31

Recently I was sent a notification about the ability to set room guidelines. However, while this shows in the inbox, it seems to be counted wrong. If the notification is unread, then the red number is 0. If the notification is read, then the red number is -1.

set as unread with 0 notifications set as read with -1 notifications

This isn't Inbox indicator shows negative counter as that question was caused by a deleted comment. This doesn't go away on reload, and I can easily set it back and forth. My bug report is not about a race condition where the source of a notification is deleted while the inbox is open. Instead, this bug report is about a specific notification which links to a specific, undeleted post. There's a longer discussion about dupe-ness in the Teachers' Lounge (mod-only link).

Improve this question
5
  • 1
    Happened to me as well. I had 3 notifications that included this. After I read all of them I saw the -1 counter. Commented Nov 10 at 19:23
  • I think the chatroom notification wasn't included in the original count. So there were 3 unread messages, but the counter just said 2. Commented Nov 10 at 19:24
  • 4
    I got the -1, but it went away when I clicked "Mark all as read", and everything now behaves normally if I reset those message notifications to unread. Commented Nov 10 at 20:41
  • 3
    Same issue report on MSO in I have -1 notifications. Something broke which has been tagged status-review Commented Nov 10 at 20:42
  • happened to me too, but you beat me to report it. The "Mark all as read" solution works for me too. Commented Nov 10 at 20:52

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
16

Thank you for reporting this issue. I did some digging and found that when we batch-sent the guideline notifications, the step that updates the inbox unread count didn’t run correctly for some users. It affected some users who own multiple chat rooms with the notification linking to the meta post, which is why only some people saw the issue. Since it was a one-time notification, this turned out to be a one-off glitch. Clicking ‘Mark all as read’ will reset the unread count to 0 and clear it up.

Improve this answer
11
  • FYI, it doesn't provide very many details, including the OP yet confirming or denying my suspicion mentioned in my comment there (which also links to this question here), but due to the timing, I suspect that the Math meta post of Asking clarification between "presentation" of comments may also be due to this issue. However, it's currently closed as a duplicate, so you may potentially wish to just comment there. Commented Nov 12 at 3:06
  • 3
    @JohnOmielan Thank you for pointing me to the other post. I will comment there! Commented Nov 12 at 15:52
  • @ShiyaoLi Does this older report have the same cause? Commented Nov 12 at 18:07
  • 3
    @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog All inbox counter errors are caused by counting unread notifications incorrectly, though the specific reasons vary by case. In this instance, the incorrect count was caused by an error happened in the one-time batch-sending process. I’m not sure why comment notifications behave that way, but their underlying issue is different from this one. Commented Nov 12 at 18:31
  • 1
    @ShiyaoLi, but why just not guard counter to 0, so not show negative value? Commented Nov 12 at 20:26
  • 8
    @Grundy This is an older bug in the inbox system and eventually we'll need to do that. Commented Nov 12 at 20:48
  • @ShiyaoLi, btw, why when i "mark as read" concrete notification in inbox - counter reset to 0, but on refresh still show regative value? seems like on client added some "hotfix" but not update server state Commented Nov 12 at 22:06
  • 2
    @Grundy I haven’t personally worked on the inbox system, so I don’t want to risk providing inaccurate information. I may not be very helpful beyond identifying what happened with the room guidelines notifications. Sorry about that! Commented Nov 12 at 23:07
  • @ShiyaoLi oookay :) Commented Nov 13 at 0:19
  • Re "It affected some users who own multiple chat rooms", I don't think I own any, and it affected me. But "Mark all as read" did fix the issue. Commented Nov 13 at 19:26
  • 3
    @ikegami You own 3 long-deleted rooms. Based on other reports, it seems the script did not properly ignore those somehow. Commented Nov 13 at 19:40

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.