Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Changes to E-Mails of Activity?

Oh, hurray! Yes, the homepage notification feed checks for new activity and tacks it on top if you just leave the page open.

This is awesome for desktops and laptops, less awesome for smartphones that shut themselves down after a few minutes, which is almost certainly why so many people want an app version of the site -- actual, honest to goodness push notifications. I know some were simulating push notifications by instead having their phones alert them to emails from us, which was clever on their part, but overall a risky use of emails on our part.

Now that we've done something to protect our ability to send emails, I'm sure the quest will begin to find ways to regain the lost instant gratification.

Yeah, that makes sense. About half my usage of the site is via my phone, and I admit I'd like an honest-to-goodness app. However, I don't know the first thing about making apps, so I couldn't offer the slightest bit of help or suggestions or the like. To save my phone's battery, I don't have it check for e-mails very often at all, so unless I actually load the web page up I wouldn't get an e-mail notification very quickly.

I actually want push notifications too. I'm looking into ways to make this possible, even if we don't do a full-on app remake of the site.

I'm glad I checked the help section which prompted me to turn 'minor updates' back on or I'd have made a fool of myself writing a bug report on not getting e-mails anymore.

I have done everything I can think of to make sure emails are not blocked from here for my gmail account since I stopped getting PM reply emails as of the 17th, but so far I think that is because I often have an email tab open and rpr open so I catch the new pms on here which as I understand it cancels the email which would normally be sent to me.

I don't have a problem with the new system so far though I did generally prefer the old one. I personally think the change should have been marked as a major update, but I may have used the old system more heavily than others did.

Do you mean you just have a tab open, or that you keep checking back and actually specifically read the PMs that are arriving?

EDIT: An email was successfully sent about the test PM I just sent, as well as a notification about a forum topic reply (maybe this one?) So it sounds like maybe you are seeing things before an email is sent at one of the 15 minute marks. However, if you run into a situation where you are SURE you should have gotten an email, please send me the details about which conversation/forum topic to see if we can find anything else.

I read the PMs when I see that a new one has arrived. Iot the email about your reply here and the PM you sent. If the time stamps are correct it took nine minutes for my email to come after the PM was sent.

For a little bit I would check my email around 3 to 4 PM and there wouldn't be anything new and then check RPR and see a new PM from 11 AM waiting for me. However I will see if things work normally this week since I did change my email settings to make sure it wasn't filtering out RPR emails without my knowing.

I'll see if ignoring the PMs when first I see them for a few minutes will make the emails show up the rest of the week or not.

If it helps you test: Emails are sent at :00, :15, :30 and :45 minute marks every hour. The email about an event should always be sent at the next available window. So, if someone PMs you at :14, the email will be sent one minute later (at :15). If someone PMs you at :01, it'll be sent 14 minutes later.