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Missing PM 'Outbox'


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I dunno if I'm looking in the wrong place but I've just been looking for my "Outbox" to look for an old message I've sent, and it no longer seems to exist. My Outbox I mean. I can't find ANY of my sent messages.

 

Where do I find my "Outbox", or "Sent Messages" please?

 

 

 

 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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53 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The forum PM 'box' doesn't appear to have a 'sent' folder.

 

Indeed, but I'm reasonably certain it used to have one.

 

Occasionally I need to find a PM I've sent and I'm sure I've always been able to in the past. But not now. One sent, it seems to vanish into the ether unless you can remember and find which PM convo it resides in. 

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

Wot mail system you using?

My sent items is in "sent items" 

 

 

I don't really understand this question Dr Bob. I'm using the CWF PM system, not a mail system.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Indeed, but I'm reasonably certain it used to have one.

 

Occasionally I need to find a PM I've sent and I'm sure I've always been able to in the past. But not now. One sent, it seems to vanish into the ether unless you can remember and find which PM convo it resides in. 

 

 

I too am sure it used to exist.

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It has been like this for well over a year. The PM system is threaded like most modern messaging systems (not email), whereby the conversation is all in one thread. 

59 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Its removal must be one of the 'improvements' that are regularly introduced.


Sorry but we do and will continue to use current software. All our software is kept up to date and we certainly won't be falling behind on this while I'm responsible for looking after it.  With our current approach, yes you will see more in the way of change as we regularly apply minor software updates as and when released by Invision. That said, the majority of the changes will be subtle. 


The alternative is to do what was done in previous years - i.e. maintain a legacy version but if we were do do that, sooner or later the time will come to update and in doing so, it will introduce radical change as a consequence. In my opinion this is worse in terms of user experience which is why we introduce small but frequent changes, rather than big changes over a longer time period. That aside, we won't be running or maintaining legacy software for a number of other reasons.

 

 

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The alternative is to switch to a completely different forum software. Yes it would be a big "change", but hundreds/thousands of other forums have done it - Invision have lost a ton of customers. There are a number of firms who can do the data transfer stuff to make sure the migration goes smoothly. Its worth thinking about (and I'd understand if you don't like the idea of it).

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16 minutes ago, Paul C said:

The alternative is to switch to a completely different forum software. Yes it would be a big "change", but hundreds/thousands of other forums have done it - Invision have lost a ton of customers. There are a number of firms who can do the data transfer stuff to make sure the migration goes smoothly. Its worth thinking about (and I'd understand if you don't like the idea of it).


Totally agree with you. I have done the migration previously on other forums and do similar work during my day job. That said, there will always be teething issues with any migration like that. 

vBulletin is better all-round, sure. Although Invision does have its pros. Problem is that we made the decision to go from IPB 3.x to 4.x about 2 years ago which was a radical change and not really one we could delay much longer at the time. If we were to migrate to vBulletin, it will introduce radical change again in terms of functionality, software behaviour and UX design. Now I personally have no issue with that but seeing as how some users express dismay over the smallest of changes, I question how well it will be received, at least initially. - To be frank about it.

 

I think maybe when Invision 4.x reaches end of life (not anytime soon) we may be in a better position to think about switching but even then I think there will be a lot of resistance from some members, so it's certainly not really a decision I want to call. 

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59 minutes ago, RichM said:


I question how well it will be received, at least initially. - To be frank about it. 

 

As I have previously mentioned several of the other forums I am a member of use vBulletin, I know we have had this 'discussion' before and whilst you would like to change there is some constraint stopping you.

 

The other forums I use are much larger than Canalworld & being perfectly honest I cannot remember a time when they have been 'down' or suffered any problems, certainly no spam ever gets onto the boards (although Canalworld is much better now with Spam control)

 

 

I find it a far more 'user friendly' and a 'logical' system, but maybe its what you are used to - I have only been a member here for 9 years.

 

One has 31543 members' (I don't know how many are 'active'), the other has Posts 4,387,890, Members 109,515 ,Active Members 4,375

 

 

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7 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

As I have previously mentioned several of the other forums I am a member of use vBulletin, I know we have had this 'discussion' before and whilst you would like to change there is some constraint stopping you.

 

The other forums I use are much larger than Canalworld & being perfectly honest I cannot remember a time when they have been 'down' or suffered any problems, certainly no spam ever gets onto the boards (although Canalworld is much better now with Spam control)

 

 

I find it a far more 'user friendly' and a 'logical' system, but maybe its what you are used to - I have only been a member here for 9 years.

 

One has 31543 members' (I don't know how many are 'active'), the other has Posts 4,387,890, Members 109,515 ,Active Members 4,375

 

 

Statistically and without meaning to tempt fate, our up time overall is actually quite good.  (stats below) Some of the downtime encountered recently was the result of server maintenance that did not go as planned/expected and was no fault of the forum software. In fact, it was my fault! While the server is hosted on a fast VM with 4 CPU cores, plenty of memory and SSD storage, we do not run in a cluster environment which means that some maintenance tasks will inevitably require the site to be taken offline. On the rare occasion (e.g. recently) some tasks can have unintended implications/side-effects. However this is the nature of IT, unfortunately... We therefore try to do this outside normal hours to minimise impact though given we are non-profit and given I do this for free, it's also limited by my availability. (sorry!) Having said that, our stats don't appear too bad at all:

 

uptime.png

(Monitoring checks are performed automatically by a third party who check for HTTP status codes every 5m)
 

As for the spam attacks, again I would not blame the forum software. Spammers are constantly finding new ways to circumvent anti-spam measures otherwise they will lose their game.. As such, fighting spam is an endless battle. We have also implemented other measures beyond that of what any forum software can provide to help combat this. However, that's not to say we won't encounter another spam attack, nor is it to say our current measures put in place will protect us forever. - they won't. Spammers will advance their tactics which means we will inevitably have to do the same. I don't believe any site with user-generated content is immune to this even if it may go unnoticed by many. 

Equally, all sites encounter problems, even if you may not notice them. Even the web giants such as Facebook and Instagram (which utilise similar software & infrastructure technology albeit on a much much larger scale) have encountered outages recently, some lasting days!

 

If anyone wants to post a poll & discussion topic to see how much interest there is in switching to vBulletin, we invite them to do so. - If there is enough member support then sure I will bring it to Daniel's attention and recommend we consider. Without that, it's a non-starter considering cost along with the work involved especially given what we have currently does work.

 

Rich

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