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eobet · Jun 26, 2006, 05:28 PM

A few weeks ago I lost my user on the MacNN forums. It was really weird because when I searched for my username, it turned up 0 posts, yet when I went to the thread where I knew I had posted, I saw my username in it, but with question marks or nothing behind the post count and joined dates.

Today, after I had made a new user, I discovered that my old posts now are attributed to someone else (someone called ksloan2 in at least one instance) and also, I have a post count of 4 but have only made 1 new post, and searching for my username today reveals posts I haven't made. So my new name seems to have taken over someone else's posts.

Also, I see many, many names on this forum now with empty status and n/a post counts and such, which must mean that a lot more users than me lost their accounts and are now encountering weird situations.

Why haven't there been a forum-wide alert about this? I have seen nobody even mentioning it, and if a lot of users are afflicted, the should be a banner on top of the forums explaining the situation.

Also, I tried mailing the [email protected] through the "contact us" link and I have received no response!

darth-vader000 · Jun 26, 2006, 07:11 PM

Umm there was

Did you see the " Important: Lost User Names" announcement in the forums?

Announcement

eobet · Jun 26, 2006, 07:33 PM

Either I'm completely drunk, or that was just added...

A few other bugs may also be related to this...

At least I highlighted some other bugs now... any chance of my posts being restored and the posts wrongfully attributed to be fixed?

darth-vader000 · Jun 26, 2006, 08:04 PM

I think your drunk becuase it was there when they got 'NN back up

rickey939 · Jun 26, 2006, 08:12 PM

Originally Posted by eobet

Also, I tried mailing the [email protected] through the "contact us" link and I have received no response!

darth-vader000 · Jun 26, 2006, 08:49 PM

Originally Posted by eobet

Also, I tried mailing the [email protected] through the "contact us" link and I have received no response!

Like ricky said

I tried emailng [email protected] to try to correct my account, it was one that disappeared and I got a funky database error message when attempting to [re]register. It took an email to mkbhatia to get anywhere.

I suspect the admin account is one of those black whole jobs that eveyone ignores.

Person Man · Jun 27, 2006, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by eobet

Either I'm completely drunk, or that was just added...

At least I highlighted some other bugs now... any chance of my posts being restored and the posts wrongfully attributed to be fixed?

Look at the date on the announcement. 6/14/06. The forums were down all day on 6/13/06.

reader50 · Jun 27, 2006, 11:13 AM

This is speculation on my part. I don't have inside info.

Those who had user accounts erased. When everyone re-registered, they didn't do it in the original order, so the user IDs were re-issued in the new order instead of the old. I'm guessing that the orphaned posts got claimed by user ID, which means that until we get back up to the previous number of registered users, orphaned posts are going to be claimed by various new users.

This might have been avoided if the MAX_ISSUED_USER_ID variable had been manually set to match it's previous value. Though that variable is no doubt called something else in vBB.

Plus side? Maybe you'll inherit some cool posts.

Originally Posted by darth-vader000

...
I tried emailng [email protected] to try to correct my account, it was one that disappeared and I got a funky database error message when attempting to [re]register. It took an email to mkbhatia to get anywhere.
...

I don't know what causes the funky re-registration error either, but I do know what it means in practice. Your registration confirmation email didn't get sent. You need that email so you can click the confirmation link inside to activate your new account. btw - does anyone have a screen shot of the error message?

Any Admin can fix this by manually telling the board to resend the confirmation email. Us Mods don't have access to that option.

hint to Demon/tooki/et al -- adding the resend command to our Mod options may substantially increase your disposable time for the next few months ...

tooki · Jun 27, 2006, 03:43 PM

I think there is a resend function somewhere, but I don't remember where. If someone didn't get their registration e-mail, they can just contact me and I'll just activate the account manually.

tooki

darth-vader000 · Jun 27, 2006, 06:57 PM

How can they contact you if there account is not created? When I had problems with darth-vader000 account I could not just PM you, so how can those who have the same problems do so?

reader50 · Jun 27, 2006, 11:51 PM

Here is how to contact someone if your account isn't working.

At the bottom of the main Forum listing, there is a link to View Forum Leaders. Click it, you will see the forum staff members listed. Ignore the Moderators, we don't have the ability to fix your problem. The Super Moderators can't help you either. I'm not sure about the "MacNN Staff" group, those people appear to be associated with the News page, and probably don't have Admin access, unless they also appear in the Admin section. So check the Administrators section, these are the people who can help - except "Jelsoft Support", which seems to be a dummy entry.

A number of us have IM handles listed, but they don't appear directly on that page. Instead, click on each Admin to open their profile page in a new tab. Some may list IM handles on various services. If you can't reach anyone that way, then check the Moderators section. If you can reach any of us Mods/SuperMods, chances are we can reach some of the Admins who don't list their IM handles.

darth-vader000 · Jun 28, 2006, 06:35 AM

Well that seems like a lot of work when they should be reviewing the admin@macnn email

Especially since the OP is having trouble and you have to wonder how many others have emailed admin@macnn w/o any response.

I'm all set since my account is created but since there is a known problem somone should be monitoring the admin email account or setup a work around. Its no skin off my nose but it seems to me that its only hurting 'NN by not registering new people.

tooki · Jun 28, 2006, 01:09 PM

I think that admin@macnn got black-holed back when the database errors were sending thousands of emails a day to the people that that address forwarded to.

tooki

Oisín · Jun 28, 2006, 01:14 PM

Perhaps an accounts@macnn (or similar) account should be set up? Obviously with a link of something along the lines of, “If you’re having trouble logging in, confirming your account, creating a new account, or a similar account-related problem, send an e-mail to [email protected]”?

HowEver · Jun 29, 2006, 08:06 PM

I got hiccupped, too.

I was only here a few months... but I'm glad to be back.