Forum Subscriptions - (how) Do they work?

Former_MSE_Ian

I have been testing this and initially I thought it wasn't working. But I think i may have fallen foul of one of the many quirks of vBulletin. The quirk is this.

You will not get a subscription for a post made in a thread vBulletin thinks you might be looking at. Which makes sense because it might be a annoying. But the upshot is that if getting instant notifications for a thread are really important to you, you might want to both visit another thread and logout. Before you walk away from the computer. So that vBulletin knows for sure you aren't still looking at the thread.

Give it a try.

Ian

VoucherMan

Blackjack_Davy wrote: »

Yes of course, theres been nothing for some time. This specifically refers to this thread:

If you don't sort your problem it's probably worth starting a new thread.

This one has been dealing with the daily overnight forum updates - sent out once a day listing all the new and updated threads in a forum.

Looks like you're querying something totally different which may not get noticed if you add it to an existing thread.

Former_MSE_Ian

VoucherMan wrote: »

it's probably worth starting a new thread.

This thread is fine. Thank you. I have instant notifications turned on for this one

Ian

fermi

MSE_Ian wrote: »

I have been testing this and initially I thought it wasn't working. But I think i may have fallen foul of one of the many quirks of vBulletin. The quirk is this.

You will not get a subscription for a post made in a thread vBulletin thinks you might be looking at. Which makes sense because it might be a annoying. But the upshot is that if getting instant notifications for a thread are really important to you, you might want to both visit another thread and logout. Before you walk away from the computer. So that vBulletin knows for sure you aren't still looking at the thread.

Give it a try.

Ian

Interesting Ian. If that quirk exists then I have never noticed it.

I seem to get a notification of every new post I should, even if I am just refreshing one thread and not navigating away from it.

Former_MSE_Ian

fermi wrote: »

Interesting Ian. If that quirk exists then I have never noticed it.

Interesting as you say. Certainly Jelsoft have this to say:

Jelsoft wrote:

If the target user's location is the same as the current user, then don't send them a notification.

But don't get me wrong. There are plenty of other potential problems. And I'll be continuing to look at it. Hopefully people can try my suggestion in the meantime. Thank you.

ian

Former_MSE_Ian

Hi Blackjack Davy,

Blackjack_Davy wrote: »

I'm not getting any subscribed email notifications for some time now. Any chance of geting it fixed?

Just to say that we have made a small change to how Instant Notification Emails work. The change is this. If you have have an Instant Email Notification subscription for a thread and someone posts on that thread. You get a notification. Simple.

The way the previous system worked was actually less than simple. You would not always get a notification. This was with the best intentions. The forums were trying not to tell you about posts it thought you were already aware of. How well that system worked in practice is debatable. But it was definitely inconsistent.

The way the system works now is simple and consistent. I hope this resolves the issues with Instant Email Notifications. Thanks to everyone for their assistance.

Ian

Enigmatic_Me

Hi

I read re the changes however for me getting email subscriptions was never a problem. Since the last couple of days I now seem to be getting an email everytime someone posts to a thread I am subscribed to, whereas before I would get one email and no more until such a time as I clicked the link where I could then read all the posts since my last visit.

The only problem for me now with the change is I am out at work all day and now my inbox will be flooded with notifications. I do not want to switch off the notifications I would just like to be able to go back to how it was if that is possible?

Thanks

Enigmatic_Me

Hi Ian

Just in case I didn't explain very well I posted this is the comp discussion board before I realised there was a forum re the site.

Here is the thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/55571857#Comment_55571857

:beer:

Former_MSE_Ian

Hi sugarbabe61,

sugarbabe61 wrote: »

Hi Ian

Just in case I didn't explain very well I posted this is the comp discussion board before I realised there was a forum re the site.

Here is the thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/55571857#Comment_55571857

:beer:

Your subscription to that thread appears to be an "Instant notification by email" subscription. This means that you have asked to be notified instantly about every post made on that thread. This thread is fairly busy. Sometimes there can be up to 10 posts in a day. Which will result in you 10 emails being sent to you.

I understand you may not want to get 10 emails into your inbox. This is what the "Daily update by email" subscription option is there for. If you change your type of subscription for this thread from "Instant notification by email" to "Daily update by email" you will only get one email a day containing information about a number of posts. I wonder if that would be more convenient. Hope that helps.

Ian

fifeken

MSE_Ian wrote: »

Hi sugarbabe61,



Your subscription to that thread appears to be an "Instant notification by email" subscription. This means that you have asked to be notified instantly about every post made on that thread. This thread is fairly busy. Sometimes there can be up to 10 posts in a day. Which will result in you 10 emails being sent to you.

I understand you may not want to get 10 emails into your inbox. This is what the "Daily update by email" subscription option is there for. If you change your type of subscription for this thread from "Instant notification by email" to "Daily update by email" you will only get one email a day containing information about a number of posts. I wonder if that would be more convenient. Hope that helps.

Ian

The old system seemed to work OK for me with one email per thread until you logged in again. Is this no longer available due to the vBulletin software or an MSE decision to no longer make it available?