That's interesting. I tested it very carefully; when I created the testing account, I made sure that the email address was entered correctly. Requested a password reset and... nothing.
So I and others have tested it and it worked for us. That means the sending system does correctly send emails to at least some addresses.
You say that when you created the testing account you checked the email you supplied quite carefully, so that means that you most likely did enter the correct email address.
The problem is either that
1. HN fails to send to a small subset of addresses, and yours is in that subset, or
2. the email that was sent to you has been hidden from you by your email system.
Option 1 seems unlikely. I would investigate using Yahoo or something to set up a temporary email address and create another test account. If you have two known addresses that fail to get reset messages then you definitely have a case for emailing PG again.
If that other test email address does receive the reset, then the problem is with your true email address, either in the receiving in general from HN, or with HN specifically getting it wrong for that particular address.
Search diligently for the email among your various folders. I don't use gmail so I have nothing to suggest, but I know others who never received emails because gmail silently decided they were spam and put them somewhere unexpected.
I've searched thoroughly, and have not found any emails, but I do of course receive emails fine from the @ycombinator.com address of the staff member I spoke to. I'll try redoing the test with a different email provider though.
This is something I believe you should have done in the first place. You write that your e-mail setup must not be wrong as you are using Google Apps for your domain- but in the end exactly that might be the problem (wherever it stems from).
Try a mail address you have full control over it (see the /var/mail/mail.log to verify exactly there is no connection made by ycombinator.org).
I am not a ycombinator staff member (I even have no own business or live in USA or speak English native) but this site is a friednly free-to-use service, not Paypal or Starbucks where you can blame the staff for delivering the coffee too hot.
Not sure I agree with "the site is free so don't expect any service" attitude. The site may be free but if you can't support it then don't provide it. Granted this site doesn't host ads like Gmail, but I expect a level of service from Google. As such, HN is part of a bigger game plan and so I don't think it should be regarded as totally free...
It's not about entitlement, but if you can't support something then either don't provide it or have some other means of supporting the product. There's a million and one forums out there where the forums are self moderated through super users.
There's too much of a "oh well, it's free so what do you expect" attitude. It's because of this attitude I have had so much difficulty in getting some open source products adopted in some places I've worked at.
I would understand if this was a one man band operating out of his bedroom in his spare time but HN is slightly bigger than that.
Besides, support replied, they just had to follow up a little more and be a bit customer service focused (granted we don't necessarily have all the details)
So basically, I can pick up hitchhikers and then ditch them 20 miles away from civilization at 03:00AM. I provided the service for free, after all. They have no reason to complain.
Yeah, you can do that if you want. That's (one of) the reason hitchhiking is considered "unsafe" and strongly discouraged to most peoples daughters.
The OP demonstrating quite a bit of hubris assuming HN is broken just because they aren't getting their email - there's quite likely a very easy way for HN (is pg doing all this himself?) to see many many password reset emails going out every day and successful logins from those accounts shortly after. If _I_ were seeing that at my end, and still having someone insist my end's "broken", I'd hover between assuming they're either not competent enough to be worth spending (free service) customer service time on, or they're trying to social engineer access to someone elses's account. And I'd politely brush them off - just as HN did…
So I and others have tested it and it worked for us. That means the sending system does correctly send emails to at least some addresses.
You say that when you created the testing account you checked the email you supplied quite carefully, so that means that you most likely did enter the correct email address.
The problem is either that
1. HN fails to send to a small subset of addresses, and yours is in that subset, or
2. the email that was sent to you has been hidden from you by your email system.
Option 1 seems unlikely. I would investigate using Yahoo or something to set up a temporary email address and create another test account. If you have two known addresses that fail to get reset messages then you definitely have a case for emailing PG again.
If that other test email address does receive the reset, then the problem is with your true email address, either in the receiving in general from HN, or with HN specifically getting it wrong for that particular address.
Search diligently for the email among your various folders. I don't use gmail so I have nothing to suggest, but I know others who never received emails because gmail silently decided they were spam and put them somewhere unexpected.
Good hunting.
End debug mode.