Not getting email notifications for PMs anymore

[TheRealSteve]

Can you explain how to handle it? Im using FF 35.0.1 and TB. Normally i would get emails notifying me about new posts. How to use the feed to get informed? (I never used feeds yet.)

Presuming TB means ThunderBird:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-subscribe-news-feeds-and-blogs

All the bits about copying a link address don't apply - the only feed advertised is for the main forum index.  Just take the forum section of interest, e.g. this one, Meta, and copy its URL:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0
Then append ;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news&limit=10 at the end, to get:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news&limit=10

Use that link in the Feed Subscriptions dialog.  sa=news means (in this context) only list new threads, and limit=10 means at most 10 threads will be returned by the server.  If it's a high volume forum section, consider increasing that.

One of the nice things is that you can make sub-folders in ThunderBird and put separate subscriptions in separate folders.  That way if you're using e.g. Unread/Compact folder views, you get a nice categorization of the new threads, without having to set up a filter based on content.  Additionally, with RSS in ThunderBird, you can choose to either get a summary (first paragraph or so of the post), or just view the link in ThunderBird's internal browser directly.  Note that if you're using an ad blocker in FireFox, you'll want to check if it - or a similar ad blocker - is available for ThunderBird.  There are also quite a few RSS addons for FireFox itself, but I can't say I've ever used those.

[SebastianJu]

Can you explain how to handle it? Im using FF 35.0.1 and TB. Normally i would get emails notifying me about new posts. How to use the feed to get informed? (I never used feeds yet.)

Presuming TB means ThunderBird:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-subscribe-news-feeds-and-blogs

All the bits about copying a link address don't apply - the only feed advertised is for the main forum index.  Just take the forum section of interest, e.g. this one, Meta, and copy its URL:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0
Then append ;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news&limit=10 at the end, to get:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news&limit=10

Use that link in the Feed Subscriptions dialog.  sa=news means (in this context) only list new threads, and limit=10 means at most 10 threads will be returned by the server.  If it's a high volume forum section, consider increasing that.

One of the nice things is that you can make sub-folders in ThunderBird and put separate subscriptions in separate folders.  That way if you're using e.g. Unread/Compact folder views, you get a nice categorization of the new threads, without having to set up a filter based on content.  Additionally, with RSS in ThunderBird, you can choose to either get a summary (first paragraph or so of the post), or just view the link in ThunderBird's internal browser directly.  Note that if you're using an ad blocker in FireFox, you'll want to check if it - or a similar ad blocker - is available for ThunderBird.  There are also quite a few RSS addons for FireFox itself, but I can't say I've ever used those.

Thank you for the explaination!

[TheButterZone]

http://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbitcointalk.org%2Findex.php%3Ftype%3Drss%3Baction%3D.xml%3Bsa%3Dnews%26limit%3D1000

This feed was working in Thunderbird 31.5 up until 30 minutes ago...

[TriggerX]

Are you sure you linked your account with your email correctly? I linked my account with my Gmail and it's always been sending me email notifications.

[TheButterZone]

Are you sure you linked your account with your email correctly? I linked my account with my Gmail and it's always been sending me email notifications.

Wasn't talking about email notifications. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-subscribe-news-feeds-and-blogs

[TheRealSteve]

http://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbitcointalk.org%2Findex.php%3Ftype%3Drss%3Baction%3D.xml%3Bsa%3Dnews%26limit%3D1000
This feed was working in Thunderbird 31.5 up until 30 minutes ago...

Yeah, that's one down side of ThunderBird as an RSS reader - it's absolutely anal retentive about a feed validating before it bothers with it.  Mind you, SMF should spit out feed that validate, so it's technically an SMF problem.  But given how graciously browsers handle all sorts of malformed syntax, you'd think an RSS parser would have no problem dealing with most issues; especially the one that's actually breaking it in your case.

Most of those are going to be in local subforums as SMF tries to format unicode.  If you can't really read those local languages, try subscribing only to the sections you are interested in, rather than the whole site.

[TheButterZone]

http://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbitcointalk.org%2Findex.php%3Ftype%3Drss%3Baction%3D.xml%3Bsa%3Dnews%26limit%3D1000
This feed was working in Thunderbird 31.5 up until 30 minutes ago...

Yeah, that's one down side of ThunderBird as an RSS reader - it's absolutely anal retentive about a feed validating before it bothers with it.  Mind you, SMF should spit out feed that validate, so it's technically an SMF problem.  But given how graciously browsers handle all sorts of malformed syntax, you'd think an RSS parser would have no problem dealing with most issues; especially the one that's actually breaking it in your case.

Most of those are going to be in local subforums as SMF tries to format unicode.  If you can't really read those local languages, try subscribing only to the sections you are interested in, rather than the whole site.

Yeah. I wanted a master feed so I could detect duplicate threads for easy reporting.

[SebastianJu]

Can you explain how to handle it? Im using FF 35.0.1 and TB. Normally i would get emails notifying me about new posts. How to use the feed to get informed? (I never used feeds yet.)

Presuming TB means ThunderBird:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-subscribe-news-feeds-and-blogs

All the bits about copying a link address don't apply - the only feed advertised is for the main forum index.  Just take the forum section of interest, e.g. this one, Meta, and copy its URL:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0
Then append ;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news&limit=10 at the end, to get:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news&limit=10

Use that link in the Feed Subscriptions dialog.  sa=news means (in this context) only list new threads, and limit=10 means at most 10 threads will be returned by the server.  If it's a high volume forum section, consider increasing that.

One of the nice things is that you can make sub-folders in ThunderBird and put separate subscriptions in separate folders.  That way if you're using e.g. Unread/Compact folder views, you get a nice categorization of the new threads, without having to set up a filter based on content.  Additionally, with RSS in ThunderBird, you can choose to either get a summary (first paragraph or so of the post), or just view the link in ThunderBird's internal browser directly.  Note that if you're using an ad blocker in FireFox, you'll want to check if it - or a similar ad blocker - is available for ThunderBird.  There are also quite a few RSS addons for FireFox itself, but I can't say I've ever used those.

I was able to set things up how you described it. It works fine. Im amazed how many new threads i missed before since i only got occassionally an email for a new thread before. Now i even have to disable some forum notifications.

thanks!

[TheButterZone]

I was able to set things up how you described it. It works fine. Im amazed how many new threads i missed before since i only got occassionally an email for a new thread before. Now i even have to disable some forum notifications.

How do you get the feed(s) to validate?

[TheRealSteve]

How do you get the feed(s) to validate?

Unfortunately, if the feed doesn't validate, there's not much you can do about it - it would be an error in SMF's feed output.

You can, however, try and see if any of the alternate feed formats does happen to validate.  Instead of type=rss, try type=rdf and/or type=rss2 and/or type=atom.  Usually though if one doesn't validate, the others won't either.

If none of that works, you'd have to see if a different RSS reader is less strict, and use that instead.  ThunderBird's just an example of one that works well for my needs - there's plenty of others

[TheButterZone]

Yeah, the others won't either. Damn foreign characters. LOL

[SebastianJu]

I was able to set things up how you described it. It works fine. Im amazed how many new threads i missed before since i only got occassionally an email for a new thread before. Now i even have to disable some forum notifications.

How do you get the feed(s) to validate?

When do you have a problem? When adding the feed? I did not have a problem when i did that. So the only explaination i see is that i did not try to add a feed with foreign characters or that the feed did not contain such signs when i added it.

You might want to search for Thunderbird extensions. Maybe there is one that fixes this. Extensions for firefox and thunderbird are there for practically everything. So i wouldnt be surprised when there is one.

[TheButterZone]

I was able to set things up how you described it. It works fine. Im amazed how many new threads i missed before since i only got occassionally an email for a new thread before. Now i even have to disable some forum notifications.

How do you get the feed(s) to validate?

When do you have a problem? When adding the feed? I did not have a problem when i did that. So the only explaination i see is that i did not try to add a feed with foreign characters or that the feed did not contain such signs when i added it.

You might want to search for Thunderbird extensions. Maybe there is one that fixes this. Extensions for firefox and thunderbird are there for practically everything. So i wouldnt be surprised when there is one.

Yes, when adding. The only fix I can find is reverting to an earlier TB version.

[TheRealSteve]

Yes, when adding.

To clarify a bit:
When you add a feed to ThunderBird it will attempt to validate it first.  If it fails the validation, it simply will not let you add that feed.  Even if you know that it's a feed that normally does validate, but doesn't validate at that particular instance in time for whatever reason (site down or whatever).  This has been a long-standing annoyance with ThunderBird's handling of adding feeds.

You might wonder what happens if a feed that has already been added, suddenly no longer validates - it will throw an error in the status bar about it, and ignore the feed.  Once it validates again, feed entries are once again parsed.
This can lead to a situation where e.g. there are 4 new posts, and the latest post causes the feed not to validate, all 4 of those posts being 'lost' and however many posts are required before that particular post is dropped off the end of the feed having to be listed before it parses the feed entries again.

Technically, this is an SMF issue.  Practically, this is a ThunderBird issue.  Realistically, this is an end-user issue as neither of the aforementioned are likely to be addressed any time soon..use a different feed reader (or an older version of ThunderBird, I guess).


Example, the Hebrew forum section right now:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=95.0;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news&limit=100

Code:

Error: not well-formed
Source File: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=95.0;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news&limit=100
Line: 127, Column: 278
Source Code:
   <title><![CDATA[&#1508;&#1493;&#1512;&#1493;&#1502;&#1497;&#1501; &#1493;&#1488;&#1514;&#1512;&#1497; &#1502;&#1505;&#1495;&#1512; &#1497;&#1513;&#1512;&#1488;&#1500;&#1497;&#1501; &#1489;&#1491;&#1512;&#1511; &#1504;&#1496; &#1506;&#1501; &#1514;&#1513;&#1500;&#1493;]]>&#1</title>

It specifically complains about the ending of that - "&#1" .. it's expecting that to end with a semicolon, as a numeric character reference.  The forum chops it by output character, rather than input character, and so the feed fails.

[SebastianJu]

I didnt find an extension about validation. Only an extension that adds another feedreader to thunderbird. Maybe it works with this reader instead the original one. It would be still in thunderbird: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/thunderbird/addon/bamboo-feed-reader

[TheRealSteve]

( alas, no-go on the example URL above - seems to validate before allowing, too; https://i.imgur.com/KVaPSK2.png - TheButterZone might have better luck with his specific URL, though )

[TheButterZone]

( alas, no-go on the example URL above - seems to validate before allowing, too; https://i.imgur.com/KVaPSK2.png - TheButterZone might have better luck with his specific URL, though )

Doubt it, my feed is the "everything on bitcointalk" feed https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=949175.msg10816673#msg10816673

[TheRealSteve]

( alas, no-go on the example URL above - seems to validate before allowing, too; https://i.imgur.com/KVaPSK2.png - TheButterZone might have better luck with his specific URL, though )

Doubt it, my feed is the "everything on bitcointalk" feed https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=949175.msg10816673#msg10816673

Yeah, probably won't get very far, then.  I can't help but wonder if there isn't a better way for you to get what you need.  Personally I think I'd go batty if I'd monitored the entire forum

I was going to point you here (I guess technically I still am), but then it started throwing quota errors: https://feedsanitizer.appspot.com/

You could frankenstein something together with wget+tidy+a lightweight server on your own machine, I suppose

[hilariousandco]

Since the forum went down, or roughly shortly after then, I haven't been getting email notifications for PMs which I always got into my junk. Has this stopped for anyone else or were they turned off?

Weird. I've just now started receiving them again. I also just got two for reports which I've never had before.