PM Storage problem

[Sue]

I tried to send a PM and got a message that my storage was 100% full.

So I spent about ten minutes deleting stuff, and it's still telling me my storage is 100% full!

Is something wrong with the system?

[Laddy Muck]

How weird, I've had to alert two forum buddies that their inboxes were full today. I'd assumed that they were just very popular social butterflies!

[Sue]

Has admin reduced the amount of permitted storage in an attempt to speed up the forum?

If so, sadly it doesn't seem to have worked - slower than ever tonight :-S

[ianr]

Looks like the quota has been reduced to 300. Got it down below that and was then told I had room to spare.

If so, I think a bulk email to all registered users might be a good idea. Otherwise those whose quota is now full may be uncontactable by PM without being aware of the fact.

[ETA:] I see that there's now (I now see that?) there's a facility for creating other folders, and moving files between folders, which seems to work. Might be useful for housekeeping.

[Sue]

That's a bit poor that nobody was told - couldn't we have had a thread on the forum somewhere, maybe a sticky for a while, if you didn't want to email us all, admin?

[DJKillaQueen]

Yeah I agree...I only noticed today the reduced pm capacity.

[katanita]

Yep, just cleared my inbox and now I can send, but can't actually reach anyone because all their inboxes are full. Trying to arrange something for tomorrow night, so it's a bit frustrating, and I assume most people have no idea. Is it possible to do a bulk email to members?

[Otta]

Surely 300 PMs is more than enough?!?

[StraferJack]

Ideally we all would have had notice yes, but if admin was doing some work and discovered that so many people had so many messages taking up limited server space, he may have had to make a quick call

If he was to email everyone (and I'm not sure the phorum software used allows that) and allow time for people to read them (2 days? what if people are away? a week? 2 weeks?) the the forum continues to grind to a halt

Given that when you go into the messages section it tells you how many you have used and how many you have available should we not take responsibility ourselves?

[Laddy Muck]

Holy Mary Mother of God...this is a free resource.

It doesn't take long to "housekeep" the mailboxes. I do mine every time I send/receive PMs (i.e. usually daily).

Of course, in an ideal world it would be marvellous to have a speedier forum complete with gargantuan storage for PMs so that we would never have to worry our little heads about doing the odd bit of clearing every so often. But, life isn't perfect. Admin. has mentioned (on another thread) that upgrades are unaffordable at the moment. Moos has also mentioned donations. 1 + 1 = ?

[katanita]

Um, I don't think anyone above is complaining really about the change, just trying to figure out what happened. And saying that it would be good to have some sort of official notice about it, or email if possible, so people aren't just floundering as I was when I tried to send something this morning. No problem with doing housekeeping if I know that it's required, and yes, donations are a good idea of course for such a great resource.

[katie1997]

Sorry for being dim but how many are we allowed to have in total? Thanks.

Edit - oops, scrolled back through the thread, I see its 300 :-$

[Laddy Muck]

Personally, I think it's wonderful that Admin. didn't temporarily close the forum whilst doing the work (thus saving me the humiliation of a stint into rehab). They just got on with it.

[Sue]

StraferJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> Given that when you go into the messages section

> it tells you how many you have used and how many

> you have available should we not take

> responsibility ourselves?

xxxxxx

Yes. I always keep an eye on how much space I have left.

I knew I had space left.

Which was why I was somewhat surprised to find I suddenly had none, and even when I deleted loads still had none.

ETA: I keep a lot of old PMs for future reference. I see I will now have to copy and paste them somewhere instead. But I'm really really busy at the moment and having to make time to sort them all out with no prior warning is an absolute pain.

Please don't take this as meaning I don't really appreciate the forum and the work you do, admin, as I have said oft-times in the past :) But I do feel some warning about this would have been helpful, as at present I can only contact and be contacted by people I know personally off the forum who exchange emails off the forum.

[DJKillaQueen]

Also I'm finding it impossible to send group pms to my footy team as half of them don't know that new storage limits have come in and their inboxes are full. I'm texting those I can but some advance warning might have helped us all to prepared for the changeover when it came.

[mockney piers]

In all fairness the forum has never really attempted to be a competitor to facebook, gmail or vodafone.

PMs are a useful bolt on, but are really only originally intended for forumites to take a discussion off line.

Agreed a warning would have been handy, but the lesson to learn is never trust the cloud, if data is important then bring it to your own hard-drive, back it up, print it out. I'm pretty sure there was a thread about that once...

[Sue]

Surely PMs are also for people buying, selling and offering things who don't want to put their personal details online?

[DJKillaQueen]

I copy any pms I want to keep to elsewhere but the size of the storage has been cut by so much (from 1500 pms I think to 300) that many people have been caught out, which is kind of what you might expect to happen with no prior warning.

As for what a pm is...it's a private message...not just for taking a discussion off-line but for for sending out information or taking enquiries or doing any of the things the various forum sections allow forumites to do (exactly as Sue points out). A victim of it's own success perhaps :)

[mockney piers]

All your examples Dj/sue are quite neatly encapsulated by offline but ultimately who cares.

It still holds true that it isn't an email/gsm service provider.

The storage of PMs was bumped up from 60 a year or two ago,.I think in the light of how it's being used and the apparent effects it has on the performance of the site as a whole, that limiting the size again seems eminently sensible.

[DJKillaQueen]

No one is disagreeing with limiting the number just asking where was the logic in not forwarning people to clear their inboxes so they could still receive pms.

[mockney piers]

which I think you'll see I agreed with several posts ago....

[Sue]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> All your examples Dj/sue are quite neatly

> encapsulated by offline

xxxx

Just being pedantic (moi?) but what you actually said was

"only originally intended for forumites to take a discussion off line."

I don't think PMing somebody to ask if you can go and see an item for sale, for example, or PMing somebody with a query, is exactly taking a discussion off line, but hey as you say, who cares.

Unfortunately I think there are likely to be a few frustrated forumites who haven't seen this thread and who can't understand why their/people they are trying to contact's mailboxes are full.

Particularly those who knew their mailboxes were nowhere near full a couple of days ago :))

[mockney piers]

Sounds pretty discussional to me, but I'm now losing the will to live and am more than happy to concede the point.

[katie1997]

Why don't you all take it offline and discuss it by PM? :))

anyway, on a serious note, its a fab free resource and I don't think we can expect to be given notice in some cases. If the admin team could have given notice about this, then perhaps they would have. Its fairly likely that whatever amount they may have given, wouldn't have been the 'right' amount anyway, depending on how you use the forum.

[Administrator]

So I looked at the database last night and the pm_messages table was huge, then I looked at the settings and the number of allowed PMs was unlimited (or 1,500 I can't remember as i'd been on a session with the ladies from the bridge club) and I thought who needs unlimited PMs, 300 should be plenty. I was wrong it turns out so I've upped it back up to 1,000. Apologies for the inconvenience.