Dumb user

Of course I can't get into Control Panel. They've done a good job actually - the PCs don't have USB ports or floppy/CD drives, so nobody can take data out of the building from their computer. I don't have a say in which wallpaper is displayed or when the machine is defragged (I don't suppose anyone does that, but as it only uses a handful of programs I doubt it's very fragmented).

Actually there's not much loads in startup - the machine seems to take ages to boot because it runs a logon script etc and from two weeks ahead, it halts and asks if you want to change your password. We don't have screensavers loaded.

Hi, my name is JP and I'm a dumb user. (they say the 1st step is admitting you have a problem. They never mention what the 2nd step is )

Heh, thanks for that test!

If there's one thing worse than a dumb user, it's a dumb user with a redundancy issue! AND HERE I AM!!!!!!!!:D

LOL JPnyc :) people who don't realise what you're doing will think you've gone slightly weird :)

FYI I'm getting two notifications for every post in this thread, so we're experimenting with me subscribing/unsubscribing

Why shouldn't we tell 'em the truth!? I AM WEIRD!

And once again, I got two email notifications :)

Even though you unsubscribed?

I unsubscribed, got no notifications at all (I checked the thread manually), then I subscribed again, because basically I want to see replies in that thread. Once I resubscribed, I got two notificatons once more. Seemingly they aren't sent together, because I've only got one notification for this reply for instance - but I'm sure it won't be long before I have another.

Edit Yes, I have two. Strangely, once I read one, the second one is marked read. That is, it arrived in my inbox in "read" state. When I have two that I haven't opened at all, they're both unread until I open one, then the other goes to being marked read.

Starting to sound like an email provider glitch.

But if it only happens for this thread how can that be?

But if it were an inherent problem in the forum's mail function, why would it happen for one thread alone? Perhaps there's some combo of characters in this thread's emails that the mail server is choking on.

Well,

I am at a loss. If it were the AO mail system why only one thread and one member?

If it were Moira's mail system the same question stands?

I have just moved the thread from Tech Humour to General Chit Chat. I don't know anything about the vBulletin database or AO's software but sometimes doing something like that provokes a recalculation of values?

Moira, please let me know if you get two notifications of this post, thanks.

:)

Answer: FDISK

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Answer: FDISK

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Whose? yours I hope :lildevil:

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Edit Yes, I have two. Strangely, once I read one, the second one is marked read. That is, it arrived in my inbox in "read" state. When I have two that I haven't opened at all, they're both unread until I open one, then the other goes to being marked read.

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That is interesting Moira. I am inclined to suspect that the problem is with America On Line. If AO sent you two mails, even if they were duplicated, I would expect you to receive two distinct items, and that you would have to deal with them separately.

Similarly if you are sent an e-mail and inadvertently included on the CC or BCC list as well, you would receive distinct items.

I am assuming that you are reading your mail online, rather than downloading it?

If that is the case it seems that the AOL mail system is incorrectly generating a second copy, yet is retaining a direct link between them, such that it considers them to be the exact same item. This is why it marks them both as read?

I don't know why this is happening, but I do know that a lot of e-mails are deliberately duplicated: one in plain text and the other in styled text/MIME. This is to allow for different mail readers that people might be using, and is quite intentional. You only see one message, and it only opens one depending on the type of reader you have chosen to use.

It appears that for some reason AOL is separating the two formats to give you a virtual "siamese twin" record.


Can you find any clues in the e-mail headers of the matched pairs?

Also, what happens if you delete one............does the other one get deleted as well?

:)

Precisely why I theorized what I did. The 2nd one being marked read without opening is what tipped it. There's no way that should happen if they are 2 independent duplicate emails.

Hi JPnyc,

Could you ask around if anyone has been playing with the e-mail notification system, either as development, training, or tools testing?

There are testing tools that will modify an e-mail message so that you can examine both formats. If that were moved live by accident or used incorrectly with this thread and Moira's account as the test target, it could explain the circumstances.

You are supposed to use the specialised software to read the messages. I wouldn't care to predict what would happen if you sent such a modified message to a "regular" e-mail system?

As you are on the "end user" part of the system, I doubt if your development crew would see any need to inform you of what they were doing?

:)

Ha! You would say that :) blame gmail not AOline!

I'm pretty sure there's nothing going on with the mail system. All the development team is working on new sites and a google search addition. No one to spare to work on anything else.

Well, as I said in my post in the original thread (this is getting complicated now!), the second one was not marked as read and hasn't been this time either (though two notifications have been received). It's only for this thread though! That's the weird bit. It's a bit hard to lay the blame for that on AOL, in all honesty, though they're everyone's favourite scapegoat. If they were generating a second copy, they would be doing it for every email, or at least every forum notification.

Interestingly, they're showing as one item in my inbox, though it's two emails. And btw, no I am not reading my email online, why on earth would I want to do that when I have a splendid client like Thunderbird?

Well not necessarily, as I said there could be some combination of characters in this particular thread's emails that might be triggering some issue. Of course that same thing could be true of our mail server as well.

I don't think it's something we're ever going to solve :)

Columbo would never give up this easy (sorry, american tv reference)

I'm not particularly giving up - just thinking everyone else must be bored rigid by this now :) once again, two emails, but one message showing in inbox. However, they weren't both marked read once I opened one. Though that may not happen immediately ..... because some I definitely did notice they were.

Well one thing I can do to help is to have our outgoing email checked to see if 2 of them are going out. That'll help us pinpoint at least where the responsibility lies.

Hi Moira,

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Interestingly, they're showing as one item in my inbox, though it's two emails. And btw, no I am not reading my email online, why on earth would I want to do that when I have a splendid client like Thunderbird?

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Could you please do that, to see what it looks like when it arrives at your mail provider? We need to establish where the segregation of the message pairs is occuring?

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I don't think it's something we're ever going to solve

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"A solution is something that one delegates to a minion, a manager simply defines the requirements" :D

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I'm not particularly giving up - just thinking everyone else must be bored rigid by this now

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Actually, Moira, that should be exactly the opposite. Just suppose you could write a virus that did this to peoples' mail servers, clients and the like............... the impact on the Global Net would be enormous?

Sure, we know that there are two messages sent, BUT............. to make them actually show as two, when you only sent one?

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Columbo would never give up this easy (sorry, american tv reference)

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That's why he never had time to take his overcoat to the cleaners...... the show is still getting re-runs over here. Hey, I can remember seeing it on monochrome TVs over here!

Moira:

Did my moving the thread from Tech Humour to General Chit Chat have any effect?

Could you post the detailed e-mail headers of one of these "pairs" (please remember to "xxxxx" out the personal details)

JPnyc:

Just because it isn't on your official development list doesn't mean that people are not looking at new applications and techniques for their future potential ;)

OK // Back on Dumb user topic:

How about dumb developers?

Chief Accountant: "Johnno, those sales order processing amendments you did for us are fine, but everything runs real slow now?"

Me: "Sounds like a debugger problem to me"

Chief Accountant: " Right Johnno, it's a real bugger, but can you fix it?"

My man had moved it live, with the debugger still attached and running :D

Actually checking gmail (where my notifications go) was a good idea. There is only one copy there. Interestingly, only one copy came in this morning as well (even though there'd been two posts!). However moving the thread didn't actually have any impact, I was still getting two notifications last night.