XF 2.2 User Alerts not working for some users

[Liam C.]

Hi there

We've had our Forum site for a few years now, all worked fine however we noticed that some users are no longer receiving watch thread notifications.

My old testing account was used for this, all preferences are enabled and I watched two threads (private and public threads), a reply was given and no reply. The private thread was new, the public thread is a little old. I then mentioned this testing account and it received a notification for that mention however still do not receive a thread watch notification. This account was made back in October 2021.

I made a brand new fresh testing account and tested with a private thread and worked like a charm. I checked between the settings of both of these testing accounts, matched the old testing account to the new one's settings and still receiving the same issue.

On my main account, I receive watch thread replies as normal. This account was made back in April 2022.

A user who is experiencing this issue had their account made in February 2025, who I just directly compared settings with in the admin control panel with my brand new testing account and they are almost identical (with the exception of message count, creation count, etc). This account though was inactive beforehand, and so was my old testing account.

Is there any thoughts on what could be the issue?

 

[Digital Doctor]

users are no longer receiving watch thread notifications.

I can't really follow your situation.
I will note:
if you ignore one notification, it stops sending them ?

you can visit the thread again, and notifications will resume.

I thought Xon had an addon where you get notifications to threads you watch - regardless if you missed one or not.
couldn't find it.

 

[beerForo]

It may be a misunderstanding in how they work. Quote, from an email: "You will not receive any further emails about this thread until you have read the new messages."

 

[Liam C.]

I can't really follow your situation.
I will note:
if you ignore one notification, it stops sending them ?

you can visit the thread again, and notifications will resume.

I thought Xon had an addon where you get notifications to threads you watch - regardless if you missed one or not.
couldn't find it.

These were all new threads that all 4 accounts never visited, only one was old (which was the public thread)

Essentially... some of our users are not receiving notifications when users reply to a thread they are watching

 

[Paul B]

If it's only some users and all of the criteria are met, then most likely the emails are going to spam/blacklisted.

 

[Liam C.]

If it's only some users and all of the criteria are met, then most likely the emails are going to spam/blacklisted.

Does the email part matter? We're specifically talking about the notifications that appear on the site, rather than Email notifications

 

[beerForo]

What version are you on?

 

[Paul B]

So notifications then.

They may have blocked the site.
In Chrome they can check chrome://settings/content/notifications

 

[Liam C.]

What version are you on?

v2.2.10 Patch

So notifications then.

Oh I'm really sorry, I think I realise the confusion now! Or least I think so, they're called 'Alerts' on Xenforo right?



Essentially users are watching the thread, like I am here, and do not receive a notification for when a user replies to it.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Essentially users are watching the thread, like I am here, and do not receive a notification for when a user replies to it.

If you skip one notification, you will not receive another notification.
skip = don't visit the thread after a notification.

 

[Liam C.]

If you skip one notification, you will not receive another notification.
skip = don't visit the thread after a notification.

None of these notifications have been skipped, a new thread (multiple) has been made just to test this.

 

[Paul B]

Have they checked the alert options?

https://xenforo.com/community/account/preferences

If you skip one notification, you will not receive another notification.
skip = don't visit the thread after a notification.

That's not how alerts work.
They don't need to be read or acknowledged to continue receiving them.

 

[Liam C.]

Have they checked the alert options?

Yes. With my two testing accounts, they share the same settings on the preferences tab and yet one receives alerts and the other does not.

 

[Digital Doctor]

That's not how alerts work.
They don't need to be read or acknowledged to continue receiving them.

Didn't they used to work like that ?

 

[Paul B]

Yes. With my two testing accounts, they share the same settings on the preferences tab and yet one receives alerts and the other does not.

Perhaps a third party add-on has caused some sort of DB corruption.

Try unchecking all alert options, saving, then checking and saving again.

 

[Liam C.]

Try unchecking all alert options, saving, then checking and saving again.

Already given that a try, no luck!

 

[Paul B]

Didn't they used to work like that ?

No.

Only watched thread email notifications work like that.

 

[Paul B]

Already given that a try, no luck!

If it still happens with all add-ons disabled then I'm out of ideas.

It's not really something we can troubleshoot in a ticket either, as it's an old version and typically we would advise to upgrade to the current version to rule out any potential bugs.

 

[Liam C.]

If it still happens with all add-ons disabled then I'm out of ideas.

I'm not able to test this outside of production right now, but I'll give it a try when I can

It's not really something we can troubleshoot in a ticket either, as it's an old version and typically we would advise to upgrade to the current version to rule out any potential bugs.

We are looking into updating to the last of 2.2 shortly! Though quick inquiry whilst I am here.. is it likely that all addons support all 2.2 versions?