URL to your eFiction: http://www.tokiohotelfiction.com
Version of eFiction: 3.5
Have you bridged eFiction, if so with what?: Nope
Version of PHP: 5.2.6
Version of MySQL: 4.0.21
Have you searched for your problem: Yes
If so, what terms did you try: Notifications, reviews, favorites
State the nature of your problem:
This has been a problem for the past year or so on the site, but it seems to be becoming more of an issue lately. For some reason, there is a sizable group of our members who have never, or have suddenly stopped receiving any sort of email notifications. They have the boxes checked in their preferences to receive the notifications (I have checked myself for a number of them) and yet they still aren't receiving the notifications. I have actually had this same thing happen on a test account for no apparent reason some months back. It doesn't seem tied with anything, just suddenly all notifications cease. I have tried to duplicate the problem by changing email addresses, messing with the preferences, fiddling with stuff in the databases, but I can't.
I must apologize in advance for not being the most knowledgeable when it comes to PHP and databases (though working with Efiction has taught me loads over the past few years) so if any help could be given in layman's terms, or with more in depth explanations, I would be very appreciative.
Thank you in advance for any aid!
Do you have a test account for us?
Account: Tester
Password: 12345
Have you seen this? https://efiction.org/wiki/index.php5?title=Common_Email_Problems
You should try to see if there's a similarity in the email providers. I know that my site has trouble with MSN/Hotmail and Yahoo; I think it's because we've been blacklisted or some such. (Yahoo actually emailed our host saying people were marking as spam the notifications they'd turned on in their profiles.)
Have you seen this? https://efiction.org/wiki/index.php5?title=Common_Email_Problems
You should try to see if there's a similarity in the email providers. I know that my site has trouble with MSN/Hotmail and Yahoo; I think it's because we've been blacklisted or some such. (Yahoo actually emailed our host saying people were marking as spam the notifications they'd turned on in their profiles.)
Thanks for the link. 🙂
I don't think this is the case for us, though. It doesn't seem like there's any certain email provider that's having more problems than others, like you had with hotmail and yahoo, more of a mismash. We have gmail, hotmail, yahoo, and university school addresses all having issues receiving notifications. I had an account (with a gmail address) suddenly stop receiving notifications, but at the same time had another account, with the same gmail address, still receive notifications for that other account. It's so strange.
Your message seems to indicate that some people are getting notices and some aren't. If some are getting through, the issue isn't with e-fiction. I would strongly suspect you've been blacklisted or are in some other way triggering the spam filters at these sites. The only other thing I can suggest is do some research on your host. Some have a limit on how many e-mails can be sent per hour. If your site is popular or a particular author/story is popular, you may hit the limit.
Your message seems to indicate that some people are getting notices and some aren't. If some are getting through, the issue isn't with e-fiction. I would strongly suspect you've been blacklisted or are in some other way triggering the spam filters at these sites. The only other thing I can suggest is do some research on your host. Some have a limit on how many e-mails can be sent per hour. If your site is popular or a particular author/story is popular, you may hit the limit.
My only confusion with this is that I have two accounts, both with the same email, and I receive notifications in my email for one of those accounts but it suddenly stopped for the other. But they're the same email address. I guess I don't understand, if we've been blocked by, say, gmail, how I could be receiving notifications from my one account (hooked up to the gmail email) and suddenly not from the other (hooked up to the same gmail).
We've had members with problems change their emails to different hosts, (someone who had gmail switched to yahoo and then hotmail and then to their university email) and they still do not receive notifications, while others who have these hosts, receive their notifications normally. I don't really understand how blacklisting works, so all of this is probably possible and I am just not grasping it.
I'll talk to our hosts about it and see if they have any answers. Thanks for your help!
I really don't think it could be anything in the script itself. It would be all or nothing if it were the script.
