I figured this was a known issue and would be sorted out in time, but it's been happening since the site update many months ago, and after a search for recent topics about it I couldn't find one, so I suppose I'll make a topic for it. After a certain amount of time, alerts no longer show up, both as the red number signifying alerts are present, as well as under the Alert tab itself (if I manually go look, they're not listed in there either.) However if I go to my Watched Threads, I see multiple updates to topics I'm following, some extremely recent, and certainly since I last hopped on and off the site. To remedy this, I have to go into the topics I'm following, and Like or Unlike someone's post, and then suddenly the alerts begin showing up again (including for the topic I just Liked or Unliked a post in.) I've been manually going to my watched threads and doing this daily or semi-daily to address this, but then inevitably, the alerts stop displaying again, sometimes within an hour or less of resolving the problem, but usually after a longer period. I've seen other users mention this happening as well, so I still assume it's a known issue, but since I couldn't find a topic for it, I figured I'd make one since I know I'm not alone. Sometimes I completely forget a topic exists without the alerts until I check my Watched Threads, and I've tried winnowing down my Watched Threads but this doesn't seem to resolve it either. Consider this more an inquiry than a complaint or criticism. Just wondering what's up lol. I love everything else about the site update.
Alerts only display once per watched thread, not once per action on each watched thread. So, if five people respond to a thread before you visit that thread again you'll see one alert. Is that what you're describing?
No, I mean any number (1, 5, 10) of actions on a thread not displaying alerts at all after a while. I have to manually go to the topic and Like or Unlike a post before the alerts for those actions show up (either in my Alerts page, or at the top right with a number.) As stated, I've seen others mention this as well. For instance, in the animated gifs topic, I'll come back to find a ton of updates that I never saw any alerts for. I'll mention it, and people will respond that they've had this too. Alerts will work once I've done the "manually visit thread and Like or Unlike" thing, but only temporarily. Then they stop displaying again.
Hmmm. I'm subscribed to quite a few threads and only see the behavior you're describing if I don't go back and read the thread between people posting. I haven't seen it drop an alert for the first new post of a subscribed thread at all. It might be good to track a particular thread for a while and keep track of when you visit it and when alerts come in.
I mean... I can try, but I've been doing precisely that for literally months now. Example: I posted in the animated gif topic on January 11th. I never received any alerts after that, so manually checked in on February 2nd and... tons of posts between those two dates. Not once did I receive an alert for them. This happens all the time with many of my Watched Threads. I can keep more meticulous tabs on it though if that helps any. I'll keep notes and report back in some long-ish time interval.
OK, I see that post: Stop Motion transformation Gifs Can you get a screen shot of your alerts from Jan 11-13ish?
My alerts history only goes back to Monday. But what I'm doing right now is going over all the watched threads and when they last updated with date and time stamp, and I will note every time I get an alert for them, then come back in a week or two and report to see if these discrepancies really show up or if I'm just crazy lol.
@optimusfan et al: Seems to be happening again. It was normal all day today, but here are my alerts. Note the last alert from the Beast Wars Appreciation thread was Yesterday at 11:38 PM. But when I check my Watched Threads, there have been multiple pages of posts since then, including recently, despite no alerts. I have visited the thread again, and the alerts still don't show up. Meanwhile, alerts for posts in the MP Dinobot topic have continued to show up every few minutes.
OK, so again to clarify the first part of your comment above is completely normal. You will receive one alert on the entire thread until you visit that thread again. When you do visit that thread again, you will get one alert the next time someone posts there. I think that's what you're describing in your second statement, and if so that could be an issue. What I'd need to see is as follows: 1) Screen shot of you in a watched thread w/time 2) Wait for 1 or more posts to be added to that thread. Screen shot of your alerts with time showing that you received 1 alert for that thread. 3) Screen shot of you in a watched thread a second time w/time 4) Wait for 1 or more posts to be added to that thread. Screen shot of your alerts with time showing that you did not receive an alert for that thread.
Wait, so you're saying under normal conditions, I should never receive more than a single alert for a topic until I've returned to that topic again and posted in it? Or just viewed it? Or what? I'm confused now, because I receive multiple alerts per topic all the time... except when they stop like I described in my previous post. It ordinarily never just stops sending alerts simply on the basis that I haven't posted in or been in the topics since the previous alert. (E.g. the multiple Dinobot topic alerts in my screenshot above.)
You should only receive a single alert for a thread until you've viewed or posted in that thread again.
I'm really confused now, because the behavior on both ends - how many alerts I receive, and sometimes receiving them at all - that you describe, isn't what I experience sometimes. I'll try to screenshot a more precise and specific example next time it happens. It's no big deal ultimately, as I can just go to my watched threads every time I want to check. Which... if we aren't supposed to be getting alerts in real time with every post (which is somewhat unintuitive to me, but probably for bandwidth and site performance reasons,) is probably the better approach for me to keep up with discussions anyway I suppose.
