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HabitRPG
Notifications not always received for private messages (PMs)
Experienced players who receive a lot of PMs are reporting that they don't always get notifications for them. Some of those case may be caused by https://github.com/HabitRPG/habitica/issues/11172 but there seems to be other cause(s) too. I haven't noticed the bug in my testing but I get far fewer PMs than AnneLine, who has observed this a few times now (see https://github.com/HabitRPG/habitica/issues/11172 for related feedback from her).
From @AnneLine (16a107de-d519-43ce-8c30-8da5cbcbb237) three days ago:
I'm back with another couple of items of feedback regarding notifications. I'm really starting to think there might be a bug going on. But it's really hard to prove a negative. But for about the 3rd time in as many weeks, I've had to send a message like this to a Badger 101 player who had requested a gem prize via PM: "Wow, I missed a notification, I guess, because I didn't see last week's 'badger gem' request! Well done!!!!"
Now that's not a huge thing in the bigger scheme of things, but... within the last 48 hours, both @blakejones99 and I have missed fairly important messages to each other because we had no way of knowing the other had sent one. We're having to resort to 'have you checked messages' notes in the STAG guild... Any chance something really is going on that hasn't been seen? There have been a lot of times in the last few weeks that I thought I was just being kinda absent minded, but now I'm wondering....
From @AnneLine (16a107de-d519-43ce-8c30-8da5cbcbb237) today:
I'm just putting in another round of 'I'm definitely not getting notifications of messages - just missed some from both @agateAngel and @Ceran.... fortunately, I found the email telling me about both of them....
From Ceran, Hamster Juggler / @Ceran (aabe567b-aa55-42c1-b612-b7699a7ba9b7) today:
Joining the ranks of not-PM-notification-getters... Ironically a PM from @AnneLine. I only noticed it was there because I saw the notification on the app (the one that shows a preview of the message), but the website was missing the little red 1 showing that there's an unread message, even after syncing and refreshing. (no, I didn't open the message on the app before that to test it out) I'm asking Ceran if they opened the Messages index screen even though they didn't open the individual message, as that would be enough to clear the notification, however that would be extra evidence that a usability change is needed as outlined in https://github.com/HabitRPG/habitica/issues/11172
With PR #12335 the Habitica codebase has been updated to support MongoDB 4.2 and transactions making it possible to fix this issue.
Transactions allow operations on multiple documents to be executed ensuring that either all of them are executed correctly or none, making it possible to fix this issue.
An example on using transactions can be found at https://mongoosejs.com/docs/transactions.html while more info at https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/core/transactions/. If you want to work on this issue and have any question please leave a comment!
Ceran has said that they did NOT open the Messages index screen on the app: No, I didn't open the habitica app at all precisely to rule that out. I saw the notification on my locked screen by accident, and then straight synced and refreshed the website, thinking it odd since I hadn't seen the notification there, and knowing of AnneLine's current problems (having happened with messages I wrote her, too), but I couldn't make the notification show up. Only then did I open my inbox on the website.
There's a suggestion from AnneLine and Ceran that it might be related to having the inbox open when a new message arrives:
AnneLine: something I'm thinking MIGHT be part of it is if two messages arrive at the same time, or at the same time as I'm checking the first message, it may 'turn out' the 2nd message light. Or something like that.
Ceran: AnneLine just said: That didn't use to be the case at least. I am fairly sure that I usually get the notification for a new message if I have the messages open, since the new one won't show up anyway until you close the message window and sync the page.
And also regarding inbox size:
Ceran: Could inbox size have something to do with it? I know I have quite a big inbox and it is a bit slow because of that. (Certainly have to find some time to weed that out. XD)
AnneLine: Alys knows how fat and full my Inbox is.... could this be a factor in the missing messages? ... Does it need to go on a d-i-e-t?
For the moment I'm suggesting to them that they don't clear out their inbox since I know that for AnneLine at least many of the messages are important to keep and Habitica no longer provides the export option from the old site. However if staff could comment on whether they think inbox size might be affecting this, I could pass a recommendation but to AnneLine and Ceran.
FYI @paglias @negue in case you have any suggestions.
Sorry, is the issue the lack of notification or sometime the messages don't appear at all? The big inbox shouldn't matter
With PR #12335 the Habitica codebase has been updated to support MongoDB 4.2 and transactions making it possible to fix this issue.
Transactions allow operations on multiple documents to be executed ensuring that either all of them are executed correctly or none, making it possible to fix this issue.
An example on using transactions can be found at https://mongoosejs.com/docs/transactions.html while more info at https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/core/transactions/. If you want to work on this issue and have any question please leave a comment!
I did some testing and am not quite sure how notifications work on the user's end of the website. Sending some messages to a few test accounts, I noticed messages are just counted in a bubble on the user button and only updated when the page is first loaded or refreshed. Going to messages without opening up any messages clears the counter. I'm not sure if there's anything wrong on my end with my test, like maybe the accounts are limited because they aren't verified or it's just how it's designed... If it was just designed that way, I imagine it may be possible that this isn't an issue as a bug but just a design choice... Though this is an old issue so but assuming its still relevant.
