I am experiencing an issue where replies to private messages (PMs) are not visible in my “Received Messages” inbox within Discourse. This specifically occurs when the initial private message is composed by clicking on a user’s name from a topic post, selecting the “Message” option, and allowing Discourse to automatically quote the original post content and auto-set the private message subject to the topic title.
When I send a private message using this method, and the recipient replies, I do not see their response within the Discourse UI (e.g., in my “Messages” section or inbox). The only way I am notified of and can view the reply is through email notifications, which contain the full message content. This means that private message conversations started in this specific manner are not being properly tracked or displayed within the Discourse interface, leading to fragmented communication history.
Steps to Reproduce:
Navigate to any topic post within the Discourse forum.
Click on the username of the post author.
From the pop-up menu, select the “Message” option.
Observe that a new private message composer opens. The content of the original post is automatically quoted in the message body, and the PM subject is automatically set to the original topic title.
Add some text to this message and send it.
Wait for the recipient user to reply to your private message.
After receiving a reply, navigate to your “Messages” section and then to “Received Messages”.
Expected: The recipient’s reply should be displayed here as part of the conversation thread.
Actual: The reply is not displayed in the “Received Messages” section.
Check your email. You will find that an email notification containing the user’s reply has been received.
Expected Behavior:
Replies to private messages should consistently appear in the “Received Messages” section of the Discourse UI, regardless of how the initial private message was composed (i.e., whether manually or through automatic quoting and subject-setting via a topic post). The entire private message conversation thread should be accessible and manageable within the Discourse interface.
I was attempting to repro this but was a little unsure of this step. I’m not familiar with the ‘received messages’ section. Is this a custom thing or maybe a translation?
My apologies for the confusion in my previous message; it was a translation issue.
What I meant was that when I click on the ‘Sent’ (or latest) tab, I see my sent messages, but within those sent messages, I don’t see anything other than my own message, and my contact’s reply is missing, even though they have responded
I think I’ve found the cause of the problem. As the forum administrator, I suspect the reason for this is that my contact replied via email, and their response appeared in the official forum email inbox. That’s why it’s not visible within the forum’s internal conversations
In the email sent to my contact, there’s only my message and a link to a post they’ve written. The option to reply exists within the email environment, but if they use it, no message appears in the forum inbox. I’m not sure what you meant by 'reply by email
Reply-by-email is a feature you can enable (or may already be enabled depending on your hosting) that allows people to reply to the notification email and it will be magically linked up and placed in the correct topic/pm when it arrives at your forum (I misspoke in the previous post, it’s not a special link they press, the magic happens behind the scenes).
