Ambiguous notifications count

[#1]

@James_B 

Thank you - I had no intention of shooting the messenger, but rather to put a firm message through the conduit of the only available messenger!!

Sorry if you thought that I was shooting at you. 

[#2]

Not at all @Townman 👍

[#3]

@James_B 

Further to PM essentially is see no change.

From a clean log in I saw 102 notifications - 101 +1PM.

I then sought to reply here and got the often report but unresolved issue of the post screen reloading whilst starting to type.  Before trying again I checked the counts - now reporting 42+1.

o expect the count to return to 102 directly.  I will avoid looking at PMs or notifications.

[#4]

Thanks, @Townman 

I'll update the ticket.

James

[#5]

@weewards 

"he is a web site designer & says he needs as much speed as he can get although I would argue he should test on the same platform his customers have"

Indeed and that is exactly how we get bloated websites which work fine in a high specification environment, but are useless for ordinary folks.  The yearn for high speed hints at high payload content ... which is exactly the opposite of what a good website needs.

[#6]

@James_B 

Well that was utter confusion!!

I attempted to make the post above on a different thread, which gave rise to the error below and totally confused notification counts.  The post did not appear on the thread I replied to.

I came here to make this post and found the post above here ... I will leave you to unpick it.  Replying from the above post has the name and breadcrumbs for the correct thread.  Replying to the previous post looks correct.

[#7]

Thanks @Townman - I'll pass add those screenshots to the ticket.

On the posting issue, I can't see anything obvious that would cause that so I'll reach out to the other SUs to see if we have any other examples.

James

[#8]

@James_B 

Following on / as an aside here ... attempting to REPLY to post #50 (https://community.plus.net/t5/Community-Site-Feedback/Ambiguous-notifications-count/m-p/2042694#M189...) looks like this...

Despite what the the breadcrumbs indicate, the link goes to https://community.plus.net/t5/Community-Site-Feedback/Ambiguous-notifications-count/m-p/2042694#M189... - something is broken here!

[#9]

Also looks as though something has zeroised my notification count - it was not something I did intentionally - that is I have no recollection of doing that, but I recognise the possibility that it happened!  U have certainly not seen the notifications page for months!  I was keeping the status intact; has the supplier fiddled?

[#10]

Test

[#11]

@James_B 

Test what?

My notification count has started to increment again!

Would it be possible to find out if the supplier did do something to reset my count please?

[#12]

Hi @Townman ,

I'm not aware of an action taken by support in regards to your notification count - but it's a possibility since they are looking at the issue.

Just tested replying to post 50 and it did arrive here as expected. The incorrect topic name in the reply editor is sometimes seen if a reply is moved from one thread to another. I'll continue to look into it.

James

[#13]

Hi James,

Indeed, is seems that the tin having arrived on the wrong shelf, does reply to the wrong shelf, despite what the label on the tin reports.  All very odd or do I mean fragile (being polite like!).

[#14]

Hi @Townman,

The vendor hasn't been able to replicate the notification number mismatch you shared the screenshot of. Are you still seeing the issue today?

James

[#15]

Hi @James_B 

Sadly not!

Someone somewhere reset my notification count.  I am allowing it to grow again, currently 50+1, to see if the issue is reproduceable.

I am astonished that the vendor attempted to 'replicate' the issue, rather than investigate the reported varying counts.  Diagnosing the reported observations ought to have started with determining the counts of notifications by type.  Determining if there is a 101 ceiling ought to have been easy enough to verify.  At post #31 there is a hint that they HAVE seen or replicated the issue.

Replication of complex issues is an improbable approach to diagnosing an issue.  I have not looked at the notification page for 5+ months now, just so that the vendor might have the opportunity to do a proper investigation, based on knowledge of the solution architecture and how things should work.  This needed a "we see what the user has reported, how knowing what we do know could this come about?".

Some of the responses hint at some insight having been attained ... now it looks as though they have given up.  The count issue is arguably not a hill of beans, but I do suspect that it is a symptom of a much bigger underlying issue with keeping all of the architecture in sync ... which was hinted at by the referral to the infrastructure team.

Personally I would have been running notification count queries direct to each data node and comparing the results.  However, I suspect some deep complications connected to the user's status - as we have seen / reported elsewhere, various counts (for example thanks for a user) are not absolute, they are relevant to the viewing user's logged in status and where they are in the forum.