# First post not sending, even when watching first post
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 17, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326 "2019-04-17T17:53:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@alexknowshtml](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alexknowshtml)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/1 "2019-04-17T17:53:37Z")
On our Discourse instance I have all of my categories being watched by default, but new posts don’t seem to be sending notifications anymore and it seems like that’s happening on ALL accounts on our site.
Confusingly, certain users’ posts get sent through when they reply to the original post, though, so I think there’s a setting I changed by accident or without fully understanding what it did.
I’ve been pouring over the settings, both global and on my own user, to see what the issue or conflict could be but I can’t figure it out.
Any suggestions for what this might be, or how to more effectively debug? Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@alexknowshtml](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alexknowshtml)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/2 "2019-04-17T17:57:05Z")
This also _might_ be related to the approval workflow, since I’m noticing it specifically when the first post has to be approved…it doesn’t get sent out to users even when they are watching the category posted into.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 3:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/3 "2019-04-18T03:27:35Z")
Can we repro this @eviltrout?
---
### Author:  [@alexknowshtml](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alexknowshtml)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/4 "2019-04-18T14:11:58Z")
Update: this def seems like it _might_ be associated with certain user permission levels. When someone who is NOT a new user posts a reply (in the case of my test, a fellow moderator) an email gets sent as expected. So it seems to have something to do with new, “untrusted” users.
I’m totally stumped where that setting might be, though totally willing to admit that I could easily be overlooking it. Appreciate any help pointing me to the right spot!
---
### Author:  [@eviltrout](https://meta.discourse.org/u/eviltrout)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 4:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/5 "2019-04-18T16:54:02Z")
Regarding the approval queue: are you approving the posts that are not being sent? Or the posts are going through without approval but not being emailed?
---
### Author:  [@alexknowshtml](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alexknowshtml)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 5:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/6 "2019-04-18T17:05:27Z")
I am approving posts that are not being sent, and the posts that ARE being sent do not need to be approved (they are coming from users with a higher trust level).
---
### Author:  [@eviltrout](https://meta.discourse.org/u/eviltrout)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/7 "2019-04-18T21:06:45Z")
Did posts for low trust level users always require approval or is this a new option you enabled?
I can’t seem to figure out why you wouldn’t receive notifications when a post is approved.
---
### Author:  [@alexknowshtml](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alexknowshtml)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2019, 1:30am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/8 "2019-04-19T01:30:30Z")
I believe so - it’s a fairly new forum so I’m still getting things sorted, but it’s tough to tell because all of the members before recently were being added with mod status to help with a topic categorization project. During that process, with everyone at mod level, things worked as expected.
Now we are open to all, and I am honestly not sure if this stems from a setting before we allowed public registration or after the recent new approval queue was released.
Is there a mode that I can put discourse into that _simulates_ notifications being sent, for testing purposes? I’m trying to debug this without sending tons of emails to everyone who signed up.
---
### Author:  [@alexknowshtml](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alexknowshtml)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 3:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/9 "2019-04-23T03:56:36Z")
Friendly bump on this…I’m stumped ☹
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 8:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/10 "2019-04-23T08:32:44Z")
I recommend looking at individual accounts here. As an admin you can navigate to the use profiles and see what is set there. What do you see on problem accounts?
---
### Author:  [@alexknowshtml](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alexknowshtml)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 2:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/11 "2019-04-23T14:40:35Z")
Here’s what I’ve done to investigate individual accounts and test:
- On the receiving end, the problem impacts all accounts including admins and mods. Nobody is receiving first post notifications after approving a new user’s post, even when the user is set to “watch first post” (which is our default for all new users on almost all of our categories)
- I tried making a new post from a brand new user, whose first 5 posts needs to be approved. It showed up in the approval queue as expected. I approved it, and it showed up on the forum, but no notification was sent to ANY users (including admins and mods, see above).
- Then I tried making a new post from an existing admin/mod. That post skipped the approval queue as expected, and the email was sent to everyone with the “watching first post” setting as expected.
I’m running the latest codebase. I have no custom settings on the trust levels screen.
I do have the “approve post count” set to 5 since we do have non-spammer users who we often have to guide to community norms around things like self promotion, so I like being able to approve their first 5 posts manually no matter what. But that seems to be the only setting that _could_ be tied to this (even though it doesn’t make sense why it would).
I’m willing to pay for help with this, if there’s a recommended path for that. I just can’t seem to figure out what’s causing this first post for new users to skip the email notification system.
---
### Author:  [@eviltrout](https://meta.discourse.org/u/eviltrout)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 9:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/12 "2019-04-23T21:03:26Z")
After reviewing the code and your feedback, I’ve found the cause of the bug. Working on a fix now.
---
### Author:  [@eviltrout](https://meta.discourse.org/u/eviltrout)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/13 "2019-04-23T21:32:51Z")
This commit should fix your issue. Thanks for your patience!
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/646cdfa4493d7809c0afdc19adc23ba619c3c789](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/646cdfa4493d7809c0afdc19adc23ba619c3c789)
---
### Author:  [@alexknowshtml](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alexknowshtml)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 10:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/14 "2019-04-23T22:47:24Z")
Whew, thanks. I’m glad to have that cleared up, I was worried I had misconfigured something!
Presuming that I could/should use my last post as a template for providing as much detail/testing as possible, especially when it’s a reproducible issue.
---
### Author:  [@eviltrout](https://meta.discourse.org/u/eviltrout)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2019, 8:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/15 "2019-04-24T20:14:55Z")
You could, but honestly each bug is different. Sometimes a person reports a bug and I immediately know the reason. At other times I just have to keep asking and digging more until I figure it out. This was one the latter 😭
---
### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2022, 10:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/first-post-not-sending-even-when-watching-first-post/115326/17 "2022-08-02T10:24:36Z")