Can't recieve PM's - help!

[shaqoneal]

I am an admin of a vBulletin 3.8.7 forum and users are unable to PM me. I was having this problem before my upgrade to 3.8.7 too (I had 3.8.1 before)

Anyways, when users try to PM me, they get this message:

Shaq has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her.

If you are trying to send this message to multiple recipients, remove Shaq from the recipient list and send the message again.


I have ...


Private messages enabled in the UserCP
no check mark next to "Receive Private Messages only from Contacts and Moderators" in the UserCP
Disabled all plugins
Only 44 PMs in my inbox (1000 is the limit)


What else could be the problem? How can I fix it?

Thanks in advance

[DarkGizmo]

Did you look in your usergroup settings in the admin CP regarding PMs and usage?

[shaqoneal]

Did you look in your usergroup settings in the admin CP regarding PMs and usage?

yes, nothing indicates any reason why i shouldn't be bale to receive PMs. so confused!!

[kh99]

hmm...is it possible that someone created a user with a similar name? There was a 'bug' in previous versions that allowed some non-printable chars to be in a user name.

[BirdOPrey5]

hmm...is it possible that someone created a user with a similar name? There was a 'bug' in previous versions that allowed some non-printable chars to be in a user name.

This is my guess too. Look in your member list, there is probably another user with exactly the same name as you.

This bug was fixed in 3.8.6 but if you upgraded from 3.8.1 and were having the problem then, the upgrade wouldn't fix it- just prevent it from happening again.

You'll have to delete the duplicate member. Be happy they turned off PMs, if they didn't they'd have been getting PMs meant for you.