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Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems. |
@Woody: What is the difference between the selections “favorite” and “subscribe”which are showing in the upper R. corner?
I’ve been having problems getting any e-mail notices for about 5 days now, and wondering how I can get these so I won’t get left out of the loop. Has anything changed in the way the menu is being handled recently, or is it just I who is having the problem? Thank you for all of the great work you do for all of us…… ALWAYS! 🙂
Favorite adds the topic to your profile’s Favorite list, whereas Subscribe is to have emails of new posts sent to you; you may subcribe to a topic or a forum. When you subscribe to a forum, you only get notified when new topics are added, not when new replies are added to that topic, unless you have since subscribed to the topic.
There have been sporadic reports of missing emails since the move to Google Cloud about 2 months ago, but on the whole, there has been no change that should have affected the behavior of send emails from this end since then.
Maybe there is a spam filter between send and receive, that has gobbled up your notification emails? Have you checked the usual spam folders/whitelists etc?
@Kirsty: I finally searched until I located this subject, to which I’m sure I had already subscribed. Nothing I do seems to help me keep up with “anything”. I am showing already subscribed to these subjects, and out of all I subscribed to, I have only received ONE notice, and that was probably the “new” topic Woody posted. That is the ONLY one, and nothing subsequent to that one message.
I’ll just have to continue to do as “geekdom” (I think it was) who recommended that I check for the “recently active topics” to try to get to the menu. Takes much more time to do this, however it appears that I have no choice.
I just checked this to verify, and “yes”, it is showing “unsubscribe”.
These topics are only showing “unsubscribe” so what other option is there? I have this message marked “notify me of follow-up replies via e-mail”, however I’m sure I won’t see any. 🙁 🙁
Changing email addresses has worked here, so you might like to try that, but as I mentioned, the system was changed a few weeks ago (that link was much earlier).
If you are seeing “Unsubscribe” on any topic/forum, you are subscribed to it; it’s just a matter of where your emails are getting stuck, rather than landing in your Inbox…
There shouldn’t be any difference between selecting Nofity Me when you create replies, and clicking Subscribe at the top of a page.
The other handy link that is worth checking is: Topics with my reply
@Kirsty: Thank you for your take on these issues…. I will just have to bite the bullet until I can find some way to correct the situation. I appreciate your thoughts about this issue. I simply don’t have the time to try to set up another account at the moment, however “if and when” I will give it a try. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts about this problem. It could have been that the May 2nd date shows because that’s the date I received it and I was offline for a while. Thank you once again. 🙂
@ Walker
Who provides your email access–what ISP (Internet Service Provider) allows you to have emails?
How to you access your email–do you go to a website–or do you have a Windows Client on your system that downloads emails to your PC–which one?
Do you know what we mean when we ask you if you have checked your *spam filter*? That would be happening at the level of your email provider, and the only way to check that is by accessing your email via the email provider’s website–and most likely not at your local PC email client. Your local email client may also have a *spam filter*–but, that is a different *spam filter* than your email provider.
If your email provider is filtering out emails that it considers being *spam*, then you will never see it on you local email client program.
Can you help us by answering the above questions? We can then work through the steps to help you check things out, and maybe find a solution for you.
For your information, I’ve seen several others complain about not getting email notifications–it seems to be that this forum software has random glitches that effect some folks, but not others–with no explanation, and the problem does not appear to be subject to review and correction by the development (software experts) team. I stopped getting email notifications back in approx. Sept., 2017, when this software suffered a major meltdown–to my knowledge, it has never worked since then.
…Also the “first time” I noted that I was not receiving any notifications, was the last time that Woody “updated” everything. I think the last notification I received was May 2nd. Then “nothing”…
The last site changes were about the middle of last month. Nothing has changed since the start of this month. That would appear to be unrelated to the problem you are experiencing, sorry.
If you have another email address you could use as a test, it may be worth trying that, as Sparky did successfully (linked in my reply above). If nothing else, if may narrow down the issue/s. 🙂
@Walker-
In order to do some problem solving (know where to look) NightOwl needs to know your e-mail provider. Some people have e-mail from their ISP, but I don’t think that applies to you. I think you said it was Yahoo mail, some time in the past?
To access any e-mail, what do you click on, or where do you go? Some people go on-line. Some people use Outlook or Thunderbird and click on those on their desktop or start menu. In order to problem solve we have to know the path you take to access your e-mail.
I had to go to my e-mail provider’s site to white-list Askwoody, because they identified it as spam… but we’ll never know if that is happening to you, because you are focusing on changes on the site, rather than letting NightOwl walk you through how to check with your provider. It might not be the problem, but it was for me… Askwoody worked fine for years, and then suddenly started getting tagged. I also had it happen locally on Thunderbird, and I had to fix both before the problem was resolved for me.
One more time… 1)your e-mail provider is?
2) how do you access your e-mail?
Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter
Elly: My e-mail provider is the same one that provides the phone service, and the TV programs. It is only one company. They do have e-mail addresses if people want to use them, however I’ve used Yahoo “forever”, so I just left it as it was because there are thousands of emails in there.
I go to the Yahoo website to access my emails, and have not had any problems in (as I mentioned) at least 12 years, if not longer. The only ISP I have is the one that I have for the 2 other services provided, and I have not had a problem with any of them either.
I may try to set up a gmail account, if I can find the time to do it, just to make a determination as to whether there is something amiss “somewhere” causing this problem. At the present I just don’t have the time, and with the vision problems everything takes longer than normal. Thank you for explaining the need for more information and I hope that this is sufficient. I have no other ISP than the one, and this is the one that is mandatory for residents here. I appreciate you taking the time to send the information you are seeking to hopefully assist in resolving this aggravating problem. I sincerely appreciate your efforts, and those of everyone else as well. 🙂
I wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable disclosing email provider information, but this page has information on whitelisting email addresses or domains on some of the free online webmail services, which may put you in the right direction @walker. It isn’t recent, so may contain some out of date information which may bear a similarity to current options.
Some tips for managing webmail might help:
Find missing emails in Yahoo
Set Gmail filter to Never Send to Spam
Gmail Spam Folder Location Guide
Email Whitelist Instructions
After adding ‘askwoody.com’ to my Yahoo Contacts list and opting to download all spam and mark it as [Spam], less than an hour ago, I’ve just received my first Subscription email for a couple of weeks or more – it didn’t have [Spam] appended to it.
Theoretically therefore, only adding ‘askwoody.com’ should bypass whatever block Yahoo has in place.
My result was a one-off, I’ve had no further subscription replies since. I used askwoody as the name last time, I’ve just added another with no name (askwoody.com as the email) and removed the name from noreply@askwoody.com. It’s all experimental still.
Another confusion factor could be that there are 3x different Yahoo email front ends available – I’m using the oldest version still, I don’t know whether they all use the same back end settings/rules.
No email following your Reply, I’ll make further changes again when I get back to my main PC (an hour or so).
Hi Walker,
May I suggest that you open a new Gmail email account and then “subscribe” everything you want to that gmail address. This has the benefit of having one separate email account that gets all of the replies in one place. We can walk you through setting up a Gmail account if you have not done it but it’s pretty straight-forward. When opening the account there is a setting that turns off “conversation” mode – which I did. Then all emails that you receive are not nested. I have several Gmail accounts for different purposes and have enabled two-step authentification for each one – which is another security bonus. You would have to register this new email address with Woody.
Best of Luck!
You would have to register this new email address with Woody.
To change your email address, click on your profile/name (either top right of any page, or in any reply you have posted), click Edit at the bottom of the left hand options list, change your email address, then click Update Profile.
🙂
@ Walker
Well, for what it’s worth–I just checked my email provider’s spam filter–and low and behold, there were the email notifications to the topics I had previously subscribed to!
Originally, my email address was lost from the data base–which explained why I never got email notifications to subscribed topics after that Sept., 2017 meltdown.
Apparently, when I realized I was not getting emails at my former email address, and changed my email to a new address, I could then receive emails, but, it never occurred to me that my email provider was filtering out certain emails as spam. After checking that, and making the necessary changes, now email notifications are, in fact, working!
Walker, let us know how your system is set up, and then we can start walking through the steps to check things out.
@ Walker
I use the same ISP that I always use (a package deal). I’ve never had a problem with the ISP – – – .
I understand–and I wish that things would remain *static* for a lot longer than they do these days–changes keep occurring everywhere we look–web browsers, forum software, ISP settings, on-line email providers, Windows, installed software, etc., etc.–just no end to it!!!! But, that’s to say, we don’t know where in that long line of possible sources, the problem(s) you may be having is occurring–and the only way to figure it out, is to trouble shoot and rule out the source of the possible problem(s) one at a time.
I wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable disclosing email provider information, …
To be clear–I’m not asking for any personally identifying information–not your email address, not your password, not your account number, etc.–just asking for general categories so I know where to direct my Google searches for information. For instance–my ISP is Comcast (aka: Xfinity) and I use their email for some of my communications, and I also use GMail for serveral other email accounts–I don’t think I have revealed too much personal information with that–but, maybe I’m wrong, and someone can correct me! (But, gee–I’m guessing any bad guys are going to try both of those companies if they think they have enough personal information to *attack* my accounts with those companies–they’re just a couple of the biggest players out there, and the first likely attack vector to try–yes?!)
I need you to check something–let me explain why first–
You started this topic: Favorites/Subscribe , on May8th.
I didn’t see this topic until May 11th: Reply # 191776
It was at that time that I *Subscribed* to this topic.
It was not until Kirsty replied to this topic here: Reply # 191809 , that I got a single email notification that a *New Reply* had been made to the topic.
Now, there have been multiple replies since Kirsty’s reply–but, I still only have the *ONE* email reply posted in my email program! Once again, I thought the email notifications were no longer working–until I tumbled–clicked on that single listed email, and that opened up and showed a list of email notifications regarding this single forum topic–the emails were listed under that single email *topic*, or what the email programs are now calling *conversations*!
You have mentioned here:
I think the last notification I received was May 2nd. Then “nothing” until I signed up for the “new” topic”, “Our Newest Forum: Access Tech”. Now this “new” email notification is the ONLY one I have received and that was on May 9th.
You have received two single email notifications regarding to separate topics, and only the one notification for each.
Can you check your Yahoo email, click on either of those two single emails, and now if you scroll down (or up–depending on how your email program works), are other email notifications listed for that specific topic?
If *Yes*, then we have *solved* the mystery, if *No, then we have to dig further to find a solution.
We can talk more about this *feature* once we have an answer to my above question–how to adjust the settings if need be.
I await your results …..
I didn’t see this topic until May 11th: Reply # 191776
It was at that time that I *Subscribed* to this topic.
It was not until Kirsty replied to this topic here: Reply # 191809 , that I got a single email notification that a *New Reply* had been made to the topic.
There does not appear to have been any replies in the 2.5hr+/- time difference between these two replies that you didn’t create yourself, so there would have been no emails issued to you prior to the one for #191809, after you subscribed… no problem there!
🙂
@ Kirsty
… so there would have been no emails issued to you prior to the one for #191809, after you subscribed… no problem there!
Did not mean to imply there was a problem there. I had noted that the forum software appeared to ignore posts that I had made to the topic as far as sending out a *Reply to Topic Notification*, and assumed that that was probably *normal* behavior.
The additional *Reply Notification* emails were for later replies after the above, and by others. Those additional replies were all *hidden* under your initial reply–and not obvious unless you knew what you were looking for!
Hopefully, this is Walker’s problem, and it will help resolve the issue.
To anyone:
Just to add to the confusion around getting email notifications after subscribing to a topic: I now have two emails from this topic with notifications of new replies.
One email currently has 10 replies listed. The other has 6 replies listed. Both are for this topic, and the listed replies are distinct replies, and do not duplicate what’s in the other list of notifications in the other email.
I am using Gmail for Subscribed notifications. Does anyone know how Gmail decides what email notification belongs in which *conversation*–given that both lists of notification are coming from the *same conversation*. So far, I cant see a distinction that separates the two.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
Hi NightOwl & Walker – For my dedicated Gmail account only for Woody I went to “Settings” and “Chat” and turned off that feature. I just get separate emails for the posts that I have signed up for. Each email reply has underneath it the post that it belongs to and I click on it to bring me to the actual post on the site. I stay logged in for this purpose. I hope I’m explaining this properly. Also it works for me since the only emails I get on that gmail account are from Woody. If you used a Gmail account that got lots of other emails it might get confusing. I don’t know if this is helpful. For me Gmail does not list any of these as Spam.
@NightOwl, satrow, and everyone else who is following this topic. I just now received an email notification!
It was for the ” Patch Tuesday, etc.” topic. I was amazed!! So somewhere along the line something must have changed! I will be able to ascertain more, if I continue to receive more email notifications. I hope this is not just a fluke. Good luck, to us all! 🙂
I did, too – from yesterday morning – not getting my hopes up yet, looks like a curve ball to me 🙁
@ Peacelady
Hi NightOwl & Walker – For my dedicated Gmail account only for Woody I went to “Settings” and “Chat” and turned off that feature. I just get separate emails for the posts that I have signed up for. Each email reply has underneath it the post that it belongs to and I click on it to bring me to the actual post on the site.
I agree, and you are explaining it just fine. I clicked on the *gear* icon, that drops down a menu list, selected *Settings*, and about halfway down was a category *Conversation View* with the option to select (*On*, or *Off*). If I select *Off*, then scroll down to the bottom of the list of settings, and click on *Save Changes*, then all the nested replies are then listed in the classical way of each reply being a separate entry. Easy to do.
And, I can reverse the setting to *On*, and the *related* emails are once again in their respective *Conversation* under a single email line which when clicked on shows all the emails underneath in a *nested* fashion. Another clue that the emails are grouped together, there is a number just after the first row heading–it looks like this *AskWoody (12)*, which indicates there are 12 emails under this one email heading. Once again, easy to do.
But, still don’t understand why I have two different notifications from the same topic, each with its own separate list of replies associated with each–still looking for what makes the two different.
This has been a very interesting topic so far. I have learned better some of the new wrinkles that email providers have added as new features that get in our way. And I still believe as many of you have pointed out: The difficulty lies outside of AskWoody. It is a very good thing to see help given in many aspects of our shared online experience.
For myself, I am curious of the way others interface with AskWoody. Rather than assume too much, please allow me to describe how I choose to find items of interest here. On the few occasions where I have taken time away from usual daily habits both in life and here, notifications by email have been a nice feature to notify me of items developed while I have been away. But I do not rely on these as primary method to interface with the wide variety of topics on AskWoody. They are a notification only.
After login to this site, I have much more direct and useful tools available to me to list my favored or subscribed topics. These include a variety of hotlinks to ‘original post’ by title, ‘first new’ comment since last signed in, or ‘last’ comment made just moments before I requested this list be generated and delivered to me. To my preferred method of catching up with all the information available here, these tools are much more convenient than reading every individual email. Because each email has no reference to context, at all. But when I click on a topic by using any of those hotlinks, the entire topic is displayed in the current AW interface with all context intact.
If you are visiting every day, notifications are not necessary. As a separate question, I also wonder if you never log out, are notifications ever sent at all?
Summary, the notifications are useful only if I need to be reminded; reading for comprehension, and less confusion, is best done in context with all developing conversation, within the AskWoody Lounge interface.
@Cascadian: Thank you for your message. No problem.
I have received close to 100 new email “notifications” starting at 1:08 a.m this morning, and I think there are actually even more since I now have over 1000 emails to sift through. These are definitely NOT duplicates, so I’m going to be very, very busy trying to straighten this out!! These are shown as all being sent from this forum starting very early this morning, non-stop. This “apparently” is something that is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond my capability to understand. I will try to post this on the topics which I’ve referenced it in so that everyone who was interested in this strange occurrence will know that at least “I” have my missing email notifications which have arrived “en masse”.
As a separate question, I also wonder if you never log out, are notifications ever sent at all?
Even when you are logged in and online, notification emails are still sent
🙂
@Cascadian: Enjoyed reading your comments, and I agree that there are other methods which I use too, simply because once you access a “topic”, you can scroll through everything that is posted, and it’s a very quick process (as opposed to seeing a separate email for each comment), however to each his/her own. I think at “some point in time” (I have no idea “when”) there will be a revelation as to what has occurred with the “email notification” debacle and I ANXIOUSLY await that time. You have an excellent system, whereas I am not computer literate so therefore cannot replicate your system. Thank you for sharing your methodology with us. 🙂
@ walker
I don’t have gmail, however I definitely only received one email message for each email.
Okay, so you do not have multiple email replies nested under a single email entry. Well, that would have been too simple an explanation!
I was thinking of trying to go to gmail, however after I read what your experiences are it’s almost worst than what I’m getting …
Don’t let what I have explained deter you! As I explained above to Peacelady, it’s very easy to turn that *feature* on and off–so if your preference is a single email for each time the same topic has a new reply, Gmail will gladly do that for you!
Now that my hoped for *simple* explanation for the lack of notifications, the next simple test is, in fact, to try using a different email address to see if the problem is solved. If you do not have another email address, either using your available ISP’s available email address, or setting up a Gmail address are your two easiest options. We can help walk you through either option. And then, the only change you have to make on the AskWoody site, is to go into your Profile and change your user email address. Again, an easy process to walk you through.
Let us know if you want to give this a try.
@NightOwl, satrow, Kirsty, Elly, and all others. I have now received close to 100 email notifications (I think it’s “more” since I have over 1000 emails to sift through now trying to determine “what the heck is going on”. They all came from this “forum’s address”, and started at 1:08 a.m. my time according to the information. I suspect that I will be very busy trying to get caught up (if it’s at all possible). All different topics!
I was behind to begin with and now it’s necessary to read each one of these. Anyone else get a “huge” surprise such as this one??? Please post here if you’ve seen any changes of this magnitude? Thank you for sharing all of your experiences with this VERY strange occurrence. I am hoping that my dilemma is “fixed”, however I’m not holding my breath
GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF US!!! 🙂
@ Everyone
I am using Gmail for Subscribed notifications. Does anyone know how Gmail decides what email notification belongs in which *conversation*–given that both lists of notification are coming from the *same conversation*. So far, I cant see a distinction that separates the two.
Okay, I think I have found what Gmail uses as a *rule* to create a new separate email listing if *Conversations View* is enabled–Gmail puts similar emails in a single grouping for a max of 2 days. If more emails from the same forum topic come in on a third day–then Gmail starts a new grouping for the *Conversation View*–it now accumulates the notices in the same email group for another 2 days. Then it starts another separate email grouping if emails arrive beyond the 4th day, etc.
Seems straight forward enough–I will have to watch it for awhile longer to confirm this activity.
Edit: I have also seen a posting that Gmail will start a new listing of similar emails in *Conversation View* if the number of entries exceeds somewhere between 60 and 100 entries–have not come across that many entries for a single forum topic in a one to two day period as of yet, so can’t say if this is true or not.
@ walker
Much easier to just have the one email program as long as it is fully functional.
You might want to consider having a separate email address that is dedicated to *AskWoody.com*. Then the only emails that you will see when logged onto that email address will be AskWoody emails, and when your are logged onto your other email address, you will only get whatever personal emails are arriving from family, or friends, or other sources. You then will not have to wade through all the AskWoody emails to find your other personal emails.
But, that’s a personal choice thing–if you don’t mind having all the AskWoody notifications mixed in with your other emails, than a single email address is fine.
Sure looks like there must be a *Gremilin*, *Troll*, or a *Gnome* lurking about on AskWoody that is doing its best to fix up the email notification system for the *Subscribed* email notifications and/or the *Notify me of follow-up replies via email* check box.
@ walker
@nightowl: Well, the email notifications STOPPED at 2:51 p.m. this afternoon! So now it appears that I’m right back to having to waste time trying to check on what is being posted
Well, maybe no one else has replied recently–I’m sending this reply to the forum at approx 4:23 Pacific Daylight Time–did you get an email notification for this posting?
I continue to get notifications of your replies to this topic.
@ satrow
No further notifications since about the same time here.
For what it’s worth, I had a notification waiting for this last post when I got home late this evening–so apparently I’m still getting the email notifications.
Also subscribed to another topic late this afternoon, and I’m getting the notifications from that topic as well.
Don’t know what the difference is between my system and yours as to why the difference in notification behavior!?
Deliveries have kicked off again: 05:25 and 07:27 UK time (UTC+1?), the first included a ‘live’ reminder, the others were all catchup from the previous 2 days; since then, 11.39 more catchup from yesterday (14th) and another ‘live’ reminder at 12.03.
If you have a long reply, build it first as a separate file, and save to your computer. Then copy the file contents here and submit. If the post fails, you have the information on your computer. You can open the saved file, copy the contents to reply, and submit again.
this is the THIRD message I have prepared. The other two got the “Forbidden” thing and wiped them out.
Somehow your post was mistaken as a threat… glad to hear you were able to post without triggering that, eventually. 🙂
The “garbled” posting will relate to copying from an html source (presumably your web browser), and pasting it here without first saving it as .txt, i.e. in notepad or word. When you paste it here, html content is not supported (only bbcodes, as you will see noted above the text editor).
Also, it’s worth making sure you are using the text version of the text editor, rather than the visual option, when pasting copied content – it may handle it better.
PS It wasn’t really worth posting the same content twice (and remember the lounge rules about repetition!) 😉
@Kirsty: I only posted that message once to begin with, and then didn’t see it appear anywhere, so that is how it was posted more than once. There is something “drastically” wrong with the “forum topic menus”. I did not know about posting a message more than once, however I only saw the one message finally.
Thank you for the advice on how to format the messages. I never had any of those instructions previously that you cited in your e-mail.
Can you please tell me where they are located? It would help me tremendously to have more information on “specific rules” which until now I was unaware of. Thank you once again, Kirsty. I sincerely appreciated your help. 🙂
@ walker
I have no idea “who or what” is controlling this action
As I noted before:
Sure looks like there must be a *Gremlin*, *Troll*, or a *Gnome* lurking about on AskWoody ….
Gremlins for sure!
I’m still getting timely notifications ….
@ walker
I’ve had it happen a few times before, and need to get into the habit of just copying the messages before I send.
I actually open up a Notepad instance (or one could also use Wordpad, or whatever program that works for you–I like to use Notepad because it’s a text only word
processor–no formatting can be done which matches what is allowed on AskWoody posts), and I copy and paste every so often the contents of a long post so it’s protected from inadvertent loss (like my stubby fingers hitting a wrong key–like a *back button* that takes me to a previous webpage–and my message is wiped out!).
When it’s time to make another updated backup, I do a copy of my current reply, then I use the Notepad function from its menu item *Edit* and then choose *Undo*–that wipes out the previously pasted backup, and now I can paste the new updated copy of the reply. I repeat this every so often, as needed, until I’m finally ready to sent the reply–making a final copy and paste before sending in case something goes wrong, and I loose the reply in *cyberspace* to some glitch.
Give it a try–once you get used to doing it, it’s been a *life saver* for me more than once!
NightOwl, I also like the restricted function of notepad. All copypaste into text tab selected just above here as I type now has worked without flaw.
A balanced observation though, if too much prep is done in notepad in advance it becomes possible to submit too rapidly. Then you may be blocked as a spammer for rapid submit, rather than for content.
Luckily, you still have the original sitting there in notepad. Make a small change, wait a short period, then submit again. On at least two occasions, I decided my post was not important enough to make the effort. But at least twice a kind moderator has lifted the lost comment from whatever bin it fell into, after the passage of some time.
@ Cascadian
… if too much prep is done in notepad in advance it becomes possible to submit too rapidly. Then you may be blocked as a spammer for rapid submit, rather than for content.
Interesting! I have not used Notepad in that fashion–so I have not had to deal with what you describe with the *spam prevention* module that is subscribed to by the local forum software here.
I do all my reply creation from within the text reply box. I copy and paste to Notepad from here (the text reply box), and continue my reply creation from still within the reply box. So, my creation and eventual reply submission is anything but *quick* or *fast*.
I too have been caught by the spam petrol (although, the spam filter does lend itself to causing inflammatory reactions (smile)) patrol if I attempt to edit a recent submission when I have seen a spelling or grammar error, correct it, and try to re-submit my corrected reply too quickly–so I know from where you speak.
I have, on rare occasion pasted an unfinished reply to Notepad, then saved it for later, but again, I copy the uncompleted reply from Notepad back to the reply text box when I come back to it, complete the creation of the rest of the reply, and then submit the reply. I do that mostly because my spelling is atrocious, and I use the reply box to alert me to my errors!
@ walker
Insofar as making copies of what I send, I have just used my e-mail, making a “draft” and leaving it in there in the event I should need it, however I’m not much for using any other program for making copies.
Just to be clear–I was not suggesting making copies of what you are posting. What I am suggesting is to make a temporary copy during the creation process of making a *long* reply, so if anything goes wrong during that creation, I have a copy to bring back into the *reply box*, and continue with the creation process. And, prior to submitting the reply, I’m making a temporary copy to Notepad of my *final* reply, so if something goes wrong with the submission process, and I somehow loose the reply before it actually gets posted, then I have to copy to copy and paste into the reply box so I can try again, without having to retype the whole reply again!
Once I have successfully submitted the finished reply to the forum, I simply delete the temporary backup in Notepad using the menu item *Edit* and choosing the *Undo* selection, and then reuse Notepad for the next reply, and then doing it again, and again, until I’m done with replies for the moment. Then, I simply close out the Notepad software–and I have *saved no copies* of any of the replies created.
I like the graphic of the Nightowl! Reminds me of the huge ones I saw in northern Minnesota!
Thanks! Oh, ya–the Great Horned Owls–I bet they have some big ones in northern Minnesota!
@ walker
They started at 1:07 a.m. which seems to be when the ” holding entity” is releasing them to send out.
That’s just the weirdest thing!
The forum shows that your last post above was at 10:25 AM. My Gmail notification for that post is showing 8:25 AM. I’m on the West Coast in Washington State. Are you somewhere in the Central Time Zone?
I received your message at 9:50 a.m. EDT, ….
Nope. Looks like you are in the Eastern Time Zone. So, maybe the forum server is in the Central Time Zone and showing its time on the your posting time.
But, bottom line, at least for now, I appear to get notifications almost immediately–there does not appear to be any time delay or holding period. Just can’t fathom how for different folks, the forum offers different experiences!
Edit:
So, maybe the forum server is in the Central Time Zone and showing its time on the your posting time.
Yup! That’s what the forum software is doing–it’s using Central Time Zone for it’s posting times on Replies. My local time when I posted this was 1:00 PM, and the forums posting time says 3:00 PM.
@ Cascadian
Then are the times that an accurately spelled wrong word slips by. I had a personal humor when the word I expected was patrol, your word was petrol, and my brain interpreted as petrel in keeping with your avian handle.
Groan–I hate it when I do that!
Thanks for the gentle nudge!
@ walker
I only posted that message once to begin with, and then didn’t see it appear anywhere, so that is how it was posted more than once.
Actually, it looks like this is not one of your *lost messages* that didn’t appear:
when I copied it to quote it came out all garbled, and appeared in the e-mail as follows: I’m just leaving the second one, since I attempted twice to copy and send it, and it is coming out the same way. – – – – Apologies for this “mess”.
Can you please tell me where they are located? It would help me tremendously to have more information on “specific rules” which until now I was unaware of.
At the bottom of the topic thread here, and on every topic thread, just above where is says *Reply To: Favorites/Subscribe*, you can see a sentence:
Please follow the –Lounge Rules– no personal attacks, no swearing, and politics/religion are relegated to the Rants forum.
The *Lounge Rules* is a link to Woody’s summary of what is asked for for lounge etiquette. But, I don’t think you have transgressed excessively. You were befuddled by how the first one turned out, thought it was something you did wrong (or maybe the forum software had messes up), and you tried again.
Next time, just delete the extra posting–however, to be precise–the two postings are different, just the *copied/pasted* part had repeat information.
Maybe, Kirsty is being a little hard on you?!
@NightOwl: Thank you for your most polite, and courteous message. I appreciate the guidance, and understanding of my confusion more than words can express. I most certainly will follow your directions “to the letter”, as you have been so kind as to provide them – – – – so that I won’t make this mistake again. Thank you once again, NightOwl, for the guidance which you have so freely provided to me. 🙂 🙂
Maybe, Kirsty is being a little hard on you?!
Hardly – that’s not my style! It was just a small timely reminder to those who may not have recently (or ever) read da rules (which appears from Walker’s reply, wasn’t inappropriate)
🙂
I appreciate that Walker took it in the spirit it was given – he is always a gentleman, and that’s a credit to him!
To All
Just an update to the notifications behavior with Gmail:
Okay, I think I have found what Gmail uses as a *rule* to create a new separate email listing if *Conversations View* is enabled–Gmail puts similar emails in a single grouping for a max of 2 days. If more emails from the same forum topic come in on a third day–then Gmail starts a new grouping for the *Conversation View*–it now accumulates the notices in the same email group for another 2 days. Then it starts another separate email grouping if emails arrive beyond the 4th day, etc.
Well, that’s proven to be wrong! Here’s a screen shot showing a section of my Gmail Inbox:
Having multiple notifications related to the same topic grouped under one heading does keep the Inbox better organized and less messy.
But, still don’t know what is controlling how Gmail decides to create a new topic email to add new notifications to–leaving the previous email to show the previous notifications.
@ walker
I started to send a message and then noted that it had some strange configuration in it, so then tried to “trash” it, and it wouldn’t work.
Well, it did work! Your reply was in the *Trash Bin*. I found it there and *pulled it back out*. Cleaned it up a little bit, and restored it to the thread, and added my edit above:
walker’s deleted post–restored
Did you have any questions about Peacelady’s comments about Gmail?
This may be quite irrelevant, but I wonder if there’s some browser effect happening too?
Google has been breaking so many services in @Firefox lately. The new @Gmail lags a lot, and the new @GoogleNews scrolls so slow in Firefox. @GoogleCalendar is laggy too.
I'm getting really sick of these second-rate experiences.
— Chris Hoffman (@chrisbhoffman) 18 May 2018
(and thread)
@NightOwl: Today the email notifications began at 1:12 a.m. Same time frame as usual. As long as I get the messages I’m not concerned about when they begin to roll in. Thank you for “rescuing and restoring” my trashed message. I’m late getting started today on the email notifications so am attempting to consolidate two messages into one.
No, I had no questions about Peacelady’s post. I have no idea what caused the change in the time frame issue, however I don’t think it has any relationship to an email provider, or browser.
Thank you very, very much for all of the expert assistance you have provided. I’m happy that I’m back up and running once again, irrespective of “when the email notifications appear. I hope the “email notification gods continue to smile upon you!! 🙂 🙂
I hope the “email notification gods continue to smile upon you!!
Thank you.
And, in their own way, upon you has well!
@NightOwl, satrow, Kirsty, Cascadian, & PaulK:
I “think” I have FINALLY found the answer to the issue with the email notifications. Firefox had an “update” today (which came out only a day or 2 ago), and I finally had time to update it.
Well, I went through that with a “fine tooth comb”, and could see that some portions of it had been changed, and I noted that “AskWoody” had been BLOCKED!!! I am hoping that removing the block will allow the email notifications to go through without any problem. I suspect that this change could have been in one of the recent updates, and I missed it. I am already seeing one from 7:03 p.m. so that is encouraging. Will know more in the morning, however I am optimistic! Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for good luck!
@ walker
I don’t think that has solved the crazy email notification problem since here I am again this morning with the first email notification shown as yours at 2:28 a.m. Subsequent to that one there is only ONE other notification and that was at 7:22 a.m. different subject.
Okay. I was half afraid that might happen. I wasn’t sure, but I had doubts that the Firefox browser would be able to influence email Notifications that are coming from AskWoody alerting you that someone had posted a new reply on the forum–that seems to be more of an *internal* function of the forum software itself.
So, I looked at your instructions as to what you had found as a setting in Firefox (good description on your part, by the way), and after looking, did a Google search and found this:
Web Push notifications in Firefox
The *Notifications* that the Firefox web browser are referring to are not the same as the email *Notifications* coming from AskWoody forum software regarding *Replies being Posted*.
The *Notifications* from AskWoody in the Firefox browser would be something like:
I’m pleased to inform you, a new feature has been added to AskWoody.com. Use the following link to take you to that webpage so you can review it: Link.AskWoody.com
That would be a *pop-up* from the browser–not an email notification from the forum. And, it could pop-up whether you are browsing at AskWoody, or somewhere else on the web, and you might not even have AskWoody’s website up on one of your browser tabs, or not.
As far as I know, Woody has never used that *feature*–as a matter of fact, I’ve never seen any website attempt to use that pop-up feature to push messages to folks who have previously visited their site–but, I have pop-ups disabled, as well as using Ad-Block Plus that also limits pop-ups–so I might not be seeing those because they are blocked by other settings.
I’ve only seen two websites ask for *Notifications* to be Allowed–one was AskWoody.com. (Woody might not even know that his forum website is asking for that permission–it only started around January, 2018, if I recall–may have been sooner or latter than that–can’t remember exactly.) I eventually clicked *Allow* so the request would stop bothering me. You might have clicked *Deny*, which would have put that *Block* in that *Options/Privacy & Security/Notifications* section. But, I’ve never seen a *Notice* actually show up.
If you want to disable the *Notification* feature in Firefox completely you can look at this:
How do I disable Web Push completely?
Personally, I just did that. I don’t need websites being *pushy*, and sending me notices at *their will*, as opposed to mine! It’s one thing if a website says they have such an option, and here’s why it’s a benefit to you, and this is how to enable it if you want it vs the website popping up a notice on each visit asking if I want to grant permission to receive *Notifications* whenever they want to *bother* me–I elect *Deny* !
If you want to do the same thing–I could walk you through the steps real slowly–at each step–you could just look and see–no changes need to be made until you feel comfortable with what you’re seeing and doing.
Let me know!
To everyone in general
I think the only way the present situation will ever be fixed, is if someone who actually understands the forum software can go in and figure out why some folks get notifications in real-time (like I am apparently doing), and others get delayed notifications (like you are receiving)–and adjust the software to make it all even–i.e. it seems we all should be getting real-time notifications.
We’ll have to see if anything ever happens–or not.
Well, it may not have anything to do with the AskWoody forum software, at least, not directly! Looks like there may be a *higher order* email system that’s in play that may be effecting email delivery of notifications. If so, it’s then a question of who signed AskWoody up for that third party mailer, and what interactions AskWoody has with trouble shooting what goes on, and why?
I was looking at the notifications yesterday, and finally focused in on the top header:
AskWoody noreply@askwoody.com via sendgrid.net
Googled *sendgrid.net*, and found that it is a third party email aggregater and email sender. Came across this forum post, and reply #6 seems to hold at least a hint of what it’s all about:
Wilders email notifications now contain ct.sendgrid.net URL
From Reply #2:
The reason for adding it is that our email server had too many domains that refuse to accept email from us. Using a paid for service like Sendgrid allows our emails to be almost universally deliverable now.
From Reply #6:
The type of blocking that we were subject to had nothing to do with spam folders or whether you white or black listed our emails. Nothing any of you could click in your email service could fix this problem. Our mail server was simply rejected (and disconnected) right in the initial connection dialog. They never let us even start to transfer the email to them. So, for the domains in question, the emails weren’t just sitting in a spam folder somewhere. They never left our mail server.
Translation: ISP’s (Internet Service Providers–i.e. your email provider) have been getting increasing numbers of spam emails. They have subscribed to multiple anti-spam check lists–but, instead of blocking specific IP addresses–they are now blocking whole *blocks* of IP addresses. (What that means: a typical specific IP address might be: 76.241.149.145. If you block that complete single address, only that one gets blocked. But, if you block any of the IP’s address above that last segment (i.e the .145), then you are blocking all IP addresses that have the next higher *block* of addresses. So you could block the *.149*, and every IP address that has that 3rd group number and below would be blocked. Or if you blocked the *.241*, then everything below that number is blocked. And same with *76*–if you blocked that level then everything below that is blocked.
So, the ISP’s have been blocking more and more IP addresses using the higher block numbers, thus catching an ever larger number of *innocent* bystanders in their blocking activities.
Enter the third party email senders such as *SendGrid.net*. Apparently they are aggressively screening out sources of spam, and marketing their email sources as relatively free of spam to ISPs. So, the ISPs are allowing the emails from *SendGrid.net* to go through, and be received by the ISP’s users.
Doing a little more searching:
Apparently, *SendGrid.net* has the ability to schedule when batches of emails will be sent out–so that may explain why walker is getting his emails all delivered at once, at approx. 1:20 am in the morning hours. But, that does not explain why others are getting emails in *real time*, and they are not being scheduled to be delivered once per day at some odd hour. There’s probably something that determines who’s in which category, but I don’t know what!
I’m just guessing and speculating–I have no inside knowledge–but, someone should have that information, somewhere!
If it’s any help, my email subs via Yahoo have been ‘normal’ as of the last four days.
As you surmise, we’re using sendgrid. It’s the only service I’ve found that blasts through really bad”spam” filters. More details when I get to a real pc.
To NightOwl, Woody, satrow: I’ve been too under the weather to keep up with the emails. About May 21st, I suddenly began receiving the email notifications without any problems at all, and they have continued to “keep coming”. I will now need to “try” to start getting caught up. IT’S WONDERFUL TO GET ALL OF THESE EMAILS!!!!
I’ve been too much under the weather to get to the computer until now, however wanted to let everyone know that my notifications are coming in without nary a problem.
Now I am having a problem getting a reply sent out. So will try to make it short – – – – My notifications began coming in without a problem beginning about May 20 or 21st. It’s been super-great! Thank you for everyone who has shared his/her experiences with all everyone else, and for those who have that wonderful “computer expertise and knowledge” which is such a great asset. Thank you to everyone! 🙂
NightOwl, Woody, satrow, and all others:
I had one reply started, however it disappeared. I’ve been “under the weather”, however I have now noted that the email notification system is back up, and running without any problems, starting about May 20th or thereabouts. IT’S WONDERFUL! Now I must devote a lot of work to trying to get caught up.
I don’t know what changed it, however it’s running like a top! Whatever corrected this problem it has resolved itself, just as satrow noted on his Yahoo.
It appears to have been resolved permanently (at least for me). Thank you to all who have been sharing their experiences with this problem, and possess the expertise to understand all of the knowledge that is necessary to do that!! Thank you to you all! 🙂
Edit to remove several hundred carriage returns – did you hold the Return/Enter key down on your keyboard?
@ satrow
If it’s any help, my email subs via Yahoo have been ‘normal’ as of the last four days.
Maybe someone is working on this issue in the background, and is getting it adjusted and fine-tuned.
Quite likely, these changes are often rolled out over a few days or so, I wouldn’t expect all their server’s filters to be fully synched until they’ve done further log analysis and/or checked their complaints logs.
To everyone who may be following walker’s original post, and his saga:
As you surmise, we’re using sendgrid. It’s the only service I’ve found that blasts through really bad ”spam” filters. More details when I get to a real pc.
As I speculated:
….–but, someone should have that information, somewhere!
we might have a source of *more information*!
I think we know why people who have been having issues with the notification process are now beginning to get some improvements!
@ walker
When I attempted to send a reply to one message, I couldn’t get it to go through, however part of it did, and then I thought that if I tried “edit” that would allow me to finish my message.
What it ended up doing was “blocking me” for trying to edit that message,
This is a known problem, but usually it only happens if you have a small correction like a misspelled word, and you quickly hit the *Submit* button after making the small change. If you spend some time in the *Edit* mode finishing your reply, then it usually goes through okay. But, if you have something within the post that the AskWoody Spam Monitor sees as malicious or unacceptable code, then you can sometimes get trapped by the Spam Monitor for that reason.
But, what I’ve seen happen is that the Reply *disappears*. But, I don’t know what you mean by it is *blocking me*–what do you mean by that–what does *blocking me* mean?
So, can you remember what happened?
Was there anything *special* about what you were stating in your response–any outside links, or anything other than text for your response?
Did the message you tried to edit *disappear*–or is it still in the Topic you were responding to?
What Topic were you trying to post to–link if possible?
To be honest, I don’t know if there is any link between the AskWoody Spam Monitor, and the email Notification system–there could be if you are being identified as a producer of Spam Replies.
I DID NOTHING to cause this to occur again.
Well …. maybe you *did something*–but, probably nothing you were actually attempting to do on purpose (smile).
Answer the above questions, and I will try to see what I can find out.
P.S. Let me know if you get a Notification for this response to this topic.
This may be way, way out in left field, but —
You said: “When I would begin typing the message, the page just moved me right off of it, and I was ‘searching’ around trying to locate it. It just disappeared, and then I found part of it much lower down than it should have been.”
By any chance might you have a misbehaving keyboard? Specifically, may it be that the ‘Enter’ key sometimes sticks? This could cause multiple blank lines (carriage-returns) to occur. Also check the other Enter key, the one on the numeric keypad.
See my editing note at the bottom of the post above
@pkcano: Absolutely right on! My cache (the one that purportedly is between my ears) seems to be good only for about one day’s worth of storage, and the indexing of anything beyond that distressingly gets purged without notice. I previously had read your suffix – but that was dated two days ago.
@walker: Besides a ‘stuck key’ (food particle or dirt intermittently jamming the mechanism) there is another possibility. Are you on a laptop, and also have an auxiliary keyboard turned on? If so, you now have more than two active Enter keys. An errant cat or flopped-over book can go unnoticed. How to diagnose a sticking key? Open Notepad, and repeatedly press Enter(s) and wiggle the key. Press at different angles, not only vertically. Feel for any non-smoothness; note if key doesn’t immediately release. On the screen, track the cursor line location: one line only per press.
A more unlikely possibility is that you have Filter Keys activated.
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Ease of Access Center\Set up Filter Keys
There are two simple text-creating-and-editing programs that Microsoft has for years included in their distributions of Windows. The simplest one is Notepad; the other one, which includes elementary word-processing-and-formatting capability, is WordPad. Note the way the names are spelled. I have shortcuts to both of these on my Desktop.
So, where are these located on your system? Follow this trail:
Start > All Programs > [may have to scroll down to] Accessories > Notepad [and] WordPad.
Then RIGHT-click on each (you’ll have to follow the above trail twice, once for each of the programs) > Send to > Desktop (create shortcut).
Click on the Notepad shortcut on your Desktop, and start typing away! When you Save the file it will have a file-type of [.txt].
You have seen in many posts the exhortation to edit a file by using Notepad in order to be able to see exactly the text that is involved; any formatting control characters – HTML or other – will be apparent and can then be removed. The use of Notepad – “WYSIWYG” (What You See Is What You Get) – really is elementary to the handling of text. (WordPad, as well as other word-processing applications, also can create .txt files by using “Save as” instead of just “Save”.)
@ walker
This is for all who are interested in the current situation with my “problem” trying to get my notifications in a timely manner.
My record for “today” is that I received TWO notifications:
one at 1:52 a.m. and one at 5:00 a.m. That is all.
I need you to confirm for our information:
1. Check–you have stated the times you received the above notifications–when did others post their reply that generated those notifications?
2. You are probably *Subscribed* to more than *two* Topics (You mentioned “Everything else was from later in afternoon yesterday.”) Check some of those *Other* Topics–did any of them have *new* Replies–or were the above two Notifications the only New Replies since your last batch of Notifications?
Let us know what you find.
P.S. I have another post coming later about what I found regarding your possible *stuck* keyboard key issue–the answer(s) are *muddy* at best–just as a *teaser* (smile)!
@ walker
I have received a few messages today, however ONLY one of them was a “reply”, and that was yours which I show as being sent at 11:01 a.m.
Well, that sure looks like you got that Notification, pretty much, in *real time* notification.
I have received 3 other notifications, however I think that these I just subscribed to 2 of them today! They were not generated in response to a message which was posted by me. Yours is the only one which was a “reply”.
Just to be clear, Notifications are not sent to you if *YOU* make a Reply. The forum software ignors the postings by the User who posts them. It’s only Replies by *OTHERS* that will generate a Notification that a Reply has been made to a Subscribed To Topic.
Having said that, I’m trying to understand what you are saying: What is the content of the *Other* Notifications? The only Notifications I’m aware of are the ones that notify me that a Reply has been made to a Topic I’m Subscribed to! What *Other* Notifications are you receiving?
I tested Subscribing to a new Topic just a few moments ago–I did not, and have not received any Notifications regarding having Subscribed to that Topic, and I do not recall ever getting any other Notification except to *Replies*–so, again, what Notifications are you getting?
@walker
Have you tried copying what it is you are trying to post in your replies, pasting it into whatever word processor you use (i.e. Word is fine), saving it as .txt; then copy that and paste it here, using the text tab in the text editor (rather than the Visual tab)?
See here for more info.
I apologise if this is irrelevant or unrelated to the problem mentioned, but it might possibly be worth trying?
😉
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