# Inactive users receiving email
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 11, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100 "2018-07-11T16:09:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100/1 "2018-07-11T16:09:18Z")
On a big import, I see users who are getting mail rejected with “inactive” user. I’d assumed that they were forwarding mail from `xx@y.com` and replying from `zzz@a.com`, but that’s not the case. I can see in the message they reply to the unsubscribe link, and it is for their email address.
When I visit that user’s account, I see that the user is not activated.
I thought that inactive users could not receive mail. Is that wrong?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 7:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100/2 "2018-07-11T19:01:01Z")
I can’t understand what you have written here. Can you explain with an actual example?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 8:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100/3 "2018-07-11T20:14:13Z")
- A user receives an email notification for a topic they are apparently watching.
- User replies to the email notification.
- Discourse rejects the email because the user is inactive-- Email::Receiver::InactiveUserError
I assumed that it was a user error, but I’ve seen at least a couple that seem to be cases of a user who is not active receiving mail.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 8:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100/4 "2018-07-11T20:23:15Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> I’ve seen at least a couple that seem to be cases of a user who is not active receiving mail.
Something must be borked with your database after the import, because that’s not possible in Discourse as far as I know.
If a user is inactive (that is, their email is not known to be working and validated) they can’t be mailed by definition.
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### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100/5 "2018-07-11T20:30:05Z")
Check if they’re accidentally replying from the wrong address?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 8:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100/6 "2018-07-11T20:36:59Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> that’s not possible in Discourse as far as I know.
That’s what I think too. Active is a field in the user table, so it doesn’t seem like an easy way for the database to be broken, though I just had an issue with two topics with the same id. Maybe this problem will go away after the recent restore and upgrade.
> [@riking](#):
>
> Check if they’re accidentally replying from the wrong address
Yeah. That’s what I had assumed too, but I looked at the included text from their reply and it had an unsubscribe link with their inactive email address. Strange.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 8:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100/7 "2018-07-11T20:47:24Z")
Does this user have multiple accounts with multiple emails?
Since you’ve implied the database is really screwed up here (two topics with the same id) plus your other “database is corrupt” topic, I’m going with that 😉
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 9:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inactive-users-receiving-email/92100/10 "2018-07-11T21:48:23Z")
Closing this topic as it keeps getting inappropriate replies.