I've been running JS8Call for about six months now, mainly for casual QSOs, but I'm trying to get into the group messaging and relay features for emergency communications training. I've got version 2.3.1 running on Ubuntu 22.04 with a SignaLink USB interface to my IC-7300.

The problem: My station isn't properly responding to @ALLCALL queries or group messages directed to @EMCOMM. I've added @EMCOMM to my groups list in Settings, enabled Auto Reply, and have both Heartbeat Network and HB acknowledgments turned on. Direct messages work fine, and I can send group messages that others receive.

When I watch the activity window, I see other stations successfully responding to group queries with message counts (like "MSG 3"), but my station stays silent. Has anyone encountered similar issues with group messaging setup? I'm wondering if it's a timing issue with the decode cycles or something in my audio configuration.

I had the exact same problem last month. Check your Station Information callsign field - mine had somehow gotten corrupted with extra spaces. Also verify your group names don't have any special characters or trailing spaces. The @ symbol gets added automatically, so just enter EMCOMM in the groups field, not @EMCOMM.

Another thing to check: make sure your system clock is accurate to within 1 second. JS8Call is very timing-sensitive for the store-and-forward messaging. If you're off-grid, consider getting a GPS USB dongle for time sync - it makes a huge difference in reliability.

Try enabling debug logging in JS8Call (set QT_LOGGING_RULES=*.js8=true in your environment). This will show you exactly what the software is doing when it receives group queries. I found my issue was that the auto-reply logic wasn't triggering because I had MULTI decoder disabled and was missing some of the slower speed transmissions.