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Admin and Subscriber Email Notifications
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Joe B
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Jul 4, 2014 - 3:08 pm

I'm testing our forum before going live and have found an interesting behavior that isn't quite the same as other topics in this support forum.  Here's what I'm experiencing: 

I want for the admin of the WP site to receive emails when new topics are added to forums.  I've tried two ways and both have failed. 

  1. Admins / Your Admin Options: Selected "Receive email notifications on new topic/post" 
  2. Subscribed the Admin User to all of the Forums.  Odd behavior: while each topic shows the heart with an "x" rather than a "+" denoting that I'm subscribed (confirmed with pop up stating "Unsubscribe from this forum") the "Subscribed" button shows "You are not currently subscribed to any topics."

Neither option has sent any emails to the WP admin account's email address when another user posts a topic. 

The odd thing is, I set up a non-admin user that is also subscribed to all forums, and when another user posts a topic, he gets an email notification.  

I confirmed that the email address is correct, but can't figure out why a non-admin can subscribe, but an admin cannot.  This feature (admin getting notified) is important to how we plan to use the forum, so any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Joe  

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
SP Master
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Jul 4, 2014 - 10:34 pm

for what its worth, doing both #1 and #2 will cause the admin to receive two emails per post.. one for the admin notification and one for the subscription... they are two totally distinct and separate functionality (notification is core, subscription is plugin)...

have you verified the email address for the admin?

has he checked his spam folder?  or even the server mail logs to see if it was sent...  wp actually sends the emails, not us...

are  you using digests?

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Joe B
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Jul 5, 2014 - 3:51 pm

I verified that the email address of the WordPress admin is correct.  We logged into her webmail to check to see if there was anything in the junk folder, but there wasn't.  This user is also set as the Admin in Forum/Admins/ Manage Admins/Current Admins and Moderators.

Maybe there's something else that needs selecting somewhere?  Weird how a non-admin gets notified right away when subscribed, but the Admin does not.  

Not using Digests--not sure what they are.  Is there any additional information I can provide to you so you can help diagnose the issue?  

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
SP Master
Free Members
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Jul 5, 2014 - 4:29 pm

not sure what you mean by the wordpress admin...  the email setting for the wp admin is unrelated... we are talking users here...  and users only exist in wp...  and wp admins are not the same as sp admins though a user can be a wp admin and a sp admin...  only sp admins will get notifications..  any user, with permission, can get subscription emails...

and again, want to stress, notifications only go to admin/mods... users can only get subscription emails...  just want to be sure to use proper lingo to keep from getting confused... notifications and subscriptions are two completely different systems within sp... as mentioned earlier, an admn can get both notifications and subscription emails if they sign up for both...

so for the sp admin user, you need to physically check their user account and their email... if may not agree with general wp admin email setting...

but even then, wouldnt really explain the subscription email missing...  as long as their wp user account email is set up right...

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Joe B
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Jul 5, 2014 - 11:55 pm

I have two users: Kara and Joe.  Kara is the Forum Admin who is set to receive notifications and is subscribed to all Forums. Joe is a Standard user that is subscribed to all Forums.  Kara's email address is correct as defined in Wordpress users.  

The Admin (Kara) user is set to "Receive email notifications on new topics/posts" and "Receive notification (within forum...)." 

When Kara adds or replies to a Topic, Joe is notified via email.  When Joe adds or replies to a Topic, Kara is not notified.  Ironically, hers is the only user that really needs to be notified.  

I attached some screen-grabs to have you validate that everything is set up properly.  I confirmed that her email address is correct in her WP profile, and that no email went to her junk or spam folders.  

Is there anything you can think of to look for?  Am I missing something fundamental?  Are there any other screen-grabs that would be helpful?  I checked the Error Log and didn't see anything that looked related.  

Thanks once again.  

By the way, I'm really impressed with this forum and really appreciate your support.  This is the last thing we're trying to straighten out before we go live.  Screen-Shot-2014-07-05-at-8.41.01-PM.jpgImage EnlargerScreen-Shot-2014-07-05-at-8.43.53-PM.jpgImage Enlarger

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
SP Master
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sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline
Jul 6, 2014 - 12:50 am

about out of ideas... this a local issue and is not occurring to any other users... usually its an issue with wp sending emails...  but some emails are going out, wp should be handling it...

I guess to debug further, we would need a temp sp admin account and a temp user account set up for us so we could experiment... additionally, we would require ftp access in order to access simple press code and insert some debug code...

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Joe B
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Jul 6, 2014 - 1:30 am

I'll try troubleshooting by creating a new admin and see if I can get it working that way. I just wanted to be sure there wasn't something else I was missing. I'll make an admin using a different email domain first then see if one on the same domain works.

Thanks for your help and I'll be sure to post any findings.

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Yellow Swordfish
Glinton, England
SP Master
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline
Jul 6, 2014 - 5:16 am

Like Steve (Mr Papa) I am equally puzzled. WordPress is a bit notorious for failing to send emails but when this happens it is usually site-wide - they get sent or they don't.  Personally I am no expert on email servers either but I would have hoped there may be some mechanism for checking whether specific emails are getting sent out or not - and received or not at the recipient server.

Might it be worth your admin trying an alternative email address - for diagnostic purposes?

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YELLOW
SWORDFISH
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Joe B
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Jul 6, 2014 - 1:09 pm

Thank you for validating that I have got everything set up correctly.  I changed the email address of the admin user and it works fine--wish I had thought of that first.  I changed it back and it stopped working.  There's no sign of any emails in her junk or spam folder, and no sign of a blacklist or whitelist, so we'll go with the new email address that works.  

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
SP Master
Free Members
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Jul 6, 2014 - 2:52 pm

its possible the receiver server has blacklisted the send server...

but glad you are happy and good to go...

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