N-400 February Filers 2018

[ilyak 79]

58 minutes ago, flyingkites said:

That is not correct.  I got an email this morning and the only thing that had changed was the date.

Again,

Quote

Changes to your case status can take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days to reflect on https://myaccount.uscis.dhs.gov/ 

A few days have not passed since this morning. Please check back tomorrow or the day after and see what other changes occurred. Changes to ECD definitely do not trigger case status notifications. Further, they are not directly tied to the case status itself and are calculated dynamically based on a set of variables such as the office your case is assigned to, average number of days the step your case is in has taken over a period of time, priority date of the latest case completed by the office, and etc. You can find further information on how the ECD is calculated in this press release. Please keep in mind that ECD has been shown to be wildly inaccurate at this time.

[watashi 24]

Do any people here check the case tracker site regularly ? It's not the same site as myaccount and does not have the same login (unless you set it up yourself as such), and is at https://egov.uscis.gov/casestatus/landing.do

 

What does your 'Next Steps' field say when you enter your NBC or IOE receipt number ? Does everyone post FP show: "We will prepare your case for officer review.  If we need more information, we will notify you." ? 

[CTgal18 157]

4 minutes ago, ilyak said:

Again,

A few days have not passed since this morning. Please check back tomorrow or the day after and see what other changes occurred. Changes to ECD definitely do not trigger case status notifications. Further, they are not directly tied to the case status itself and are calculated dynamically based on a set of variables such as the office your case is assigned to, average number of days the step your case is in has taken over a period of time, priority date of the latest case completed by the office, and etc. You can find further information on how the ECD is calculated in this press release. Please keep in mind that ECD has been shown to be wildly inaccurate at this time.

Not entirely true. I too got emails saying there was an update to my case the day after my biometrics appt like @flyingkites and the only update was that the estimated completion time had decreased by 1 month. That was a month ago. 

[ilyak 79]

6 minutes ago, CTgal18 said:

Not entirely true. I too got emails saying there was an update to my case the day after my biometrics appt like @flyingkites and the only update was that the estimated completion time had decreased by 1 month. That was a month ago. 

I believe the confusion stems from the fact that the email is sent sooner than the case status is updated on https://myaccount.uscis.dhs.gov/

 

After you did your biometrics, your case status should have changed to "we reviewed your biometrics" a day or so later. This is the status update the email you received referred to. It is routine for people to see their ECD go up by 1 month after the biometrics are captured and processed into the background check system.

Edited March 21, 2018 by ilyak
Grammar; clarification

[CTgal18 157]

8 minutes ago, ilyak said:

I believe the confusion stems from the fact that the email is sent sooner than the case status is updated on https://myaccount.uscis.dhs.gov/

 

After you did your biometrics, your case status should have changed to "we reviewed your biometrics" a day or so later. This is the status update the email you received referred to. It is routine for people to see their ECD go up by 1 month after the biometrics are captured and processed into the background check system.

I’m not confused by why I received the emails. I’m just pointing out that @flyingkites is getting that same email notification I did.  You told him that there would be an update in a few days and that is not necessarily true.  My case actually changed to “we reviewed your biometrics” 2 hours after I finished my biometrics so when I got an email the following day, i thought something else had changed but the only thing that changed was the estimated completion time had decreased. 

 

Edited to add: I guess it could also be that that’s when they put the estimated wait time for an interview because that number didn’t pop up until the day after as well.  

Edited March 21, 2018 by CTgal18

[ilyak 79]

12 minutes ago, CTgal18 said:

I’m not confused by why I received the emails. I’m just pointing out that @flyingkites is getting that same email notification I did.  You told him that there would be an update in a few days and that is not necessarily true.  My case actually changed to “we reviewed your biometrics” 2 hours after I finished my biometrics so when I got an email the following day, i thought something else had changed but the only thing that changed was the estimated completion time had decreased. 

 

Edited to add: I guess it could also be that that’s when they put the estimated wait time for an interview because that number didn’t pop up until the day after as well.  

I mean, I have at least six counter-examples where my case ECD has changed without any prior or subsequent status changes and this did not trigger the email notification. I can also connect every status change in my case history to an email notification received within 48 hours from the change, and I have no unattributed notifications - meaning, the number of status changes equals the number of notifications. Could be just me, of course, although I've seen the same picture for a few others I know whom I've helped track their cases. Anyway, I feel like this is somewhat of a futile argument. Let's wait for @flyingkites to report whether his case status changes shortly.

Edited March 21, 2018 by ilyak
Grammar; details

[flyingkites 22]

 

Ilyak, you need to chill.  I don't plan to "report" anything to you.

[ilyak 79]

4 minutes ago, flyingkites said:

 

Ilyak, you need to chill.  I don't plan to "report" anything to you.

Apologies, I absolutely did not mean this in a directive way. I figured you'd be interested in finding out what's triggering those email notifications, but of course it's up to you whether to post it or not.

[Kevo 69]

Question regarding the USCIS account website.  I mailed my documents in to the Phoenix lockbox, but then they notified me the were transferring the case to another office and they would convert the case to electronic.  So I assume they scanned all my documents.  

 

On the USCIS my account website under the "Documents" tab it has all the documents mailed to me (NOA and bio appt) and I can access them.  Under "your uploads" there is a link that is the receipt number, it's a .tif file.  However, when I click the receipt number link it always gives an error and I can't view it (error screenshot attached).  Anyone else have this issue?  

 

Also, it's listing the ECD as Apr 2019, seems unusually long, I hope that's not accurate.  

 

[flyingkites 22]

A 500 Internal server error means something was wrong. Usually it is at server level but if it happens consistently on a particular page it is related to the content.  It points to the .tif file. I am surprised they would have created a .tif file (which is an image format) since it is not used much anymore.  Could be the site cannot cope with .tif attachments.  So replacing it with .png or .jpg would be the logical resolution.

 

[ilyak 79]

3 hours ago, Kevo said:

Question regarding the USCIS account website.  I mailed my documents in to the Phoenix lockbox, but then they notified me the were transferring the case to another office and they would convert the case to electronic.  So I assume they scanned all my documents.  

 

On the USCIS my account website under the "Documents" tab it has all the documents mailed to me (NOA and bio appt) and I can access them.  Under "your uploads" there is a link that is the receipt number, it's a .tif file.  However, when I click the receipt number link it always gives an error and I can't view it (error screenshot attached).  Anyone else have this issue?  

 

Also, it's listing the ECD as Apr 2019, seems unusually long, I hope that's not accurate.  

 

The lockbox service provider scans your submissions into the system. They use TIFF as image format for initial scans. They're not supposed to leave specific forms as TIFF images, instead they're supposed to fill out an electronic form based on those scans. Sometimes they neglect to do that. You can try emailing lockboxsupport@uscis.dhs.gov about this, they're supposed to rectify incomplete scan-ins.

[ilyak 79]

1 hour ago, flyingkites said:

A 500 Internal server error means something was wrong. Usually it is at server level but if it happens consistently on a particular page it is related to the content.  It points to the .tif file. I am surprised they would have created a .tif file (which is an image format) since it is not used much anymore.  Could be the site cannot cope with .tif attachments.  So replacing it with .png or .jpg would be the logical resolution.

 

In general, USCIS does support TIFF uploads and .tif files are viewable under case documents if any were supplied. The file that @Kevo references is not a normal case document though. With scan-ins, the lockbox operator is likely allowed to upload to more object types than the user is. I suspect that the particular object type is not configured to support TIFF files as the lockbox operator is not supposed to leave scan-ins unprocessed. 

On a side note, unfortunately, TIFF is not really dead as a file format yet. It's used widely in several industries, including digital publishing where I work. It's alive mostly due to its versatility;  it's essentially a meta-format. There's a common joke in the publishing world that TIFF stands for thousand incompatible file formats.

[nuno 16]

iI got the status update from the old web-site. Hope to see a letter soon on the new web-site (My USCIS).

 

Edited March 21, 2018 by nuno

[PositiveThinker 40]

2 minutes ago, nuno said:

iI got the status update from the old web-site. Hope to see a letter soon on the new web-site (Mi USCIS).

 

Congrats NuNo!

About the old websites, what website is this?

[ilyak 79]

30 minutes ago, PositiveThinker said:

Congrats NuNo!

About the old websites, what website is this?

It's a logged in view from https://egov.uscis.gov/casestatus