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Email notifications

Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:05 am
by Sharon
In the last week or so, I have not been getting the email notification when someone has replied to one of my posts. I am also not getting the email notification of PM's. I have not changed anything on my account. Was wondering what happened???
:? :?
Thanks,
Sharon

Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:41 am
by Arcee
Same here!

Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:03 pm
by Sharon
Whew! Glad I am not the only one.

Sharon

3 suggestions

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:18 am
by radeck
Great thread! Here are my three cents:

1) I have another more general request concerning email notifications. It would be MUCH more effective and useful as a tool if the notifications would actually contain the text new post that was done to the forum, instead of only pointing to the thread. This way one wouldn't have to go to the site and load it. Especially now that many people have email on their phones, but slow wireless connections, this would save A LOT of time and it would also make computer screens less cluttered.

2) The stuck pm messages are really a pain, especially because it seems to be totally unpredictable whether a message will be delivered and when. At this time I have 6 undelivered messages in my Outbox, 2 from Sep, 2 from Oct, and 2 from Nov.

3) I find the search function on TIMS close to useless (sorry for the harsh word, the forum is fantastic, but everything has it's flaws, no?), since all it shows is threads that have discussed a certain search term, but not the individual posts containing it. In the case of CCSVI, the search function has pointed me several times to the big CCSVI thread (among others) which now has 60 or so pages. I would have to wait for my next vacation (and less hurting eyes) to have the time to search this whole thread once again.

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:22 am
by bestadmom
I'm having the same problems. Not getting emails that I have pm's. Not getting the emails of posts to threads I've posted to either. Tried resetting my preferences. Hasn't helped.

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:51 am
by Needled
Add me to the list -- I'm not getting e-mail notices of PMs or threads that I've responded to.

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:55 am
by bestadmom
I got an mail on this thread and also on Lew's blog withi the past few minutes.

Re: 3 suggestions

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:36 pm
by NHE
radeck wrote:Great thread! Here are my three cents:

1) I have another more general request concerning email notifications. It would be MUCH more effective and useful as a tool if the notifications would actually contain the text new post that was done to the forum, instead of only pointing to the thread. This way one wouldn't have to go to the site and load it. Especially now that many people have email on their phones, but slow wireless connections, this would save A LOT of time and it would also make computer screens less cluttered.
Thanks for the suggestion. I do not know if this modification can be implemented.
radeck wrote:2) The stuck pm messages are really a pain, especially because it seems to be totally unpredictable whether a message will be delivered and when. At this time I have 6 undelivered messages in my Outbox, 2 from Sep, 2 from Oct, and 2 from Nov.
A related problem has been discussed in the Forums FAQ.
[color=blue]NHE[/color] wrote:Q: Why do private messages seem to get stuck in the outbox for so long?
and also (which discusses Private Message notifications)...
[color=blue]NHE[/color] wrote:Q: The link at the top of the page showing the number of new Private Messages has disappeared. How do I access Private Messages now?
I have messages in my Outbox that are over a year old. If every forum member followed the suggestions for being notified of the arrival of new Private Messages, then they would not stay in the Outbox for so long. Unfortunately, it seems that not everyone reads through the FAQ.
radeck wrote:3) I find the search function on TIMS close to useless (sorry for the harsh word, the forum is fantastic, but everything has it's flaws, no?), since all it shows is threads that have discussed a certain search term, but not the individual posts containing it. In the case of CCSVI, the search function has pointed me several times to the big CCSVI thread (among others) which now has 60 or so pages. I would have to wait for my next vacation (and less hurting eyes) to have the time to search this whole thread once again.
This issue has also been discussed in the Forums FAQ.
[color=blue]NHE[/color] wrote:Q: What are the options available for searching the forum?
I hope that the above links are helpful.

NHE

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:52 pm
by Arcee
Thanks, NHE. I may have not read the link properly, but I am not sure that it addresses the issue of the PM email notifications not being sent out when they had been previously and none of us changed our settings. Thanks for all you do!

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:33 pm
by pegmegrund
I am having the same problem... not getting an email notification when I have a new private message.

This has stopped working in the past few days, and I haven't changed my settings...

Thanks for the help!

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:51 pm
by radeck
NHE, this was very helpful! Thank you. I should have read the FAQ thread you created and should have really noticed the option to "Display results as Posts". Must have been in my blind spot :-) It's interesting to hear that the problem with stuck messages is simply that the receiver has explicitly unset the automatic notice function.

Concerning the idea of including new posts to threads one has subscribed to in the email notification, I have been in some (non MS) forums that had this option and will look into it.

Thanks again for all the great work!

Re: Email Notifications

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 9:06 pm
by NHE
radeck wrote:It's interesting to hear that the problem with stuck messages is simply that the receiver has explicitly unset the automatic notice function.
It's actually that the message has not been read by the recipient. Sent messages will stay in the Outbox until the recipient reads them. However, someone will not know if they have a new message if they haven't enabled the options to be notified of their arrival. This problem is more prominent since that the notification link at the top of the page was lost during the forum software upgrade last Spring.

NHE

Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:23 am
by Sharon
NHE -

I am getting the email notifications and notifications of replies to my postings. Thanks for fixing!

Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:55 am
by radeck
Since yesterday I have several messages in my outbox that don't get delivered. They are messages to users I have interacted with before, and I don't believe they have changed their settings. What can I do?

Re: Email notifications

Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 3:25 pm
by NHE
Arcee wrote:Thanks, NHE. I may have not read the link properly, but I am not sure that it addresses the issue of the PM email notifications not being sent out when they had been previously and none of us changed our settings.
You are correct. The above links in the FAQ do not address why folks would suddenly stop receiving email notifications when a reply has been posted to a thread. As a test, I selected the check box for "Notify me when a reply is posted" for this thread and have received two email notifications. I do not know why it has stopped working for some members and not others. If you're still having problems with this, then try setting the profile preference "Always notify me of replies:" to "No" and then manually selecting the checkbox for each thread you would like to be notified about.

NHE