12 April 2016, 5:56

Hello All,

One of our group forums is having an issue.  When any of the members posts to the forum, the email "from user" is the same member each time an email gets sent even if that member did not post.

For example, Sue and John both post to the forum.  The emails is sent from Jane.  Jane didn't post anything.

Has anyone had this happen before?  Anyone know how to fix this?

Thank you,

Melinda

We are using Mahara rev 15.04.6

13 April 2016, 10:28

Hi Melinada,

Is this happening only in the forums or is this happening for **all** emails sent out by the system - i.e. is it always 'Jane' that sends out the emails?

The reason I ask is because there is a setting in the Administration > Configure site > Site options > Email settings: System mail address

Is this field populated?

Thanks,

Ghada

14 April 2016, 8:16

Hello Ghada,

It is only happening with one forum and I believe one member(administrator member).  I think I finally discovered the issue (I hope).  I could not duplicate the issue the faculty member was having.  The only difference between her login and mine was that she had not clicked "subscribe to forum".  What I don't understand is how she was getting any emails from the forum.  I did not get emails until I click "subscribe to forum".  We are both admins to the forum.  I have not heard back from her so I assume it fixed the problem.

Do you happen to know how she received emails prior to subscribing?  Does it make sense that by subscribing fixed the problem?

Thank you,

Melinda

14 April 2016, 11:09

Hello Melinda,

You can subscribe to an entire forum or to individual forum topics. Maybe she had done that? Or maybe she was subscribed to the forum at some point but then unsubscribed?

The initial issue that you reported seems to be a different one from not receiving emails though. Do you still see all forum posts as having one person as the sender if if somebody else posted to the forum?

For a number of versions now, Mahara has been using the name of the person posting to the forum as sender and displays that in the email "From" list. Prior to that it showed the name of the Mahara instance but never a particular person's name for all forum posts.

If you still have that problem, does it happen in other groups, too or just in one group as you mentioned?

Cheers

Kristina

19 April 2016, 7:49

Hello Kristina,

I just heard back from the faculty member who subscribed for the current topic in the forum. She is still getting all emails from the forum topic with one student's name in the "From" field of the emails.

I have sent an email to the other members (students) in the forum topic to see if any of them have this issue.  I have not heard back from them yet.  I will keep you posted on if there are others with this issue.

I am a member of this forum topic and have not had this issue.

I can't figure out what is different between the faculty member's profile and mine.  We are both Administrators to the forum topic.

Any additional ideas?

Thank you,

Melinda

20 April 2016, 18:38

Hi Melinda,

Users can get messages from a forum when they have made a reply in the forum (and have not subscribed).

I've gone through the code and can't find why another user's email should be used.

If the user for some reason doesn't have a verified email address or their email address is hidden (not sure how this happens), Mahara will use the site's no-reply email set in:

Administration > Configure site > Site options > Email settings: System mail address

1. Can you please check what that setting is and ensure it is the proper organisation's no-reply address?

Also, can you please look into the database and check the email address for the user who is actually submitting the post? Please run this SQL query:

select email from usr where username = 'ENTER_USER_NAME_HERE';

And verify that this email address that comes back is what you expect it to be.

Thanks,

Ghada

22 April 2016, 15:10

Hello Melinda,

If one user sees the name of one person in the "From" field for all forum posts, everybody else would experience the same. There is no individual setting or hiding of email addresses for forum posts like Moodle does (I think Ghada might have mixed up the two ;-) ). Please check with other students on what they get.

Cheers

Kristina

12 May 2016, 6:20

Hello Kristina,

Sorry for the long delay in responding but I have been out of the office.

It turns out it is just the one user in the forum that is receiving all forum emails from the one student email address.  

I saw your other reply how it is difficult to trouble shoot when it cannot be duplicated.  Thank you for your assistance and time.

Thank you,

Melinda