When a member uses the reply function in the activity stream to reply to a notice that someone posted something in the forums, such a reply does not get posted back in the actual forum. Rather it remains only as an entry in the Activity stream and is only visible there.

Now this throws up a problem with the notification system. In the scenario above, a notification is generated and displayed by the notification system with a link that leads to the forum. But remember that the entry was only recorded in the activity stream and not simultaneously posted in the forum so even though the link takes you to the forum, the reply it is talking about is not there.

As a further consequence, the new notification flag remains just as if it has not yet been checked. Try whatever you might, you get stuck with this irremovable message that you have a pending notification and even though you click the link a million times the notification does not go away.

So how does one remedy this apparent bug?

– Is there a way to make forum entries replied from the activity stream to also be recorded in the forum?

OR

– Is there a way for the notification system to ignore replies to forum posts made from the activity stream?

OR

– Is there a way to make the notification link point to the actual entry in the activity stream and not to the non existent one in the forum?

So far as I have seen, this only occurs for forum entries replied to directly from the activity stream.

I sure hope my explanation is clear enough. I’ll be happy to provide further details or clarification.

[@embergermedia Member 13 years, 7 months ago]

PLEASE!!! My users are complaining loudly about this issue. Some of them have nearly a dozen un clearable notifications because of this issue! I can only imagine the chaos that will ensue once the community has been active for a year and they have dozens and dozens of notifications that won’t go away…

And new users can’t find answers to these already answered forum topics!

I think a simple solution would be to not allow forum topics to add to the activity stream. I can do this with a great plugin. But how do I clear all the notifications that users already have?? And besides, this is only a hack. I would like to keep forums updates in the activity stream, to encourage interaction.

Thanks

[@r-a-y Keymaster 13 years, 7 months ago]

This issue has been brought up in the past.

You can disable the ability to use the activity stream to reply to forum posts by doing the following:

– Login to your WordPress install.
– Navigate to “BuddyPress > General Settings”.
– Under “Disable activity stream commenting on blog and forum posts?”, select “Yes” and save.

There is currently no other solution to sync activity replies to forum topics yet.

[@embergermedia Member 13 years, 7 months ago]

@r-a-y Any ideas on how to clear out the stuck notifications that are already there?

Thanks

[@bdrelling Member 13 years, 7 months ago]

They have cleared for me on their own, ember. In time, does it clear?

[@r-a-y Keymaster 13 years, 7 months ago]

@embergermedia – Notifications get cleared depending on the component screen that is loaded. Which notification are you having trouble clearing?

[@embergermedia Member 13 years, 6 months ago]

@r-a-y

Updates to forum posts. They have been there since March, when we went live!

[@r-a-y Keymaster 13 years, 6 months ago]

I don’t believe BP sends notifications for forum posts by default.
Are you using a plugin? If so, which one? I think BuddyDev.com released a plugin for this. Not 100% sure.

Also, what is written in the BuddyBar notification?