XF 2.2 Advice on changing user state manually please

[Alvin63]

As mentioned elsewhere, I have a member who has changed their email address while taking a break, but not yet confirmed the email address presumably as the user state says "Awaiting email confirmation (from edit).

Anyway the result of this has been to basically close their account down and remove them from all the lists of most points on the members page etc.

I am unsure whether this member intended this to happen when changing their email and not being around to ask (possibly!) but in case it was not intentional it occurred to me that it could look like they have been banned to others.

To get to the point I want to keep the option open for the member to come back but want to know what will happen if I manually change user state to valid. Will this mean they can still log in with the previous email or the new email? ie not need to click the confirmation email? I can't quite get my head round it!

 

[frm]

They will be able to login with the new email address that they set.

This could come back and bite you if you don't verify that it's a legitimate email that they own as it can bounce or come back reported as spam, getting your entire domain possibly blacklisted.

To avoid that, you could have him send you an email from that email address with predetermined text to verify it's their email if it's somewhat untrustworthy, then reply with a "2FA" code of sorts to give you for manual verification.

 

[Alvin63]

So do you mean if I just set the user state to valid, and the email isn't verified, it could cause issues somehow? Not sure how I could contact them if they've changed the email address. The only one showing on the account is the old one. Presumably that stays like that until the new one is verified?

 

[Alvin63]

So presumably I have no way of knowing what the new email address is, if they haven't verified it? Surely the forum will have sent out a verification email - is there any way I can check where that was sent?

 

[frm]

So do you mean if I just set the user state to valid, and the email isn't verified, it could cause issues somehow? Not sure how I could contact them if they've changed the email address. The only one showing on the account is the old one. Presumably that stays like that until the new one is verified?

I was unaware that the old one stays until the new one is verified.

What I'm saying is if there's an invalid email in there and they have email notifications on for 100s of threads, that could be 100s of bounces from that inbox which could amount to >2% per day of your sent emails (don't know your board or users). This can get you suspended real quick using a service like Amazon SES.

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So presumably I have no way of knowing what the new email address is, if they haven't verified it? Surely the forum will have sent out a verification email - is there any way I can check where that was sent?

Perhaps you can do a manual email change.

• Have them email you from the address they want.
• You email them back.
• They tell you what's in that email (a code of sorts).
• You update their email to the one you manually verified.
• Change user status to Valid.

Or, if you trust the user, updating the email to what they want and setting it to Valid is perfectly fine.

 

[Alvin63]

Thank you. The difficulty is not being able to contact them if they have changed their email address and are off forum. I suspect they have left and closed their account themselves this way. Although it's a possibility they have just left and changed their email address because they don't want to login or be contacted, and don't realise the effect it's had on their account. I suspect they do realise what they've done (very tech savvy).

If their notification emails are all turned off then presumably they won't be getting bounced emails to the old address?

If there is a risk of bounced emails though (eg others trying to message them on the forum) then maybe I would be better just closing the account and deleting the old email. If they want to come back they'd have to email me via the forum contact us.

 

[Alvin63]

Looking at the change log, they turned off all email notifications and changed email address at the time they left.

 

[Alvin63]

Presumably, if I could see where the verification email was sent, I could see the new email address. Assume that would show in the database? Where can you see verification email data?

 

[Alvin63]

Ok it looks like the old email address, still on their account, is no longer valid. If I type it into a google sign up (as if it was mine) it comes up with "this account doesn't exist" - so looks like they've closed the old email address. In which case I assume it would be an idea to remove it from the account and set them to unregistered. ie close the account.

So if I close down the account and they later respond to the verification email for the new email address, will they be able to log in and become registered again?

Just don't like leaving the account in this state.

I can't see the point of setting the account back to "valid" if it has an unused email on the account.

I am getting slightly confused here, so any assistance would be gratefully received!

 

[Alvin63]

Ok I just tested this out on a spare account. Changed the email address. A notice comes up saying you need to validate. Logged back in as admin and looked up the account and the email address was changed in the account. With user state saying Awaiting validation (from edit).

So if they changed their email address, the new one should show in their account. But it doesn't. So presumably they closed the old email account before changing their login email? (I'm confused again!).

 

[Alvin63]

So I've now tested removing the email address from the spare account. And setting the user state to valid. It can log back in with username and allows adding an email address.

So I think I'll do that - remove the old email address and set the user state to valid, so they can still log back in with their account in future.

All their points etc have now reappeared under the members section.