Members not receiving emails from Watched category

[mononym]

@JammyDodger

It will change the default, but not override a user’s deliberate choice.

Hi. Is there a way to override the existing users deliberate choice ?

I tried UserOption.update_all(default_categories_watching: <id>) and UserOption.update_all(watched_categories: <id>) but these are not user options…

EDIT and solution: User.all.each do |user| CategoryUser.batch_set(user, :watching, [<id>]) end

[JammyDodger]

It is possible to do it through the rails console (and also the API too), but I would consider carefully whether you should or not. If a user has deliberately made a choice to Watch or Mute a category (or tag or topic) then overriding that choice is likely going to be undesired. They can also simply flick it back to what it was, so you may not gain anything.

[mononym]

Thanks for the answer. I fully agree. Though in our case, it is to solve a current issue I described here: Favor activity summary posts from certain category.

The idea is to roll back the new default setting (watching a certain category) and then let people change it as they wish.

I noticed now that the above command User.all.each do |user| CategoryUser.batch_set(user, :watching, [<id>]) end somehow did not work to change the preferences for all users. Any idea why ? Even better would be to append the new tracking preference to the existing user tracking preferences…

P.S. we’re a tiny community and I know that only an even smaller fraction took the time to adjust their preferences (;

[JammyDodger]

@mononym

The idea is to roll back the new default setting (watching a certain category) and then let people change it as they wish.

@mononym

P.S. we’re a tiny community and I know that only an even smaller fraction took the time to adjust their preferences (;

For anyone who hasn’t specifically set a category at a notification level, resetting the default category watching and applying it historically should reset those to normal levels.

If the numbers are small, using the UI or API may be a safer bet than the rails console. How many people are we talking about?

[mononym]

For understanding, the category in question is named Announcements and its ID is 22.

@JammyDodger

For anyone who hasn’t specifically set a category at a notification level, resetting the default category watching and applying it historically should reset those to normal levels.

I did exactly this before also trying the command. But still after both, at a new post in Announcements, only some users get sent an email.
What could have happened is that users unsubscribed from the email notifications because the digest email only contained “minor” activity (i.e. no posts from Announcements as described in the related issue linked to previously)

@JammyDodger

If the numbers are small, using the UI or API may be a safer bet than the rails console. How many people are we talking about?

60

[JammyDodger]

Do you have the data explorer installed? If so, have you got a query to see how many of your users don’t have the right tracking and/or email preference?

[mononym]

@JammyDodger

Do you have the data explorer installed?

Good idea. I’ll do that when having a bit more time !

Smaller in immediate effort, a rails script to reset the necessary parameters for all users would make me happy as well.

[JammyDodger]

I think we need to know a little more detail before working out a solution. The category_users table only keeps a record of active category notification levels, so if someone doesn’t have one then the data won’t be in the table to change via the rails console. (for instance, if I add #site-feedback to the default categories watching admin setting it will add a record in category_users for each user, and when I reset the setting it will delete those records again).

[mononym]

I can confirm that User.all.each do |user| CategoryUser.batch_set(user, :watching, [22]) changed the tracking preferences of all users to watch the desired category (22 | Announcements); as this query lists all the users:

SELECT *
FROM category_users 
WHERE category_id = '22' AND notification_level = '3'

And this query lists only 1 user:

SELECT *
FROM user_options uo
WHERE uo.email_level = '2'

The question is now, why so many users don’t get an email sent when there’s a new post in category 22 “Announcements”

P.S. I tinker around for the SQL queries and don’t know how to join them.

[mononym]

Hi. I did not find a solution yet. I can’t get my head around of the necessary user preferences to receive post notification emails for watched topics. Any idea ? Thx !

[mononym]

Hi @JammyDodger

Just in case, I’m still inquiring and trying to solve this issue. I isolated the settings of one of our users which has the default settings of watching a certain category (‘Announcements’) but who does not receive e-mail notifications for new posts:

user	mailing_list_mode	email_digests	external_links_in_new_tab	enable_quoting	dynamic_favicon	automatically_unpin_topics	digest_after_minutes	auto_track_topics_after_msecs	new_topic_duration_minutes	last_redirected_to_top_at	email_previous_replies	email_in_reply_to	like_notification_frequency	mailing_list_mode_frequency	include_tl0_in_digests	notification_level_when_replying	theme_key_seq	allow_private_messages	homepage	theme_ids	hide_profile_and_presence	text_size_key	text_size_seq	email_level	email_messages_level	title_count_mode_key	enable_defer	timezone	enable_allowed_pm_users	dark_scheme	skip_new_user_tips	color_scheme	default_calendar	oldest_search_log_date	chat_enabled	only_chat_push_notifications	chat_sound	dismissed_channel_retention_reminder	dismissed_dm_retention_reminder	bookmark_auto_delete_preference	ignore_channel_wide_mention	chat_email_frequency	enable_experimental_sidebar	seen_popups	chat_header_indicator_preference	sidebar_link_to_filtered_list	sidebar_show_count_of_new_items	watched_precedence_over_muted	chat_separate_sidebar_mode	topics_unread_when_closed	show_thread_title_prompts
JohnDoe	false	true	true	true	false	true	10080	240000	2880	2023-06-13T08:25:13.000Z	1	false	1	1	true	2	0	true	NULL	{}	false	0	0	1	1	0	false	Europe/Somwhere	false	NULL	false	NULL	0	NULL	true	NULL	NULL	NULL	NULL	3	NULL	1	false	{1,2,3,4,5}	0	false	false	NULL	0	true	true

I really can’t see why this issue arises because this is the user’s line when I query the users watching category ‘Announcements’:

id	category	user	notification_level	last_seen_at
123	Announcements	JohnDoe	3	NULL

Are there any other settings I am missing ? Could it be that the user clicked unsubscribe in one of the notification emails and that changed their email settings ?

Thanks !

[simon]

@mononym

Could it be that the user clicked unsubscribe in one of the notification emails and that changed their email settings ?

Clicking the “unsubscribe” link from a notification email takes a user to a page where they can alter their notification preferences. For example:

If a user selected either the “stop watching all topics in the <category_name> category” or the “Don’t send me any mail from Discourse” options, you will see the changes on their preferences page. Either the category will have been removed from their watched category list, or their email preferences will be changed so that all settings on their email page will be set to “never”.

It’s more difficult to see the change if the user selected the “stop watching this topic” option. In that case, you could impersonate the user from their admin page, then visit the topic to see if their notification level for the topic has changed from “watching” to “tracking”. You can also get the information about their notification level for the topic from the Rails console:

Before getting too caught up in this, go to the site’s Skipped Email Logs page. You can navigate to it from the admin sidebar. Enter the user’s email into the “To Address” field that’s at the top of the page. It might show you details about why the particular email was not sent to the user.

[mononym]

Thanks for the reply.

I checked the skipped email section. There are only “User was seen recently”, “Mailing list notifications disabled for user’s own posts” and “Exceeded bounce_score_threshold” cases.

I was wondering if there’s a possibility to change the settings for all users along one of the following ways:

• Change the setting of all users “as if” they just signed up.
• or: I make a new test user and use these settings to paste them to all other existing users.

[simon]

@mononym

I was wondering if there’s a possibility to change the settings for all users along one of the following ways:

• Change the setting of all users “as if” they just signed up.
• or: I make a new test user and use these settings to paste them to all other existing users.

There is the “default categories watching” site setting. If you change it, you’ll be given the option to apply the changes historically. Selecting that option will update the preferences for all users except for users who have explicitly configured their preference for that category on their preferences page. I think that’s the issue you are trying to get around. You could probably deal with that from the Rails console, but I’d probably avoid that approach.

You could just create a new category for announcements and add that category to your site’s “default categories watching” site setting. You could then tidy up the site by moving topics from the old announcements category to the new one. If you want to keep the category name “announcements”, start by renaming the original “announcements” category to something else. I realize this is a bit of a hack, but it’s a way to resolve the issue without touching the Rails console.