Notifications / 'Follow' issue

[Steerpike]

This is a possible 'bug' or 'issue' report for the forum; I don't see any obvious place to post it, so I'm putting it here in Suggestions as the closest place I could find. Sorry if it's the wrong place. 

 

All of a sudden, a few days ago, I stopped getting notifications when people replied to threads I had participated in. I checked a few things; first, I made sure my profile was set to receive notifications (not emails). And when I go to the 'notification' (bell) icon, I see notifications for old threads, but nothing new.  Now, as I'm composing this reply, I see a button below 'Follow topic', and it's off. I have just turned it on for this reply, so we'll see what happens.  But looking at other threads in general, I see no way to view/modify the 'follow' setting (other than, I presume, by actually creating a new reply).  So the problem may be not so much that 'notifications' are not working, but rather, the 'follow' feature/setting has been turned off across the board? 

 

EDIT - I now see that at the top of every thread, once opened, is a little 'follow' / 'following' indicator. It was off for all my threads (threads I've participated in). I'm going through now, turning it back on for threads I care about. It would seem that somehow, all my threads got reset for some reason. 

[FredSRichardson]

I have to admit I found this confusing as well...  I actually ended up browsing through new posts to see if there was any activity in topics that looked familiar.  I'll check check for that indicator.  But it is odd that someone has to "@" you to get a notification.

 

EDIT: just another thought on this one: the default should be that if you create a thread you follow it with notifications at least (and of course you can change that).  It would be great if when you reply to thread you get a popup or something to subscribe (or maybe a checkbox in the edit window that is selected by default?)

Edited April 23, 2022 by FredSRichardson

[Steerpike]

17 minutes ago, FredSRichardson said:

I have to admit I found this confusing as well...  I actually ended up browsing through new posts to see if there was any activity in topics that looked familiar.  I'll check check for that indicator.  But it is odd that someone has to "@" you to get a notification.

 

EDIT: just another thought on this one: the default should be that if you create a thread you follow it with notifications at least (and of course you can change that).  It would be great if when you reply to thread you get a popup or something to subscribe (or maybe a checkbox in the edit window that is selected by default?)

I woke up this morning to 6 or 7 notifications; so I think things are back to the way they should be.  The functionality you describe as being 'great' seems to be what's happening now. So I think some momentary glitch occurred that simply cleared all my 'follow' flags. 

[FredSRichardson]

@Steerpike - hmm, I don't think I was ever following any topic I contributed to or created by default...  I set that up now though.

[Reciever]

Auto-following where you post I believe is a setting you (currently) opt-in into. There are additional settings for notification behavior. 

 

It is odd that all your settings were cleared, be sure to let us know if that happens again! 

[Steerpike]

FYI, I just found another thread that I participate in was not being 'followed' by me.  And even a topic/thread I STARTED was not marked as being followed by me!  This is a thread I started well after the discussions above - eg, USB-C Cables - Accessories - NotebookTalk .  (I've marked it as 'following' now). 

 

So things are still not working as expected. 

 

EDIT TO ADD: I just checked my profile - the two boxes 'automatically follow new content I post' and 'automatically follow content I reply to' were BOTH not checked!  I definitely checked those previously. Let's see if they persist now. 

(Settings / Account Settings / Notification Settings / Followed Content)