Private message removed

[Bouleversee]

I was in the process of clicking on a new private message just now when I noticed a message saying "one private message removed due to …" but by then it had disappeared so I don't know whether that was one of my sent messages or an incoming one. How can I find out which one and why?

[melonfool]

I'm sorry I can't help with this but am adding to the thread to keep it 'bumped' in case anyone else can.

Mel

[Bouleversee]

Thanks, Mel. I had assumed the notification would have been put there by a mod.

[melonfool]

Thanks, Mel. I had assumed the notification would have been put there by a mod.

I don't think we can moderate PM's, no. And if we put a message it would still be there I assume.

It might just be that it was a message in the process of sending or in the process of being opened or something and moving from one box to another.

Mel

[PinkDalek]

I was in the process of clicking on a new private message just now when I noticed a message saying "one private message removed due to …" but by then it had disappeared so I don't know whether that was one of my sent messages or an incoming one. How can I find out which one and why?

Searching around the phpBB support forums suggests this would be an incoming PM (not Moderator specific) and the full message might be:

One private message has been removed due to private message filters

Merely guessing but is your Inbox full (or maybe even you've got someone down as a "Foe", who attempted to PM you)?

What do you see here ucp.php?i=ucp_pm&mode=options?

Possibly No rules defined which should mean oldest messages are deleted to enable a new one to arrive. Unless you've ticked:

Do not accept new messages (New messages will be held back until enough space is available)

[PinkDalek]

...

I'm sending a PM to you, to see what happens.

[Bouleversee]

Many thanks for your help, PD. I am hopeless at this sort of thing. I got your p.m. but before I clicked on it again the box came up about one pm having been removed due (as you suggest) to filters. I noticed that "folder is 100% full, 50 out of 50 messages stored" and when I clicked on that link you supplied it opted for "delete" older messages, though I have no recollection of having opted for that.

I haven't blocked anyone's messages but maybe someone has blocked mine. Or it could just be that someone else's inbox is full and he/she has asked for new messages to be held back till space available. Anyway, not worth wasting too much time over.

[Gengulphus]

Many thanks for your help, PD. I am hopeless at this sort of thing. I got your p.m. but before I clicked on it again the box came up about one pm having been removed due (as you suggest) to filters. I noticed that "folder is 100% full, 50 out of 50 messages stored" and when I clicked on that link you supplied it opted for "delete" older messages, though I have no recollection of having opted for that.

I haven't blocked anyone's messages but maybe someone has blocked mine. Or it could just be that someone else's inbox is full and he/she has asked for new messages to be held back till space available. Anyway, not worth wasting too much time over.

I don't think it's due to anyone else's inbox being full, because as far as I'm aware that would only affect you if you sent a PM to them and it would only affect you if they'd chosen the "Do not accept new messages (New messages will be held back until enough space is available)" option and even then, it would only hang around in your outbox until they were able to accept it - it wouldn't affect your inbox. And the system shouldn't ever have to delete messages from your outbox - only tell you that you can't add to it if you try to send another PM when it's full.

I'd say it's pretty clearly due to your inbox being full - the odds are that the software regards "delete oldest messages when inbox full" as a filter. It's not what people would generally think of as a filter, of course, but it is of the general form "delete message if <conditions> are all true" and so can be dealt with by the same part of the software. And one of the principles of writing good software is that when you can use the same code to deal with multiple things without too much trouble, do so! - basically, the fewer different pieces of code are interacting with each other in the software, the easier it is to keep them all behaving consistently with each other.

Anyway, as regards what you can do about it, here are some options (besides the use of the "Do not accept new messages (New messages will be held back until enough space is available)" setting that has already been suggested - note that doing that only delays dealing with the problem, as you still have to free up some space in your inbox to actually receive any new messages):

* Go through your inbox and delete any messages you no longer want to keep. (Or possibly messages you do want to keep, but are willing and able to copy to your own device or somewhere else off TLF before deleting them from TLF.)

* Add another folder - you can do that in the same page ucp.php?i=ucp_pm&mode=options - and move appropriate messages to it (each folder gives you storage for another 50 messages, but you are only allowed a limited number of extra folders, so there's a limit to the number of extra messages you can store that way).

* Donate to TLF - you get an increased limit of 100 messages per folder that way. Not certain how long it lasts - stooz's announcement of it in viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6392 makes it pretty clear that the freedom from advertisements that you also get lasts a year, so I'd guess a year. If so, I don't know what happens to folders that become overfull when the limit drops back to 50 - but it's conceivable instead that the increased folder size lasts indefinitely rather than just a year, which would avoid that problem.

Gengulphus

[PinkDalek]

... I got your p.m. but before I clicked on it again the box came up about one pm having been removed due (as you suggest) to filters. I noticed that "folder is 100% full, 50 out of 50 messages stored" and when I clicked on that link you supplied it opted for "delete" older messages, though I have no recollection of having opted for that. ...

That's appears to be the default (which you wouldn't have opted for as such). Geng has given you further options. Deleting old PMs manually is a time-consuming exercise. I hadn't noticed the additional Folder option previously and have now set one up, in case my PMs get too much to manage!

My Foe comment was a throw away line. That isn't the issue.

[Bouleversee]

Thanks to both.

Geng: I'm afraid I simply don't understand some of what you said; my fault, not yours. And I don't understand the stuff about rules either. Nor do I understand how I could still receive PD's PM if another message had been removed because my folders were full and if I am set on the default position, as PD suggests, presumably my older messages are being deleted whenever a new one comes in so why should any incoming message be removed? How many folders does one get automatically? (I use an ad-blocker so don't see ads. and haven't so far donated). I don't send or receive an enormous number of PMs but as PD says, deleting them takes time and actually I want to be able to refer to some of them again. I will, however, try to delete ones I don't want to keep immediately after reading them which I have to confess I have not been doing recently.

Another thing that intrigues me is why sometimes one is obliged to preview a message before sending and sometimes not. I don't think I am hitting the wrong button.

[PinkDalek]

… Nor do I understand how I could still receive PD's PM if another message had been removed because my folders were full and if I am set on the default position, as PD suggests, presumably my older messages are being deleted whenever a new one comes in so why should any incoming message be removed? …

The message I read about online states (as before) One private message has been removed due to private message filters. That would be an old message, to enable the new PM to come in. From what you've said, you were able to read my new message.

Another thing that intrigues me is why sometimes one is obliged to preview a message before sending and sometimes not. I don't think I am hitting the wrong button.

That's probably where there's been a further post on a thread whilst you've been typing. I think they are letting you know this, to make sure you still want to submit the reply you've just typed. It isn't really a preview as such.

[PinkDalek]

Btw, I've just had one of those apparent Preview issues. At the very top it states:

At least one new post has been made to this topic. You may wish to review your post in light of this.

[csearle]

I hadn't noticed the additional Folder option previously and have now set one up, in case my PMs get too much to manage!

You'll eventually need to delete PMs because you can only add three new folders (at least that is the limit I experience). C.

[melonfool]

Btw, I've just had one of those apparent Preview issues. At the very top it states:

At least one new post has been made to this topic. You may wish to review your post in light of this.

Bouleversee was talking about this happening with PMs, not posts.

I have had it happen with a PM, or at least I have assumed it has happened but in fact the PM is already in my outbox. It's a bit confusing.

My outbox has a perpetual 1 against it - some moderation PM I sent about a year ago that the poster has never read, so I check that has gone to 2 every time I hit send and then I know it's OK.

Mel

[Gengulphus]

My outbox has a perpetual 1 against it - some moderation PM I sent about a year ago that the poster has never read, so I check that has gone to 2 every time I hit send and then I know it's OK.

I had an issue of that type for several months with an ordinary user PM (which is of course all it a PM of mine can be, as I'm not a moderator!). It was simply to tell the recipient about the existence of a particular board I was pretty certain they would be interested in (they'd been a leading light on the equivalent old TMF board), but I suspect they never even noticed the existence of the PM facility, so never started it up and therefore never gave the software the chance to transfer it from my outbox to their inbox. Anyway, they did eventually turn up on the board concerned, presumably having discovered it by some other route since my PM remained in my outbox. Eventually (I was decidedly slow about it!) I realised that there was no longer any point in the PM, so I went into my outbox and deleted it - which I could do without trouble.

Anyway, I of course have no idea whether there's any point any longer to the moderation PM you sent about a year ago, but if not, deleting it might be the simplest solution... Otherwise, you presumably have a reason to still want the poster to read it, in which case I can only suggest a "Please read your private messages!" type of reply to something he or she posts.

Gengulphus

[melonfool]

It's OK Gengulphus - I can cope with the little 1 being there. The last thing I want is another of those "no-one told me my post was removed" threads!

The Outbox shows the number until they *read* the PM, not until it is delivered, it's not like Outlook (etc).

Mel

[Bouleversee]

I have 3 private messages in my outbox: 1 to Trillis on May 24, 1 to fisher on March 23 (I had rather assumed they weren't interested in receiving private messages from me) and one to Monabri sent at 7.07 pm, today who I expect is having his supper and may have better things to do for the rest of the evening.

[melonfool]

They may not know the PM function exists, we recently found out that people have not seen it.

Mel

[Gengulphus]

The Outbox shows the number until they *read* the PM, not until it is delivered, it's not like Outlook (etc).

I know it's not like Outlook and other email programs - but equally I know that it's not triggered by the recipient reading the PM, for the very simple reason that the software has absolutely no way of determining that! Given that it is triggered by something they actually tell the software to do rather than just happening in the background as with Outlook, etc, the obvious two possibilities are when they open their inbox and when they open the PM itself.

I would guess that it's when they open their inbox, as that's when it starts to be important for the new PM to actually be in the recipient's inbox, so that the inbox's contents can be displayed correctly. And I would also guess that it leaves your outbox when it goes into the recipient's inbox, because having multiple copies of the PM around more than very transiently during the move would be a recipe for bugs! That could be some time before they open the PM, let alone read it... But those are guesses, as the system could be made to work in other ways: they're more complicated for no benefit that I can see, but that doesn't necessarily prevent them from being used!

Gengulphus

[melonfool]

It is definitely when the recipient opens the message, not when it hits their inbox.

You are right that it's not reading, no system can make anyone actually read something, as I know from all the important emails I have to send out at work, get read receipts for and then people tell me they had no idea about X.....


Mel