XF 2.3 How to force users to change their mail address?

[smallwheels]

When sending out notifications to users via mail there happen all kinds of bounces. Often, the mail address does not exist anymore or the mailbox is full or they have some weird forwarding to another mailadress which results in a SPF failure. I've activated automated bounce handling and set up a dedicated mail box for that. This works and users with hard bounces get the state "invalid mail address" applied automatically. So far so good. But what comes next?

Some of those are older users that last visited ages ago. I could simply lock or delete their account. Others are regular users that visit frequently. Sure I could send them a PN, inform them about the issue and ask them to change their mail address. But this would be quite time consuming. Is there a way to force a user to change his mail address when he visits the forum next time? Or at least a way to notify them automatically about the issue?

 

[Ricsca]

This option is only available in the cloud service.
I've been asking for it for self-services for years because it's a fundamental feature, but apparently self-service servers aren't interested in it...

 

[smallwheels]

self-service servers aren't interested in it...

Obviously they are (as I am on self hosted), so it is a bit disappointing if a solution is offered on XF cloud but not for self hosted (assuming there are no technical reasons for that).

 

[smallwheels]

This option is only available in the cloud service.

How does it work and what does it look like?

 

[chillibear]

Had this myself today. Old user has just returned and is posting again generating notifications and whatnot that are bouncing. Evidently completely unaware that their email is old. I PM'd them, but was thinking it'd be nice if I could tie this into a notification of some sort that could be automated. It actually got me thinking that it'd be quite a nifty add-on to have that would allow user account settings (custom fields etc) pushed out into a notification type dialog encouraging users to update a specific one, say you added some new option or something.

 

[smallwheels]

was thinking it'd be nice if I could tie this into a notification of some sort that could be automated.

This brought me to the idea that one could create a notice for these users, based on user criteria:



I created one, set one of my test users to status "email invalid" and logged in using that user. Worked like a charm and my notice was there. But, much to my surprise, another one with the same topic was there as well that I did not create. So it seems that XF automatically notifies users with state "email invalid" but none of us new.

Seems the problem is already solved automatically, at least on the notification level. If the users will really change their mailaddress if they don't suffer from any harm is a different question.

 

[chillibear]

Awesome. Thanks. I should have had a proper look! Took the "I'll just drop them a PM" quick approach this morning. That will be very useful on our larger forum, time to go and create some notifications!