PM settings

Hello,

I am using the latest Joomla 3 version (due to lack of time I have not yet migrated to Joomla 4) and the latest version of CB with which I am using the private messenger system of CB itself (after migrating from UddeIM awhile ago).

I have a user who says she's not receiving any email notifications for private messages she receives on the website. The email notifications definitely do work, as I tried it with my own account and also with a test account successfully. So I'm wondering if she has email notifications disabled for her private messages, but I can't find anything of settings by account for that.

I do have a profile field "name pm" which is enabled, also for "profile edit", but it still doesn't show up in profile/account settings.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong or overlooking?


Thanks!

PMS notifications can't be disabled per-user unless you've configured "Notify" within CB > Plugin Management > Private Message System > Parameters > Internal > Notification to "Field" and configured it to be based off a profile field and their field value is 0. Did they check their spam folder as it's possible it's just being sent to spam.

Hello,

That setting you refer to is set to "Yes (all messages)", so email notifications are being sent out for all users that receive a private message. Perhaps it would be a good idea to consider implementing a default possibility for users to choose whether they want to receive email notifications or not?

As for this particular user, who does want to receive email notifications but is not getting them, they already checked spam folder and everything, but nothing arrives. But since they can't disable PM notification emails for themselves, that means the PM plugin is definitely not the problem (I tested myself and I'm getting those notification emails just fine).

Since they don't receive any other emails from my site anymore either, since sometime last month all of a sudden, I think it is a problem with their email address or mail provider (westnet.com.au or wn.com.au). On my server, everything is configured as optimally as currently possible to make sure that emails sent from our server are considered legitimate and not spam by email providers. I just wanted to double check everything to exclude any other possibilities. Now we know for sure that the CB private messenger is itself not the cause.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to consider implementing a default possibility for users to choose whether they want to receive email notifications or not?

That's already implemented. Set that parameter to Field and select a field for it to be dependent on. Usually you would use a Checkbox field for that.

As for this particular user, who does want to receive email notifications but is not getting them, they already checked spam folder and everything, but nothing arrives. But since they can't disable PM notification emails for themselves, that means the PM plugin is definitely not the problem (I tested myself and I'm getting those notification emails just fine).

Then their email provider is either rejecting the email or your mail server is failing to send it. There's no other explanation for an email for 1 particular user to not send.

Since they don't receive any other emails from my site anymore either, since sometime last month all of a sudden, I think it is a problem with their email address or mail provider (westnet.com.au or wn.com.au).

That is a safe assumption. This likely is not something you can fix. Their mail provider is just not very good.

Thanks for your reply, I will recommend to that user to use a different email address such as Gmail.

As for the option to receive email notifications or not, I have followed your instructions with success.

Only one problem now: the new field I created is now empty for all users on the website.

I have made it a required field, so anyone wanting to update their account settings will be required to select an answer there. And I made the default "yes" (value 1) for new registrations.

But I can't seem to select a default value for all existing members at once.

I tested it, and with an account in which I set it to "yes" (value 1) the notification email arrives correctly. WIth another test account, in which the field is not yet answered and so the value is empty, nothing arrives. So notification emails are only sent out with value 1, and not with value 0 or no value.

Many users will now assume they are still receiving notification emails while they aren't. So I would have to send out a general email to all of them, asking to update their account settings, but better would be to just enable notification emails by default for everyone (as was already the case before) and then they can disable it if they want. Any idea how I can do this?

Thanks!

That's as expected. New fields have an initial value of NULL or 0 depending on the type. If you want it set to 1 for all existing users you can do so using your database. Example as follows.

Replace the jos_ table prefix with whatever your table prefix is and replace FIELD_NAME​​​​​​​ with the name of your new field.

I have made it a required field, so anyone wanting to update their account settings will be required to select an answer there. And I made the default "yes" (value 1) for new registrations.

No need to mark it required as it'll result in everyone having to check the checkbox.