Notification Mail for Private Message Box is almost full - Not working

[induslady]

Hello,

Am using vB V4.2.1.

I understand that there is a phrase - "pmboxalmostfull" that is used to send notification mail to users when their PM box is 90% full as below -

Dear $touserinfo[username],

Your private messages box on $vboptions[bbtitle] has reached 90% of your allowed quota. To ensure that you do not reach 100% of your allowed messages, you should consider archiving or deleting some of your messages. Please visit this page to do so:
$vboptions[bburl]/private.php

All the best,
$vboptions[bbtitle]

But this notification mail is not hitting my users, is it a default feature? can you let me know which setting do I turn it on to enable this notification mail.

Please note that the other notification mail that users get when PM box is full ("pmboxfull") is hitting my user's inbox.

Thanks.

[kh99]

Hmm...I'm just looking at the code so it's hard to say if I understand it all, but it looks like if a user is receiving emails about the box being full then they should also get the "almost full" emails. But one thing I don't understand is that the code seems to use the user options field in the database to record whether or not they've been sent an "almost full" warning (I guess so that they don't get multiple warnings about it), but I don't see where the bit is ever cleared, so I'm wondering if it could be a bug that no one has noticed yet. ETA: ...but I have to admit that it seems more likely that I don't understand how it works.

[kh99]

...But I guess you could test that theory. You could execute this query:

UPDATE user SET options = options - 524288 WHERE (options & 524288)

then send a PM to test to see if the user with the problem can get an "almost full" email.

[induslady]

Hello Kh99,
Thanks for the response.
Can you let me know what this query -

UPDATE user SET options = options - 524288 WHERE (options & 524288)

does exactly?

[kh99]

The options field in the user table is a set of bits that each mean a different thing, and one of them is called 'pmboxwarning' and has the value 524288. The PM sending code checks that bit, and if it's set, it *won't* send a warning, because it indicates that one has already been sent. The query above clears that bit for everyone, so that you can test whether that's the reason that emails aren't being sent. Clearing it for everyone shouldn't be a problem because the worst that would happen is that someone might get the email twice.

I guess it would be safer to clear it for only one user you want to test. So if you have a user whose pm box is almost full and is not getting the warning email, you could do this:

UPDATE user SET options = options - 524288 WHERE (options & 524288) AND userid = X

but replace X with the userid. Then send a PM and see the user gets a warning PM this time.

[induslady]

Hello kh99,

Thanks for the response and yes I did try your suggestion and this is what I did -

1. Took a test user - "X"
2.User X had PM box around 50% full but when I ran the update query -

UPDATE user SET options = options - 524288 WHERE (options & 524288) AND userid = X

got message that no row was affected.

3. Now user X had PM box 90% full, ran the update query and got the message that 1 row was affected.

4.User X got the "pmbox almost full" mail notification.

5.User X had PM box 100% full and user X got pm box full mail notification as well.

With the above what could be inferred? This query will clear only for the users whose inbox is 90% full and it will not affect the users who are yet to hit the 90% mark? Do I keep running this query in specific period?

What should be the actionable so that the users in my board gets both - pmboxalmostfull and pmboxfull mail notification.

Thanks in advance for the response.

[kh99]

Hmm...unfortunately I'm not sure we know anything from that. The question is, if you had not done step 3, would the user have gotten the email notification? Try filling and emptying the test user's PM box a few times (without running the query at all) and see if they get the notification each time. If the user gets a notification each time, then we still don't know what the problem is with the users who aren't getting email notifications. ETA: ... but if the user gets one notification and then doesn't get any more, then my theory might be correct.