# User Support > Forum Software Support >  Not Getting Email Notifications from Subscribed Threads

## Hal Loflin

I noticed today that I did not get any email notices from threads that I subscribe to. One in particular is the Mandolin Restoration Thread. There was a lot of activity today on that thread and I did not get one email notification.

I went to double check that I was indeed subscribed to it and was.

Any idea why I am not getting these notices?

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## rnjl

I"ve had this problem too. 

Neal

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## Rob Gerety

I'm having this problem too.

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## Scott Tichenor

Just tested this on a couple of threads using different non-admin accounts, non-Cafe related emails and got notifications immediately. I've asked Dan to check but I'm seeing no issues with email and he's validated that as we IM quite a bit throughout the day. 

I'll suggest the obvious knowing you've likely checked these already or they do not apply to you:

- Check your subscription settings.
- Check that your email address is in fact valid.
- If you're using an email client that allows whitelisting or blacklisting, you should review those settings to see what the status of anything tagged mandolincafe.com might be.
- Check your personal firewall settings if you employ one.
- _Check your spam and trash folders_ for these emails.

Finally, this site sends thousands of email daily and IT administrators watch these things, right Mike Edgerton? We sometimes get tagged as a spam source due to sheer volume. We can't control what happens to email once it leaves our control so this might likely need to involve your participation in researching this on your end. If it's a problem with mail simply not working, it will impact the entire membership and not randomly selected users.

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## Scott Tichenor

A follow-up on this, I've double-checked our settings and set up outgoing email logging which will show us any errors being generated.

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## NewsFetcher

test

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## Rob Gerety

Is there a way for me to set something up that will send an email to me from the cafe so I can test some things on my end?  I have checked all the above and it all looks like I have it all set correctly although I certainly agree it could well be, and probably is, something on my end.

I should say that in my case I do not think this issue first appeared with the new forum software install - I was having troubles before the install - at least I think I was. 

I just subscribed to this thread with instant e mail notification. We'll see.

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## Scott Tichenor

You could subscribe to this thread and we can use it to test. Trying to think of another way. The post from NewsFetcher above is actually me controlling that account. I subscribed using a non-Cafe address (different domain) and it made it through OK. I went through line by line on the settings for mail and am logging everything and simply can't replicate the process. I don't doubt for a minute you're not getting these, but as far as why, I can't tell.

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## JEStanek

You could try sending yourself an e-mail, not a PM via the Café, too.  If you're configure to allow sending an e-mail to yourself.  If your PM Notification is via e-mail you could PM yourself as well.  Both methods send your e-mail address a notification or an e-mail.

Jamie

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## danb

Scott and I ran some tests, and here are a couple notes on how mails leave the cafe

First off, the messageboard kicks off a message through a subroutine. Same one for notifies/pms.
My mail server program then hands it to the member's email address as stored in the forum
From here, I don't know anything else, I've handed it over.

Things that commonly go wrong:
 - spam filter on the server (work mail?)
 - spam filter on the client (your outlook or thunderbird or etc might track spam?)
 - forwarders that aren't as fast as you think 

Testing with scott, one gotcha that gave us a false negative result happened right away. He uses a yahoo mail account, and that account in turn grabs mails off another server every xx minutes.

So far I don't have an example where I don't have a log of me sending the mail and the other server telling me all is well and can't reproduce the problem with a fairly controlled test.

The board update changed a few mail headers, my best guess is messages mis-flagged as spam.

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## Scott Tichenor

Dan, I changed the X-Mailer header to reflect a more friendlier ID but I've noticed virtually no change as a result of that, and it probably isn't a critical component in delivery. I asked someone who is a mail server administrator and they said it's of no consequence.

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## Rob Gerety

For what its worth, after I just subscribed to this thread I did receive an e mail notification that Scott had posted to this thread.  So that worked.  That makes me think that my spam filters are not picking up the items and filtering them out.  I have the domain name white listed and there are no e mails from the cafe in my filtered mail folders.  Maybe I'm dreaming - but I'm pretty sure I have not been getting these e mails for all the threads I've subscribed to.  Let me work it a bit on other threads and see if I can figure it out. 

One thought - does the cafe system work so that if you receive one e mail notification but neglect to check it you don't receive any more notices?  Is it possible that is a factor for some of us?

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## Scott Tichenor

> One thought - does the cafe system work so that if you receive one e mail notification but neglect to check it you don't receive any more notices?  Is it possible that is a factor for some of us?


Our software can't check in your email account to see if you're reading it (like by embedding hidden images linked to our server), if that's what you mean, and you wouldn't want that. There's nothing communicating back to us if that's what you mean so the answer is no on that.

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## Rob Gerety

I didn't articulate that properly - some forum notification systems I have used send an e mail notification about a new post but then do not send another notification until the recipient has gone on line and checked the thread.  So if you forget to check the thread you might find a week goes by and a whole lot of posts were entered but you did not received any additional e mail notifications.  Is that how this forum notification system works?

Update - I just checked the e mail notification I received about this thread and it contains this text:

"There may also be other replies, but you will not receive any more notifications until you visit the forum again.

All the best,
Mandolin Cafe Forum"

I think this could be fooling some of us into believing we are not getting notifications.

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## Scott Tichenor

> Update - I just checked the e mail notification I received about this thread and it contains this text:
> 
> "There may also be other replies, but you will not receive any more notifications until you visit the forum again.
> 
> All the best,
> Mandolin Cafe Forum"
> 
> I think this could be fooling some of us into believing we are not getting notifications.


I guess I just don't know how to respond to this. I've written a couple of responses and deleted both. Tell me what we're doing wrong. Mail is being sent and received, users might not be read them. Would you prefer if you went to a work meeting, came back and there were 6 messages that you would receive that number of notifications?

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## Rob Gerety

Oh, goodness.  That was not my intent at all. You guys are doing a terrific job.  I was just thinking out loud a bit about how I (and maybe others) might have misinterpreted the situation.  No changes required.  I'm all set and very happy with the way the forum is working. Sorry I took your time with this when it was clearly my own lack of understanding about how the system works.

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## Hal Loflin

Scott:

I got one notification today from this thread, Rob Gertry's early this morning, and went directly to the forum. Since then there have been 14 posts and I have not received any of the email notifications. I have not had this problem until the conversion. I checked my Spam/Junk Email box and nothing. I checked my Subscription settings as you recommended and they seem ok to me (you might want to take a look) and they are all set to instant.  Sent my self a PM and it went through immediately.

I will re-post after this one and let you know if it came through. 

Thanks

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## Hal Loflin

One hour and 15 minutes and the above post has not come through to my email...

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## MikeEdgerton

Have you checked your spam filter?

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## Hal Loflin

Yes Mike (see thread #17)...However, I did get your post to my email but nothing for post #17 & 18 or any of the other posts.

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## Rob Gerety

I do not think that the system send you an e mail notice of your own posts.  

Also, were you signed on to the forum between 17 and 18?

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## Hal Loflin

Yes...Got this one too so it seems to be working fine.

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## rnjl

Hi again. I'm not sure what to do about this- but I am definitely not getting email notification of new messages in subscribed threads. I have checked all the settings, checked my email address, etc. I used to get them but now I have not for many months. Just FYI.

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## Hal Loflin

Hey rnjl...One of the things I noticed when I was having this problem was that when I began going to threads mor regular I started getting more emails. Someone above mentioned that and when I started doing it I began receiving more emails.

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## rnjl

Hi- I sign in every few days- but I have not gotten one single email from subscribed threads. It's just not working for me.

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