# Topic notifications emails are not being sent if adding a Staff Colour to the post

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-notifications-emails-are-not-being-sent-if-adding-a-staff-colour-to-the-post/370857
**Category:** Bug
**Created:** [June 19, 2025, 12:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-notifications-emails-are-not-being-sent-if-adding-a-staff-colour-to-the-post/370857 "2025-06-19T12:02:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Richie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/richie/32/115110_2.png) [@Richie](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Richie)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2025, 12:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-notifications-emails-are-not-being-sent-if-adding-a-staff-colour-to-the-post/370857/1 "2025-06-19T12:02:55Z")

</div>

Currently running Discourse 3.5.0.beta7-dev ([7562bc2b15](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commits/7562bc2b158783d37107ec21d6c19cb7aabf1092))

Topic notifications emails are not being sent out when scheduling a post to publish under certain conditions.

We’ve come across a very unusual bug and while we are running latest, this has occurred a few times in recent months so the issue has been around for a while.

We have a category called `#Announcements` and every user is set to `Watching First Post` by default.

 ![Screenshot 2025-06-19 at 12.47.16](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/b/4/2/b4282225fdafc41ceb616e3c49af24b292c5e31c.png)

Our steps to replicate the issue:

1. Compose a new topic in a hidden staff-only category
2. Apply a staff colour to the first post in the new topic
3. Set a topic timer, Schedule Publishing, set the category to `#Announcements` and set the time/date

What should happen:

- The topic moves from `#staff` to `#Announcements`
- Tens of thousands of emails get sent
- Each user receives a notification

What does happen:

- The topic moves from `#staff` to `#Announcements`
- **No emails get sent**
- Each user receives a notification

* * *

While waiting for the scheduled publishing time to arrive, I could see these two tasks pending (filtered by the Post ID):

 ![Screenshot 2025-06-19 at 11.17.42](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/f/a/a/faad6da313164708a8e11863916218d6c269767d.jpeg)

Ten minutes later when the topic was published in to the `#Announcements` the tasks disappeared:

 ![Screenshot 2025-06-19 at 11.31.38](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/7/e/c/7ecbd3695566000315869c367b14bef1f8c0771e.jpeg)

 ![Screenshot 2025-06-19 at 11.33.31](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/8/c/3/8c3a2f8edeb22edf30877e9e3f740a03a863604b.jpeg)

The notifications were sent, here’s what a test account received:

 ![Screenshot 2025-06-19 at 12.44.52](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/8/5/7/857da3b8c45e3d395fb5914fbec1118228054369.png)

But still no emails went out.

Usually at this point we’d see _tens of thousands_ of emails starting to queue up in `Scheduled` and gradually moving their way across to `Enqueued`, but nothing happens, zero emails are sent out.

There is also nothing in Discourse error logs.

The posts contained a poll, but I suspect the post content is irrelevant, however I’m mentioning it here just in case the poll also has any relevance.

Today’s failed test can be found here if it helps anyone: `https://greyarro.ws/t/do-you-own-a-drone-thats-not-on-the-what-do-you-fly-list/98146.json`

The key to this failure very much seems to be caused by the action of adding a staff colour to the first post in the topic that’s scheduled for publishing.

Every other scheduled publishing post emails out just fine, adding a staff colour makes it fail every single time.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-notifications-emails-are-not-being-sent-if-adding-a-staff-colour-to-the-post/370857)._