"Watched Topic" Email notification not working?

[Anonymous]

Thanks to Dave Voss for replying, and clearing up the reasoning behind these issues....

[Anonymous]

Thanks, ChiefEagles, for bringing this to my attention again. I'll be honest and admit I don't get much, if any, time to check the forum for technical questions. So sometimes you just have to contact Erik or myself about things like this.

Reviewing this thread, there seems to be a number of issues (aside from the snowblower [;)]) in this thread that I missed earlier. Let me see if I can address some of them.

QUOTE: Originally posted by yellowducky
I use to receive all of the trains.com newletters, and also Lionel.com's.
I don't receive any of the newsletters and subscribed to all of them again.

Now I recieve Lionel's about every other month, and still not trains 4.

I don't know the exact reason without digging any further, but at some point our newsletters were being returned ('bounced' is the official term) from the place you have your email address with. When that occurred, your email address was marked as being invalid and subsequent newsletters would not have been sent.

If you update your profile, this should reset this status. It's a 24 hour process so I would need to check the day after you update to see if it was successful.

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Profile Pictures
When you edit your profile, there is a field for your picture. In this field, you must enter the url for your picture. We don't store anyone's picture on our server. Same with images in signatures, you have to have them hosted somewhere else and then include the url / link / location to that picture.

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Avatars
Avatar images were not provided so there are none to select. I'm not sure if I can disable that feature and have it removed from the profile without causing any problems in the code so it's just sitting there.

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"Watched Topic" Email notification
I realize the checkbox becoming unchecked and the quick reply box not having one is an issue. I'm not sure if / when I'll be able to fix that. The reason I say "if / when" is because if all goes well, the current forum software will be replaced later this year. Time spent fixing features takes away from the time needed to work on the new forum software. With that said, there is an upcoming maintenance period, so maybe it can be fixed at that time, but I can't promise anything.

As to how the current email notification works, you receive a single email notification to inform you that a reply has been made since you last read that particular topic. When you read that thread, a "flag" is reset. The first new reply sends off the notification, and changes the flag indicating the notification has been sent and not to continue sending out notices.

The reason for this was not only to reduce email traffic on our end, but to also avoid spamming someone's inbox. The scenario I'm trying to avoid is someone being subscribed to a topic that suddenly becomes "hot" and next thing there are 30+ replies and the same number of messages sent out to each person who is watching that topic. Trust me, I've been there, done that, which is why when I saw this system implemented on another site, I quickly adopted it here.

[Anonymous]

Your right. Auomatic does not work---period.

If using Quick reply, you must click "watch this topic" each and every time you view the thread.

Likewise, if you take the extra time to click the "Reply to topic" link, you STILL must checkmark the box each and every time to get the notifications.

Gotta make sure you jump thru all the hoops, cause allot of forum features don't work correctly....

[eZAK]

I have never been able to get the 'automatic' notifications to work.

I always have to manual check boxes each and ever time.

Even though my profile is set up for auto.

[Anonymous]

Beings that I know HTML, I generally create my own forum codes, since the basic tag writing is very similar to html.

Therefore, since most of these forum pages load so darn slow, I always use the "Quick reply" to respond, and manually change my text color, etc.

The quick reply gets me out of loading yet another slow page, just so I can reply.

Using quick reply, I NEVER get the notification emails, therefore, I always get stuck clicking an extra link, ie: "watch this topic"

This time, I went ahead and clicked the reply icon, and will only checkmark the "notify me" box.

Someone please reply to this so I can see if it works this way....

[ChiefEagles]

David, the checked block on topic reply works. If you go to the top of the topic and tell it to "watch this topic" it only works one time. Once you have re-entered and looked at topic, you have to do the "watch this topic" again. On other forums, once you ask to "watch this topic", it keeps on notifying you until there are no more posts or you stop the watching. That is the question.

[Jim Duda]

TESTING! This time I'll use "Reply to Topic" and have the Notify Option checked. If it works, then AutoNotify must not be enabled on "Quick Reply"...

[Anonymous]

I received a notification from Jim's post. Seems to be working for me.

Perhaps your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is blocking email or you have to allow email to be received from here? The email notifications are sent from [e-mail]

[Jim Duda]

Click on my profile...is that the picture you're talking about? And you're right Buck...too many things don't work (especially when you're AARP legal...(sigh)

[Anonymous]

BTW, I checked my "watched topics list" and it was listed. So I'm technically on the list. [:)]

One question, if you're not receiving notification, are you using the quick reply that appears at the bottom of this page or clicking the "Reply to Topic" link to reply? It might be that the Quick Reply isn't adding to the notificaiton list.

[Anonymous]

The email notifications aren't working?

I guess this will be my test. Notification box checked. Someone respond so I can see if it works. [:)]

I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't.

In regards to the question about the newsletters not being received. There are a lot of possibilities why you wouldn't be receiving. The newsletters are sent from maillist.trainsmail.com -- so it could be that your ISP if filtering or blocking the trainsmail.com domain. If you know you're signed up and not receiving them, I could check later this week to see if they were returned or bounced back for some reason.

[ChiefEagles]

OH NO, Wabash is form OHIO!!!!! No. Another one. Only thing worse than a TEXAN is a BUCKEYE. [;)] [a little private joke on Tom and Buckeye] I sent "management" an email asking them to give us some insight on this topic. We'll hear something today I'm sure. They are good about responding.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Buckeye Riveter

Not only is this a good question for a topic, but I believe there are other things that we have found that don't work, besides Jimbo's snow blower. For example, the photo with your profile. Has anyone ever gotten that to work?

Well Jmbo shouldn't feel too bad, because MY snowblower crapped the bed this year, too.....LOL
No, I can't get a profile pic to work either. I also cannot get a AVATAR as well.
The Avatar problem might be my own browser perhaps, but the more I think of it, I've only seen the admins, have an avatar here, but no reg. members?

[Buckeye Riveter]

Not only is this a good question for a topic, but I believe there are other things that we have found that don't work, besides Jimbo's snow blower. For example, the photo with your profile. Has anyone ever gotten that to work?

[Jim Duda]

John - these guys are makin' me behave...I told 'em what you guys do over there in the Club Car Lounge and they made me go to Confession to the Bishop. Maybe I'll sneak over there when everyone's asleep...(wink)

[3railguy]

QUOTE: Perhaps our WEBMASTER and/or "Senior members" will set us straight...I don't recall this feature working on this forum...


--------------------

Don't Drink and Drive in 2005!
Wear a helmet!

Say, Bud, haven't seen you in the MTJ, club car lounge lately.

[ChiefEagles]

I get a Trains newsletter each week. Maybe Bob or Bergie will pickup on this one.

[yellowducky]

I use to receive all of the trains.com newletters, and also Lionel.com's.
I don't receive any of the newsletters and subscribed to all of them again.

Now I recieve Lionel's about every other month, and still not trains 4.

I tried my server's e-mail and hotmail with the 4 trains.com ones.
Maybe it's my Norton Antivirus or Internet Security? Outlook Express?

Any thoughts on this e-mail thing, anyone?

[ChiefEagles]

I always have to check the block after posting. If I do not post, I have to always click on Watch this Topic.

[Anonymous]

Well at least I'm not alone, or going crazy. LOL

Guess I'll ave to keep clicking the watch topic link if I want the notifications then, cause that's the only way topics can be watched.....

Thanks guys.

[spankybird]

I don't remember it ever working. Just like you can't display more than 20 threads at a time.

I just guess you have to log on and visit us more often

[Jim Duda]

Perhaps our WEBMASTER and/or "Senior members" will set us straight...I don't recall this feature working on this forum...

[Anonymous]

Yes I had the same thing happen when I started a thread a week or so ago. I figured it was just me doing something wrong as I am new around here.

Larry

[Anonymous]

This thread is a perfect example.

In my settings, everything I reply to is automatically supposed to go into my "watched topic list", yet I just created this topic, and it does NOT appear in my list of watched topics list.

Because of the glitch, I won't recieve any email notifications on this topic when someone replies to it.

The only way this thread would get into my list, is if I actually click on the "Watch this topic" link, even though it should go there automatically, simply because I replied to it.

Anyone else with the same problem?

[Anonymous]

In my profile settings for trains.com I have it set up to where any topic I reply to is supposed to automatically be put into my "watched topic list".

In turn, I also selected to recieve email notification when a new reply is posted to any of my watched topics.

Unless I manually click the "watch this topic" icon within a thread, it does NOT go into my watched topic list, even though I DID reply to the topic.

I was ust wondering if anyone else was having the same trouble?

I checked and re-checked all my profile settings, and everything is set up correctly, but when I reply to a thread, that topic does NOT automatically go into my list of watched topics, therefore, I never recieve the email notifications I requested.

I shouldn't have to click the "watch this topic" links if I have it set up to do it auomatically, should I?