When I create a public share item of either a picture, folder or notes link.
The link is copied and I can paste or send to myself on my android.
However, for some reason NO ONE else can get my links. They just do not receive the https link.
Is there a reason why nextcloud links would be blocked or filtered by the sms test messages ?
Please advise thanks.
Hi @Captain86
Certain carriers block messages that contain links or typical patterns of phishing or marketing messages. Depending on the provider, different criteria are applied for the filters. Also with some providers customers have the option to turn such filters on and off. So it depends mainly on the receiving end whether the messages will be delivered or not. You as the sender have no direct control over that.
I would suggest to use another communication channel to send these messages or perhaps the following articles contain some information that may help you…
https://www.dailystory.com/blog/carrier-violations-what-to-avoid-doing-during-sms-text-marketing/
https://support.text-em-all.com/article/572-sending-urls-in-text-messages#
It sounds very complicated and yet I can send almost any url link for social media and/or any lengthy url links for posts or images to share from almost anywhere to my friends and family sms. I have never seen any such restrictions.
However, I can not send any links for my own self hosted servers with domains pointing to my own servers.
My own domain link seems to be blocked from all sms and not just a few phone service providers.
Does your nextcloud get blocked too ?
I see no reason listed in these articles for being blocked.
The only thing I can think of is maybe they are blocking an entire domain registrar or perhaps because it points to a residential IP.
Could it be possible that they are blocking domains that point to a residential IP self hosted server ?
I will test with that article you posted but it’s just weird.
Thanks
Sorry i do not really understand your problem. Is it really a SMS problem or a link problem.
Can you send the public share link with e.g. e-mail or WhatsApp and it works for the receiver ?
Why should there be only a problem with SMS? SMS is only a text message.
Please post an example.
I honestly don’t know. I rarely ever send SMS messages at all.
If you mean an entire Top Level Domain (tld) by that. Yes I guess that’s possible…
Possible but unlikely imho.
The articles were meant more as examples of what can be done. I do not know what is really done in your case and how it works exactly. I think it depends on the country you are in and the providers involved. But yes maybe some of the tips in the articles could help you…
Yes, thanks.
It’s just annoying. Typically I do not need to send any shares for my nextcloud but I was trying to keep friends and family aware of my father’s condition.
So I made some notes in nextcloud because I knew it would be lengthy for a direct text message etc. Perhaps email may have been better.
Anyhow, shared notes works great at least in theory because I can send to myself which is strange because it’s not blocked when sending to myself.
However, everything from my own servers seems blocked. I have not tried hosting images directly because I’ve been using nextcloud for this but never knew shares were getting blocked.
So back to the drawingboard. thanks.
I would use Email or some messenging platform like WhatsApp or similiar. If privacy is a concern or you simply don’t want to use services from companies like Facebook, you could use something like Signal or host your own xmpp or matrix server…
Btw SMS is the worst when it comes to privacy and security. Phone providers can obviousley read everything you send in clear text, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to block messages with links in it…
https://www.howtogeek.com/709373/why-sms-text-messages-arent-private-or-secure/
Have you really shared public shares or only internal nextcloud links.
Can you access if you logoff from your nextcloud?
Perhapy it is not a SMS problem.
Yep, It’s public shares. It’s mostly simple like all other folders. Click the share, the side window comes up, then click “share link”
However, individual files to not actually show the share link after I have selected to share link.
Perhaps this is part of a problem too. I’ll experiment some more. I noticed if I select the folder and share link then the folder shows the share link icon on the folder. However individual items do not seem to show this share link icon for documents, photo’s images etc.
I thought I should be able to share individual items not just share folder link ?
Please advise on that topic just so I know I’m sharing correctly or if there is a limit to what can be shared = folder / individual items.
Can you compare the public share. The link must be like this syntax:
https://cloud.server.tld/index.php/s/******
https://cloud.server.tld/s/******
with or without index.php
https://emma.cloud.tabdigital.eu/index.php/s/tqzYQ8Ge6cGt6qN
→ https://emma.cloud.tabdigital.eu/index.php/s/tqzYQ8Ge6cGt6qN
https://emma.cloud.tabdigital.eu/s/tqzYQ8Ge6cGt6qN
→ https://emma.cloud.tabdigital.eu/s/tqzYQ8Ge6cGt6qN
Please post some screenshots.
Yes links are just like this.
I’ll post some shots when I get back.
Thanks
Perhaps you use only links accessible only from internet. Can you test the links on your android in real internet (e.g. mobile network)?
Thanks
I have retested with PC and mobile networks. Same results.
I can send your links from PC to mobile and I can resend from my mobile to another mobile without issue.
I’m starting to think that perhaps it’s getting blocked because I’m using a residential IP.
I can’t really think of any other reason.
I would like to also add something to this and why I think this.
I was once hosting OpenStreamingPlatform on my server for testing.
I had the domain pointing to the server and it worked great.
However, SAME SUBJECT occured when sending links to any mobile network.
NOONE can get my links to my server via mobile text message.
They could manually go there and see the site if I told them on the phone and they manually typed it in.
They just could not get links coming through a mobile text for my website address. I think this might be related to the nextcloud shares as well.
I assumed this was because of SSL somehow but I now have SSL so that does not seem to be related to SSL. It seems related to the phone service providers blocking my site all around via text messages.
I really don’t know.
What else could it be now that I think about it ?
Thanks.
Personally I think it’s because you send too many SMS with links for the same domain. Also this links have a similiar pattern like the the ones genereated by link shorteners, which are often used to send spam. e.g. cloud.yourdomain.tld/s/shuf7ew8tzew67 vs bit.ly/shuf7ew8tzew67
Here are a few more ideas on what could cause blocking: https://support.kixie.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040209593-SMS-Best-Practices-to-Avoid-Being-Blocked
But we all can just guess. Only the involved telcos know what actually gets blocked. And similar to spam filters in email, these filters aren’t perfect and will produce false positives depending on how strict they are set. At the end of the day, you will have no choice but to ask the providers what you can do, or use another channel to send your links… (Email, messenger apps etc…)
Personally I think it’s because you send too many SMS with links for the same domain
This is not the case. I have only few people on my contact list and have only ever send links to maybe 4 people at the most.
Also they all are on different networks and this never happens from any other domain just my own.
Let’s say I setup a brand new domain today. I setup my server today, and setup my ssl today.
I post a video or image on my site. I send a link to 3 friends and it never gets there.
I didn’t even know it was not being delivered until I talked with them on the phone.
The first time was a straight out domain name like www.mydomain.xyz
They never got any link and it didn’t need any lengthy extensions because the main page was just something I put directly on the home page.
I figured it’s because their service was not allowing links to unsecured site etc.
However, that doesn’t appears to ever be the case. Now that the site was secured and then nextcloud was added as a subdomain also.
It would seem that it’s blocked for an unknown reason and not related to too many sms messages or the form of the link itself.
Is your nextcloud on a static ip or dynamic ip ? Just curious. I’m asking because I can send your link to everyone on my contact list and they all get it even if they didn’t click on it they got the link.
I sent it to 3 friends several times and no change always goes through.
I’ll test this theory and obtain a static ip and install nextcloud just to test without any secure ssl at all and see what happens.
Thanks for the help and I wish I knew what was going on.
I really want to make nextcloud work for a home server but if they block my share links for some reason then it’s sort of defeating the purpose of having it. Not that I need to share or send links that much but at least between my own family should be ok but it’s just getting blocked.
Perhaps you can sent me a link with PM.
I repeat myself: I do not send SMS messages with links to my Nextcloud in it. I mostley use Email, XMPP or rarely Messengers like Signal or WhatsApp for that purpose.
Why do you have to use SMS to send these links? Everyone has multiple messengers installed on their phone these days and most people I know also have email on their phone. Apart from that, you can create an accounts on your Nextcloud for family members. Then you don’t have to send public links to each other all the time.
I can’t tell you exactly why it doesn’t work for you. The links I posted are general information and these articles do simply list things that many providers seem to do. If you want to know exactly why your SMS messages are not being delivered, you have to ask your provider.
I think the problem is not SMS vs. E-Mail vs. WhatsApp vs. Signal vs. …
A nextcloud share is only an url like https://emma.cloud.tabdigital.eu/s/tqzYQ8Ge6cGt6qN
And THERE is the problem.
Please post a link. If not test on different systems in DOS mode:
nslookup emma.cloud.tabdigital.eu
change to your server, do not include https://
You can also test web based in the internet: DNS Lookup Tool - DNS Tools - MxToolbox
I think your friends can not resolve the name because it is only an internal address.
Can you resolve the address with DNS Lookup Tool - DNS Tools - MxToolbox
That must be possible.
I understand, that he does send SMS messages with sharing links of his Nextcloud or links to his web site and these SMS messages never get delivered to the person he sent them to. This has nothing to do with Nextcloud.
@Captain86
Or do you use some SMS service on the internet like Twillo or Message Bird? Then it might be possible that some mobile phone providers are generally blocking messages coming from such services. Because let’s face it, 90% of the messages sent via these services are probably spam and the remaining 10% are services that offer 2FA via SMS or things like that. But as I said, these are all just assumptions.
This is actually true as it turns out. However, I didn’t realize it until nextcloud links were blocked since I don’t have the Openmediaplatform running anymore.
I didn’t think of this until after asking the question and getting feedback from others.
Thanks