My account has vanished

[mark]

Hello,

I adminsiter the HymnWiki forum. I hadn't been there for a while, until today. When I tried to log in, it didn't recognize my email address anymore. I tried my old emails, too, but to no avail.

Is there any way to reclaim my forum?

Thanks!

[GregChapman]

I fear that the same as reported in the topic below may apply:

http://support.nabble.com/Wats-is-happened-with-forum-td7581607.html#a7581623

[mark]

It's not horrible news since if it's deleted, I can just make it again. But, is it going to be deleted? I don't recall getting the usual email notice about it. Have those been discontinued? Maybe it's because it's an older forum.

[GregChapman]

As far as I know the script will run on Nabble's server to post an email to warn any administrator if a forum is to be deleted.

Post the URL of your forum so one of the Nabble team can investigate if there is some other cause.

EDIT: Just done a search and if it's: http://hymnwiki.30302.n2.nabble.com/ then it's working for me!

[mark]

Thanks for checking. Here's the URL:
 http://hymnwiki.30302.n2.nabble.com/

[GregChapman]

It's still working for me. Can you access it now?

[Pedro]

It seems to be everything ok in your forum.

[mark]

The problem isn't that the forum is deleted or is not rendering properly. (It's only a suspiscion that it's on the list for deletion. It might not be.)

The problem is that my admin account's email doesn't point to my email anymore. None of my email accounts, including old ones, spam folders and all, seem to respond to a PM, either. I have no idea what it's emailing. Maybe we could check on that, to see if it actually is emailing anyone.

I had to reregister for my forum for some reason, and when I did, I didn't have admin rights, and it doesn't treat my old messages as belonging to me. I can't use the old username, either (not that I want to, actually).

It's possible that someone hijacked my account, but it seems more likely that a change in the way the forums work in addition to my not having signed in in a long time resulted in a bug that caused a weird state with my account. I haven't seen any false posts, I mean.

[GregChapman]

mark wrote

The problem isn't that the forum is deleted or is not rendering properly. (It's only a suspiscion that it's on the list for deletion. It might not be.)

I can see no reason for believing the forum is scheduled for deletion. There is activity on it, although it is possible some posts might be scheduled for deletion if they have not been visited recently.

The problem is that my admin account's email doesn't point to my email anymore.

So I assume you mean that you've stopped using your old email address but have forgotten to tell Nabble, so log in, using the email address you used originally for your admin account, then take these actions:

1. Click on your username at the top right of the forum
2. Select "Account Settings" from the menu that appears
3. Select "Edit Personal Information"
4. Click the link "Change Email"
5. Enter your current email address and click the "Change Email" button

None of my email accounts, including old ones, spam folders and all, seem to respond to a PM, either. I have no idea what it's emailing.

I don't understand this. Nabble does not offer a "Private Mail" facility - only email. Please explain what you are referring to!

Maybe we could check on that, to see if it actually is emailing anyone.

Maybe you could test that. I assume the recently registered user "mark" is you. Login in, pick a user, click their avatar, and on the screen that appears opt to email them. Ask them to respond.

I had to reregister for my forum for some reason,

On the basis of your explanation in this message, that is simply because you have failed to login correctly using your original email address, so you created a brand new user "mark".

and when I did, I didn't have admin rights, and it doesn't treat my old messages as belonging to me.

Of course you won't have admin rights. As a new user you need to get an administrator to grant you those. And, of course, it won't treat your new account as in any way connected with any other. I cannot see why you would expect it to. Please explain.

I can't use the old username, either (not that I want to, actually).

You can't use your old username because, as the "Change Personal Information" screen explains when you create a new user account a user name must be unique in any forum.

It's possible that someone hijacked my account, but it seems more likely that a change in the way the forums work in addition to my not having signed in in a long time resulted in a bug that caused a weird state with my account. I haven't seen any false posts, I mean.

Subject to the explanations I call for, I'd say it is far more likely that you have simply forgotten the email address and/or password that you last set for your admin account.

There's one slight puzzle. It is rare for someone to take over the running of a forum. Your forum appears to have been created by "Nalicter". Is that your original username? If not then perhaps Nalicter removed your admin rights because you appeared to have lost interest in the forum as you had not logged in recently. You could email Nalicter and say that you're back under a new name and ask to be appointed Admin again.

[GregChapman]

Browsing your forum a little more I note that "Nalicter" hasn't posted anything since Jan 27, 2011 and is the only Administrator on the forum.

On the 23 November 2012 two new users registered: "mark" and "alicter".

It all reinforces my guess - but I could be wrong - that this case is simply one of a lack of memory about the right email address or password to use to login.

[mark]

I was about to write you a strange message, since I thought I tried all
my email accounts already, and I already tested, and already this and
that. But, then I remembered I used to use an email address for very few
purposes that I forgot I even had—and, that was it. I guess I changed it
from my first one to that one to distinguish Nabble notifications from
messages from other websites, since I like Nabble a lot.

Anyway, things are all fixed, now. My admin options show up again.

Thanks for your help! Sorry about the problems!

However, you should maybe note a couple things for the developers to
consider:

1. When I was creating new accounts with two of my other emails, it made
me register at least twice for some unknown reason before I was
registered. These were emails I had probably used with Nabble before at
once point. I didn't have that problem with my newest one.

2. When I deleted my new account with my one and only email address that
I use now, it wouldn't let me change my email on my admin account to it.
So, I had to register with my new email again and change it, then delete
my account, then log into the admin account and change it to my new
email. I don't know if that's purposeful to preserve the possibility of
restoring deleted accounts, though.

[GregChapman]

Glad you now have things working.

Re your problems with name/email changes/deletions...

Certain functions within Nabble are processed in batches periodically (Some of these processes may take place every few minutes, others every few hours, or even overnight). This means although a Nabble screen may tell you a job is completed, in fact it is merely passed to to a "pending area" to await the next time all similar transactions are processed and Nabble's main databases updated.

Certain key data, which must remain unique on any forum, such as user names, email addresses, and accounts, will be included in such batch processing. If you tried a number of such tasks in rapid succession affecting this kind of data, it could be that you tried to change data that was still to be processed the next time that batch was to be executed and this would be why things didn't behave as you would expect.