One of the most important things you can do when using Google Webmaster Tools is set up to be notified via email when Google Webmaster Tools sends you a message via the message center.
Google recommends you do this as one of the first steps after you verify your site within Google Webmaster Tools.
But there is a bug impacting some users where they are unable to set their message preferences to email them.
A Google Webmaster Help thread has one webmaster where he says it simply does not work. Every time he clicks on the "Save" button, the check box is reset and he gets a message that reads "You've disabled email notifications. To get a daily digest of potential issues with sites in your account, we strongly recommend enabling email notifications."
Also, he said the "Message language" and "type" boxes are blank and cannot be set. I see the same issue in my account:
There is no ETA for a fix, but Google's John Mueller did respond that he'd get the team to look into it. John wrote:
This looks like a bug that's affecting some accounts. I'll check with the Webmaster Tools team to make sure that this is on their radar and resolved. Thanks for posting & sorry for the confusion there.
This is not the first time we had bugs with this feature, we had a similar issue back in August.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.