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Watched Threads not alerting unless I post in them

Discussion in 'Meta-forum Discussion' started by malkere, Feb 12, 2017.

  1. malkere

    malkere

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    I have a lot of watched threads, but they all stop informing me of posts if I don't personally post in the thread constantly. Does not everyone experience this?

    My preferences are set to receive an alert when someone replies to a watched thread, yet when I go to my watched threads list I see there are dozens of threads that I have not been informed about. The only one I got logging on just now was the only thread I've recently replied to.

    Is there a setting for this auto-ignore function? It's really not acting the way it says it will.
     
    ArachnidAnimal likes this.
  2. malkere

    malkere

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    Still don't understand this.... Notification settings are set to notify me, but they do not.
     
  3. Baste

    Baste

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    Yeah, have experienced it a lot. Manually watching threads seems to time out/stop working somehow. If you reply to a thread, the watch never seems to time out.
     
    malkere likes this.
  4. BlackPete

    BlackPete

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    Recently I had to search for a thread I know I'd posted in since it was a pretty long conversation. Yet when I looked for it in my list of watched threads, I couldn't find it. I ended up having to do a search to find it.

    There is something... odd... about how watched threads work, it seems.
     
    malkere likes this.
  5. malkere

    malkere

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    If the wording said "Follow this thread for a while" or something it'd make sense but "Watched Threads" that give zero notification just doesn't make sense >_>
     
  6. mgear

    mgear

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  7. brisingre

    brisingre

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    This is happening to me too and it's driving me crazy. I keep missing important things going on in threads I care about because watching threads doesn't send me alerts about them.
     
    malkere likes this.
  8. and-poulsen

    and-poulsen

    Unity Technologies

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    You only receive alerts for the first new unread post in a watched thread. Checking the alert will not mark the thread unread.
    So, checking an alert for a thread and not clicking it will mean you don't get alerts until you read that thread.
    This is by design - otherwise you would have to actively unwatch threads you lose interest in.
    You can always see your unread and watched threads here - https://forum.unity3d.com/watched/threads
     
    CodeRonnie likes this.
  9. malkere

    malkere

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    Interesting. I will try and follow that.
    Thank you for the clarification.
     
  10. brisingre

    brisingre

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    Good to know it's by design, but with all due respect, that's crazy. Having to actively unwatch threads I lose interest in is exactly how that should work. I shouldn't have to click every single alert to remain subscribed in a useful way. Most of the threads I'm watching I only care about replies from one or two people, the asset developers. The system sends me alerts about the first unread post in the thread, usually not one of the one or two people I care about. Then, unless I check that alert as soon as I receive it, the system figures that because I haven't checked the thread in a while I must not actually want to receive alerts after all. From that point on, it behaves exactly as if nobody were posting in the thread, leading me to think that the thread is dead and discouraging me from checking on it.

    The only way to keep getting alerts is to constantly check the thread. If I'm constantly checking a thread, I don't need alerts. It's ridiculous.

    The watched threads page is fine, and I can probably train myself to use that as my front page instead of just checking my alerts from whatever random thread I have open. The alerts system is not just unusable but I would say actively unhelpful. It has often led me to believe that a thread was inactive when it was active and I have missed weeks of discussion.

    I know the forum software's third party and that probably just how it is, but that feature really sucks. It should be at least an option to receive alerts for a thread all the time regardless of your activity in that thread.
     
  11. Baste

    Baste

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    @brisingre is spot on.

    Sometimes we get a lot of alerts at once. If I don't notice that I have to scroll the alert view, the thread will get lost. I might also quickly open a tab for each one, but miss one due to missclicks or whatnot. Now I think the thread is dead!

    Also, sometimes the garbage fire that is the log in system makes opening the alert drop-down immediately pop up an "ERROR YOU MUST BE LOGGED IN" message, so I have to refresh the page. The alerts sometimes dissapears then, so I have to remember that there's alerts I didn't click, otherwise the thing dissapears.


    This is apparently a thing in the forum software? It'd be really nice if the notifications could go away when I ask them to go away instead of when I glanced at them by misstake.
     
  12. orb

    orb

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    It's stupidly stopping notifications by design, rather than simply showing a chronological lists of alerts with a count of how many new posts there were since last visit? We have computers now. They can do certain calculations and bookkeeping for us. This annoys me so much I'm gonna press caps lock.

    THIS IS SO PANTS-ON-HEAD STUPID I JUST GIVE UP READING THE FORUM FOR A WHILE EVERY TIME IT HAPPENS TO ME! HOW THE HELL DOES IT NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO RE-USE THE BLOODY COOKIE WHEN A SIMPLE REFRESH "LOGS" US IN? PLEASE KEEP THIS CONVOLUTED MESS THAT IS THE FORUM SOURCE CODE OUT OF HUMAN HANDS! OH, WAIT, THE PACK OF BONOBOS WRITING IT ARE ALREADY ENSURING THAT'S HAPPENING!

    YEAH, WHY THE SHAZBOT DOES MOVING THE BLOODY MOUSE OVER THE BLOODY ALERT REMOVE THE COLOUR, BUT NOT ACTUALLY TRIGGER IT TO ALERT AGAIN? WHO WROTE THIS CRAP? A UNITYSCRIPT PROGRAMMER?
     
    brisingre likes this.
  13. and-poulsen

    and-poulsen

    Unity Technologies

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    Alright guys, appreciate the feedback. Will look into alternative solutions.
     
    brisingre, malkere and orb like this.
  14. BlackPete

    BlackPete

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    Phew, good thing I clicked on this thread earlier so I could keep getting alerts about it to see this latest feedback! :D

     
    malkere likes this.