluence wasn't seeing a security token it expected when you followed the link. It's possible that Confluence could be erroneously sending you space watch emails even though you don't watch the space, but from the clues so far, it seems like these emails may be coming from another user that's somehow getting forwarded to your email.

There are 2 things I'd suggest trying to rule this out:

Make an edit in the "watched" space

This is the easier test of the two: You shouldn't receive email notifications for your own edits. Try saving an edit on a page for the space you're receiving notifications for and see if you receive a notification (give it about 10 minutes to arrive). If you receive an email notifying you of the edit you made, it's very likely that email was intended for another user.

Check the id in the "Stop watching space" URL

This one's a bit more contrived and based on my own conjecture, but might be useful if the test above is inconclusive.

I noticed all the "Stop watching space" and "Stop watching user" link URLs in my emails include a src.mail.recipient token.

Example:

mycompany.atlassian.net/wiki/users/removepagenotification.action[...]src.mail.recipient=emQnnBI4vnxw9e3ZK4cS9Jwu6Lig8[...]

In all the notifications I received from Confluence, this token in the links was exactly the same. However, this token was different in a notification a coworker forwarded to me. It seems that these tokens are tied to specific Confluence users.

You can take this token in an email you're certain is for you (e.g. an edit to your personal space) and compare it with a token from an email for the space you're not watching (look closely, they may be very similar). If they match, I'd lean towards saying Confluence is erroneously sending your user notifications for a space you don't watch. If they don't match, I'd be more suspicious of these emails somehow being forwarded to your inbox from another Confluence user.

[Nick Denniston]

I think this is it! Token on the notifications email did not match my notification token.

I had an intern that just completed her internship and went back to school, and the default IT policy is to forward all former employee e-mails to their supervisor. Normally I see they don't belong to me because they are addressed to the former employee, but the Confluence e-mails are all addressed to me alone.

I've asked IT to remove her access to the Confluence space; if the email flood stops, I'll come back and accept this answer!

[Zak Laughton]

Awesome! Sounds promising! 🤞

[Nick Denniston]

Two hours of sweet, beautiful silence. Thank you!

[Zak Laughton]

Nice!!! Glad to hear it!

[Mike Bowen]

Hi @Nick Denniston 

A colleague of mine experienced the same problem recently and the three places to check are as follows: 

Go to any page on your Confluence and click the Watch eye. Ensure Watch all content in this space is turned off. 

Also click on Avatar (bottom left) under Settings - Email Settings, is the highlighted option perhaps checked? 

You could also look here, which shows all the pages you are watching. You could turn them off.  https://<yourcompanyname>.atlassian.net/wiki/users/viewnotifications.action

-Mike

[Nick Denniston]

Thanks Mike. I've confirmed that the "Watch all content in this space" option is unchecked:

I've had all my email settings unchecked, even though I would like updates on my own pages:

I'm unable to access the link you provided; it says my account "doesn't have access to Confluence on semantic-evolution.atlassian.net." I have checked my Confluence --> Spaces --> Site Spaces area and verified that nothing is starred. My "Direct" and "Watching" notifications only show the notifications I am interested in, not any of the unrelated pages that are sending my emails.

Any other ideas? This doesn't appear to be a system-wide issue; several other people on the space are only getting notifications on pages they are watching, not on every page.

[Mike Bowen]

Hi @Nick Denniston 

One last thing to check - In confluence when you click the eye, both checkboxes are not checked, but click on the Manage, is your name in there against the SPACE? If it is, remove it. Check Page as well.

-Mike

[Nick Denniston]

@Mike Bowen  I don't see a "Manage" link anywhere -- could you provide a screen cap, please?

-Nick

[Mike Bowen]

@Nick Denniston 

Screenshots attached. 

-Mike

[Nick Denniston]

Bummer - must be an admin-only thing. I do not have that link.