Is this acceptable? Why do we put up with this as a community (Faithlife and us)?

This is what email subscriptions from the forums look like when they contain images. I have posted about this before, and remains unfixed. I know Faithlife has said it is a Gmail problem, but I search on Google and I find no one else complaining about this issue since around early 2014. Did others figure out to fix it? Does this type of communication with the forums foster community? Why do we put up with this? It has been months!

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abondservant

A couple years back (don't remember exactly) someone figured out how to execute malicious code as your computer loads images sent in an email (or on a website, etc). Thus most email clients blocked images from loading by default. Its not a faithlife issue, its an issue with most mail clients. However their should be a button (not sure where in gmail). In outlook (which is in my opinion better than using webmail) look at my screenshot, find the blue exclamation mark, and read the description beside it. There will be something similar, though not exactly the same in gmail I should think.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775000#Comment_775000

There is a radio button "Ask before displaying external images" or "Always display external images", in Settings, which is set to the "Always display". If you do some Googling of the issue, what you will find is if Google is preventing the image from coming up it gives you a bar to click to display the image. This bar does not show - which means Google thinks they are displaying the image.

I assume no answer from Faithlife means it is what it is. So be it.

Thanks for the reply abondservant.

Phil Gons (Logos)

Sorry for the delay. We're looking into this again. It's complicated, and we try to prioritize our limited resources on the most important issues first. Unfortunately, that means lots of things like this have to wait in line.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775189#Comment_775189

Thanks Phil, just knowing it's in line to be addressed is welcome news, appreciate the update.

Doc B

This is what email subscriptions from the forums look like when they contain images.

Don, considering that it doesn't work, and likely won't be fixed for some time, have you considered reading the forums on the website rather than by email? It isn't as convenient, but would be much less frustrating, I think.

I have never read the forums other than on the web page. The thought of all these going into my email box makes me claustic. But I do understand why you like the subscriptions. I subscribe to a number of other forums that have a MUCH smaller volume of emails.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775218#Comment_775218

have you considered reading the forums on the website rather than by email?

No I have not. I don't read all the forums, maybe 2/3 of them. But there is no way to only see the unread messages in the forums I care about - you get them all. There is no way to have some sorting/organizing of the unread messages. If I click on an unread message it shows the first post not where I last read, which is totally confusing if it's a long thread. In email I can see a summary line or two of the latest unread and get the gist of the message without even clicking - on the forums I have to click each message, scroll, click back, and it can be slow. If I keep at it there is no way to clean up the rest of the unread and mark them all as read without going though every forum, so I always have this list of unread messages that makes it hard to stay current. There is probably more but that's enough to make it quite a bit worse than emails organized, sortable, easy to mark as read or highlight as important - and it's still a browser interface so I can see it anywhere, and it's fast.

It's just not nearly as optimized or efficient a UI IMHO, but thanks for the suggestion!

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775249#Comment_775249

That's about as well a made case as I've ever seen on the forums.

You should have been a lawyer. [:D]

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775289#Comment_775289

Whew - sorry for the fire hose <g>. Some of these issues fester with me because they don't get addressed (like still waiting for search results to be highlighted in my own notes when I search on them - makes me really wonder if Faithlife employees use some of this stuff :-))

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775294#Comment_775294

Some of these issues fester with me

Agreed.

I see Logos as a three-legged creature, if only because it has three distinct Achilles heels (based on input in the forums): (1) Notes, (2), mobile apps, and (3) quality control, i.e., errors in resources. I suppose you could add software stability, but they address that very quickly when it is a problem, unlike the above.

Just my obs.

Mike Estes - Logos

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775304#Comment_775304

Hi Deacon Awalt,

While I'm not yet convinced that a fix we made solves it for you, we're at least one step closer to an improvement for this problem. Can you see if image attached below works in your email?

This fix won't help with previous attached images, but should be an improvement for newer ones.

As was said this is a bit of a difficult problem to solve. What I think is happening is that there are too many redirects for image urls that are attached to messages. In this case there are 6 redirects. Some email and browser applications give up following redirects after a certain number. I was able to remove one of the redirects (http->https) but there are 5 remaining. We have some ideas on how to fix a few of the others, but those are not an easy fix with the forum software that we're using.

We are sorry that this is an issue for you and definitely want the forums to work well for all of our customers. I see it now and then with my email client on my iPad, but sometimes it fixes itself.

Thank you again for reporting this issue,
Mike

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775819#Comment_775819

Hi Mike thanks so much for working on this!! I really appreciate yours and the team's efforts!

If I understood your request properly, sadly this attempt did not work - see picture below:

Mike Estes - Logos

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775824#Comment_775824

Yes, indeed. I was just now able to reproduce the issue on my iPad as well.

Trying another hack/test to see if it's just one more redirect causing it or if it's the additional 4 others. Or perhaps something else that I've yet to figure out.

EDIT Appears to have worked on my iPad.

Mike Estes - Logos

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775828#Comment_775828

Another test closer to the actual repro.

Though the forum editor is making it not exactly the same.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775831#Comment_775831

Mike - BOTH the last two posts worked!!!! Here's the last post:

Mike Estes - Logos

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775841#Comment_775841

Thank you! At least now I know I'm on the right track. Now need to figure out how to get rid of at least one more redirect and it should be working for you.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775848#Comment_775848

That would be awesome!! Thanks Mike!

Mike Estes - Logos

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/775856#Comment_775856

In the bit of testing I did, this appears to be fixed now.

Test of image attachment. Existing emails with images should work now as well.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/789650#Comment_789650

this appears to be fixed now.

Can't tell. All e-mails ceased shortly before you posted... [:'(]

And I haven't been able to load the forum pages on Safari for several days now.

Myke Harbuck

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/789822#Comment_789822

Can't tell. All e-mails ceased shortly before you posted...

Yeah, Im not getting any emails either.

Jonathan

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/789823#Comment_789823

Can't tell. All e-mails ceased shortly before you posted...

Yeah, Im not getting any emails either.

Nor I.

Mike Estes - Logos

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/789830#Comment_789830

Sorry, appears that email notifications are now being sent. Someone just fixed this.

The build of the forum software was updated and moved to newer machines and part of the config was incorrectly set up.

Thank you,
Mike

Paul Kelsey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/789872#Comment_789872

I've been trying to do presentation group invites since yesterday afternoon. Is it working for anyone yet?

Mike Estes - Logos

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/790107#Comment_790107

I've been trying to do presentation group invites since yesterday afternoon. Is it working for anyone yet?

Hi Paul,

Are you sure you're posting to the right thread/forum? This thread is about the emails one gets from the forums.

Not sure, but I'm guessing you meant to post this here in this Proclaim forum?
https://community.logos.com/forums/94.aspx

If not can you give more details as to what issue you're having? Perhaps we can point you to the right location for getting an answer.

Thanks,
Mike

Paul Kelsey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/790110#Comment_790110

Yep, sorry for the mis-post. Thanks for the pointer.