Not getting notifications for New Post Quotes
 

This is almost certainly a pebcac error but....


Sowhow I lost the ability to see notifications on new post quotes as part of my forum notification.

I get notification for PMs ... but the tab for "New Post Quotes" on the bell symbol in the upper right hand corner is gone.


Can I change a setting a get it back?

Could you please post a screenshot of how FlyerTalk looks for you?

It came back.

I have no idea how it fixed itself ... but it did.

Sorry to bother ...


thanks for the help offer though

I'm experiencing a similar issue for the 1st time. Normally when I come to FT forum, if I have new quotes or likes, there's a prominent note about that in the upper right. Now nothing appears, and I only found out about new quotes by going to the individual threads. Still haven't recovered the link to see all my likes.

Are you accepting all cookies and not using any content blockers?

JUNE 6TH, 2024 UPDATE Tech Issues Thread
 

Hello everyone!

We had what should have been a pretty seamless site update today. However, since it took quite a bit longer than expected, there may be some issues. Please report any here.

KNOWN BUGS:
The footer is partially white in Dark Mode (low priority)
Links in the "Bell Button" notification box in the topmost header are partially broken

What does this mean (had it happen up until a minute ago):

Error: Undefined constant "vB_Template" in /var/ibvbshare/vbseo/4.0.2/upload/vbseo/includes/functions_vbseo_vb.php on line 384

That was my bad. I was trying to fix something, tech asked me to flip a switch, it caused a problem. Should be fixed now

Ah, no problem.
It's all good now. Thanks for the hard work.

Thanks, for the update, were we advised of the site update in advance?

No, because every other site this was rolled out on went seamlessly. I was a fool for thinking the same would go for FT

As an old IT guy, I was puzzled at the timing of a scheduled change. Is mid-day US Eastern time a low period of access from your customers?

I can't see any of my 'likes' or post replies.

This is what I get when trying to view my likes...

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2201315710.png

This is what I get when trying to view my post replies:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...34f99bcd0d.png
-RM

I work in IT and was shocked by this as well. It seems night in Europe and late-evening in N America would have been the time to do this.

Likes are being worked on
Post quotes unfortunately will not be coming back for the moment

Yikes! I don't like the sound of that.

(Listings of post quotes come up as a completely blank page for me, either via the bell or via "Your Notifications".

I don't either

I have never seen a list of quotes on my cell phone -- merely a number indicating the amount of new quotes.

That's unfortunate! It'll make it harder to tell if somebody has replied.

On a computer clicking on it returns a page (or maybe I should say, returned a page) that lists each quote with the link to the post that contains the quote.

It would be nice if we could get this feature on cell phones some day. That would greatly enhance interactive participation among FlyerTalkers. :idea:

You can (or at least could) have the functionality on cell phones if you selected the ‘View Desktop Site’ option. Of course, the text is microscopic.

Why?

Why is new code being introduced that takes useful features away??

Having logged in this evening I now see a shorter menu on the upper-right side under the bell with my "New Likes Received" continuing to go up but still completely broken. Not sure why I was seeing an older menu before.

-RM

Taking a step back, considering that this is a service that doesn't have any SLA, then the service provider is at liberty to do what they want when it's most convenient to them.

And from their point of view doing changes when they have their full quotient of techies around to fix any fallout is probably more sensible than doing it out of hours and then have an extended period of time of sub-optimal performance due to bugs not being noticed, reported and fixed? Also if the site is "busy" from a customer point of view then any issues are more likely to be reported promptly and resolved?

Essentially it's because we HAVE to do this update to comply with PHP 8.4. I promise it's the internet that changed, we didn't choose this

Wow. That is going to massively reduce my engagement with Flyertalk since I am just not going to troll through every conversation I might have participated in in the past to see if anyone responded to one of my posts.

Also, does FT not have some sort of announcement banner or other mechanism to make people aware of changes that impact pretty much everyone? I know about this forum, but it doesn't seem likely that everyone will find this thread.

https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php

8.4 is scheduled for release in November 2024, I believe?

Sorry, I might have gotten the version mixed up. There's been a lot of chatter in meetings I'm invited to but don't specifically involve me about 8.4. We might be trying to switch at launch. I'm not a tech person. All I know for sure is that we switched to a new PL 3 for this version of vBulletin.

I would have announced, but again: it went smoothly on every other site and we did not expect there to be impact with the product that handles certain custom notifications. It was thought that it would strictly simplify the two competing user tagging functions.

It's always important to remember that FlyerTalk does not stand on its own. I liaise between a dozen communities and IB in my vertical, while there are about 200 total communities in the department I'm part of. Since IBobi left, we've made a considerable effort to standardize our sites in terms of products and plug-ins. Look, I get that as a community member, it can really suck. Stuff goes away and then you get new features you didn't ask for. I have sites outside of work where that's happened. On the other hand, there's a lot of custom projects in my vertical that were pursued and no longer maintainable because the people that set them up left and didn't document anything. And even if they did, that's more customization that new tech hires have to learn, which hurts productivity and even costs them jobs sometimes.

IBJoel

I have been in the software world for many decades and understand undocumented items and forced changes from the core.

At least the core functionality that brought me here is still working properly.

Best of luck.

SPN Lifer cruser1

You are both great contributors to content and also pleasant to see you both here making quality suggestions. Cheers.

Can FT add a new quote-listing function on top of the update, then? I have minimal knowledge of PHP, but in abstract it seems like there should be some way to layer on new functionality even if the underlying platform removed something.

I think I'm already noticing a reduction in responses from others to my posts, and I'm sure I'm not responding to some things from others.

Hi Joel so is the New Post Quote feature coming back soon or its gone for good?

Btw, I used to get emails about new post quotes but maybe a year or so now I havent.. I guess that feature was killed too? Not a big deal b/c I just look at the bell thing and I see a new post quote.

How I am supposed to know now if someone replied to my question with out having to open up all the threads I posted in?

Thanks for all your work but this is a huge bummer.

It just doesn't work that way anymore. Auto Communities has to develop/OK it and we roll it out. It's... certainly something

I was more thinking of an announcement when it became clear that an upgrade broke/took away functionality that probably 90% of the active participants use every day.

Is there a test environment that is a clone of FT (with limited data) to run acceptance testing before upgrading to a new version? I’d be happy to volunteer for testing. As a software engineer, I have done my fair share of testing .. and finding bugs… (and of course causing bugs).

As someone with a software development background I totally understand the challenges faced by FT -- and I am assuming that creating the ability to offer "likes" and to inform users of "post quotes" was enabled to increase the engagement with FT -- what I do not understand now is why tell me I have 17 new likes -- and no way to see what threads or posts they are in? Either support the function or don't -- otherwise why bother?

PHP 8.4 goes live in November -- is this just beta issues or should we expect that this is permanent?

So if I'm understanding this correctly, it's not fundamentally a technical issue, but actually an organisational one, as the people who would be able to (re-)develop the quotes functionality are in the "wrong department" and have other priorities? Implying no judgement, only asking out of curiosity.

Like a lot of flyers I also have a modicum of knowledge of IT and software development.
And also like a lot of forum members I am not a lead on a major platform hub for a multinational advertiser.
Thanks IBJoel for being as straightforward and candid as you can be about what's going on.
I think it's obvious that the community has made you aware of the non-critical but pretty annoying blarps from the latest update and the team will do what they can when they can to rectify the situation. I suspect that process will not be aided in any way by back seat drivers with limited knowledge, so I won't add my own "Have you thought of turning it off and on again?" comments.

Thanks for the 'updates' ... at least I now understand why "Your Notifications" generates a blank page! Not life-changing, but somewhat inconvenient. Good luck with the recovery program!

Recovery program? I suppose I’d be drinking heavily if I were in @IBJoel’s position right now. :cool:

At least we still have the breadcrumbs. :star:

I predict Internet Brands will lose advertising revenue when they can't prove the same engagement to its advertisers.
Post Quotes will be back in due course, I am sure of it! :tu:

Agreed. I'm unable to see which posts I was liked on, and which posters quoted me, and that means I'm clicking much less on FT right now. Fewer clicks = less traffic = less ad revenue.

Pavlov's bell has lost its clapper..

Not being able to see who liked my posts is probably a blessing in disguise. But not seeing who quoted me will definitely reduce my participation. It's less an issue in active conversations where I am looking at the thread again anyway, but I often see older posts quoted where I would have no reason to revisit the thread. E.g., I posted a review of a hotel stay and someone a month later follows up with a question - doubt I would bother going back into that hotel thread. Or sometimes I participate in forums that I don't routinely visit. Out of sight, out of mind.

I am still confused, was the removal of the quote notification feature expected and "by design", or unexpected and for some reason not readily fixable?