Forums » Help » Notifications aren't updating or displaying right

This seems to be a recurring issue with a handful of people. The fix is as simple as a click of a button, but people suffer through 'broken' notifications for weeks without knowing what to do.

If you experience any of the following issues, keep reading:

• Topic notifications are NOT updating whatsoever.
• Topic notifications are displaying posts out of order.
• Topic notifications for topics you are no longer subscribed to are still showing.
• Topic notifications from people you are no longer friends with are still showing.

The above issues are caused by what is called "Notification Caching". Basically, to reduce the load on the server, notifications are being stored in a cache so that next time you load the page, it doesn't go through every thread again to check if you're watching it, are still friends with a poster etc. It's the same idea as a browser cache: it stores images and certain files in your browser so a page loads faster and you use less bandwith to download all the information again.

When the above issues occur though, simply put your cache gets messed up and shows strange things that should have been removed or changed, but weren't. When this happens, it takes one click on the following link:

"Clear notifications cache"

This will remove your entire cache and rebuild it by checking everything again, and solves the problems I listed.

It's found on your Home page at the right side, below the Twitter updates.

I am having this issue only with certain topics. I cleared the cache, but still not receiving notifications for one rp.

If the above doesn't fix the issues you're having, make sure to send a bug report to Kim.

Thank you for posting this! It's excellent info.

Notifications are actually being worked on at the moment, and some things are still going to display out of order even with a cache refresh until this issue gets resolved.

Whe I posted the comment the last post I seen was from about a week or so ago. Now it seems to he working.

Edit

Thanks for the info too sanne! Kim is correct it was extremely helpful.

That is what I was telling Kim several weeks ago. I kept getting notifications that were weeks or months ago. I didn't know if you got my last letter Kim, but I did as you requested and sent proof of the matter.

I saw it! Sorry, I'm behind in responding to notes about this.

Notifications have been patched. Hopefully the old news won't keep bubbling up to the top and the speed will be back to normal!

Notifications don't seem to be clearing. Typically when I click clear button they all disappear, however it doesnt seem to be working.

Can you give us some more information? When you click the "Clear notifications cache" link, do you get a message? When you go back to the Home page next, what do you see?

I get the typical message of "notifications cleared, you might experience some lag as though a search is being preformed" (that's para-phrased not verbatim). But that's it and the old ones don't disappear.

What kind of notifications are you trying to clear? Remember that clearing the cache will only update it to remove old information that gets stuck (like when you remove a friend, you continue seeing their notifications, so you use this button to clear those out).

This feature won't give you a blank home page, if that's what you're trying to do!

I've been having this issue as well with different topics. I sent in bug reports on them recently

Okay, when I used the clear cache button before most (nearly all) of the old notifications disappeared.

Old notifications that you're not supposed to see anymore because you
- unsubscribed from those topics
- stopped being friends with the posters
- removed connections between characters
will all be removed from the page. That is supposed to happen.

However, you will still see every other valid activity. If your friend posted in a topic last week, you will still see that notification on one of the pages today (unless you changed the settings somewhere along the way, but that's a whole other story).

Those notifications never disappear. You will always see something on the Homepage!

I do have a feeling I'm not fully understanding what issue you're having though, and I don't want to frustrate you by repeating myself and not giving you the help or information you need! Can you:

1. Take a screenshot of your homepage before you clear the cache.
2. Clear the cache.
3. Take a screenshot of your homepage after you cleared the cache.
4. Tell me which posts you expected to be removed specifically.

This way I will be able to tell what's going on and if those notifications should indeed be gone, or if you are having an issue with the cache not emptying like it should.

If there is any information on the homepage you don't want to share with the community (like private groups activity), feel free to send the screenshots to me through PM.

Lol I wish could take a screen shot, but I don't use a computer lol I do it all on my phone. Perhaps there's not an issue, x.x I could have sworn that after clicking that clear cache button that I got an empty home page. Sorry for the confusion Sanne.

If you got a blank homepage after clearing the cache, then that was a bug! It's not supposed to do that. No worries about any confusion, I just hope that the button works for you like it should now.

I think there was one day ages ago wherein I cleared the cache for a bunch of people and they ended up seeing only one or two notifications. That was something we fixed the same day though. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of?

Clearing the notifications cache is similar to clearing your browser's cache -- when you clear your browser cache, it doesn't make the entire internet go blank, it just removes any files that it saved and goes out to get fresh new copies.

So after 6 months I finally got my push notifications to work on my phone. but despite all efforts i cannot get them to show up on my desktop PC at all?! i have cleared notification caches, browser history, checked my settings, dumped data and even rebooted. I tried it with browser open, browster closed.. site up, site not up.. and it just doesn't seem to be doing anything.

Is there a common solution for this?

This topic is about the homepage notification stream, not the push notifications. But here's the troubleshooting article for common push issues: https://www.rprepository.com/help/push-notifications

Make sure you're on a supported device and browser as your first stop!