Birthday Greeter Support

[JTHastings]

9 hours ago, Mike John said:

Just to rule it out, where can I find the patch files? 

It was an automated patch from IPS, not sure what files were modified.

I had a few days with no birthdays and now today there is one birthday and it didn't run again.

[Michael.J]

8 hours ago, JTHastings said:

I had a few days with no birthdays and now today there is one birthday and it didn't run again.

How about points 1 and 2 from here? I'm trying to get a pattern of the cause here.

[JTHastings]

On 8/6/2018 at 11:25 PM, Mike John said:

Possibly but will need to test further.

1. I assume both of you were using cron jobs?
2. What type of alerts are you currently sending? 

Do you have a status sender value setup?

1. NOT using cron

2. Not sure what you mean by "alerts" exactly...

Yes, I have a status sender set up.

 

[Michael.J]

On 8/15/2018 at 10:27 AM, JTHastings said:

2. Not sure what you mean by "alerts" exactly...

So pm, topic, chatbox etc....

[JTHastings]

On 8/21/2018 at 6:09 PM, Mike John said:

So pm, topic, chatbox etc....

All of them, it seems to be working now but I'll keep am eye on it.

[MIXOH]

On 8/7/2018 at 7:25 AM, Mike John said:

I assume both of you were using cron jobs?

I confirm this error only occurs when using cron. 

On 8/6/2018 at 1:28 PM, Sergey Kuzin said:

Possible solution.???????

Yes! This solution is correct.

[Cyboman]

I'm also using cron.

Birthday greeter is set to send PMs and Emails only (but it never did trustworthy during the last months).

In the ACP, the birthday greeter task is shown as locked in the dashboard continuously (and I still have the problems with duplicate PMs (or even 3 in 1-hour intervals), sometimes no PMs at all...)

Another bug I detected:

In Birthday Greeter, General Settings, Date Format -> if I activate the checkbox "use default" and save, it saves, but as soon as I come back, the checkbox is unflagged again.

Edited September 28, 2018 by Cyboman

[MIXOH]

31 minutes ago, Cyboman said:

Another bug I detected:

In Birthday Greeter, General Settings, Date Format -> if I activate the checkbox "use default" and save, it saves, but as soon as I come back, the checkbox is unflagged again.

This is not a bug, but rather an inaccuracy or inadequacy of the wording of the description.

The fact is that y-m-d is the default value. Try changing it to your own and everything will be saved 

[MIXOH]

As for the problems with the lack of congratulations in the presence of birthday people, or multiple sending, I think the author needs to adjust the logic of work with time. The main idea seems to me to be quite correct, and it looks like if I correctly understand the following: the task runs every 15 minutes (ideally if run with cron is configured), if its start occurs not in the interval between the "congratulation time" and "the buffer time" the task simply ends (for example, you have a congratulation time of 00:15 and a buffer for 6 hours, then the task will be formed every 15 minutes only if the current time is in the range from 00:15 to 06:15 (that is, 00: 15 + 6 hours), everything else it will still be started every 15 minutes and immediately terminate.The buffer was introduced solely to eliminate the launch of tasks for activity instead of cron, or other circumstances when the launch at the appointed time was unsuccessful. But if not to enter additional conditions, then in all we need a congratulation every 15 minutes, and there is such a condition, with each successful congratulation we remember the time and so, if at the next start in the "right" time interval we can control, whether there has already been a congratulation in this interval and if so, we are completing the task. Here in this condition there is an error leading either to complete disregard of congratulations, or to duplication, everything depends only on time combinations 

I think the author can easily find in his code the condition about which I'm talking about.

[Michael.J]

@Cyboman @MIXOH I'm currently putting together a patch that deals with cron jobs in particular and will include a few more minor fixes as well. Do you mind if I include you both in a group PM I'm working on?

[Michael.J]

I've uploaded a new version that fixes the cron issue and includes a few other minor bug fixes.

[Cyboman]

I'd like to suggest a new feature:

If an (allowed) member has a birthday "today", then send an email to all members of allowed groups.

It will be an inspirational reminder!

Cheers.

[Michael.J]

On 11/20/2018 at 8:49 AM, Cyboman said:

If an (allowed) member has a birthday "today", then send an email to all members of allowed groups.

All members of that members group or all members of selected groups? My only concern would be the resources required and internal host mail limits for this.

[Cyboman]

33 minutes ago, Mike John said:

All members of that members group or all members of selected groups?

All members of selected groups.

This would be really great. I have no mail limits 😉 

[Michael.J]

On 11/21/2018 at 11:10 AM, Cyboman said:

All members of selected groups.

I've noted this for a future version. To be honest, it probably won't be very soon as v2 added quite a few new features. But I should be able to include this in the medium term.

[Rugger]

Can you read your pm’s please. Thank you 

[ahc]

Edit  I figured out the problem and resolved it.  

Edited January 20, 2019 by Alismora

[Michael.J]

An update for IP.Board 4.4.x has been released.

[The Old Man]

Hi,

I recently noticed that Birthday Greeter seems to have stopped working. I have a 1 min Cron enabled with email, topic and Chatbox birthday greeting options enabled. It's missed some valuable member's birthdays including a co-admin, looking at my email logs shows shows no greeting emails sent. I think it may have happened after one of the small IPS4.4.x updates in recent months but I hadn't noticed. Anyone else had similar?

Many thanks.

[The Old Man]

Yep, something is up with Birthday Greeter @Mike John. I noticed that there are 2 widgets with the same name. One is the default IPS Today's Birthdays block that correctly shows today's birthdays as they appear in the Calendar. The other one that comes with Birthday Greeter says there are no birthdays when in fact there are.

Edited October 12, 2019 by The Old Man

[Vahvel.net OÜ]

Can you add support for the Automation Rules so we can send some points with members shop?

[Michael.J]

On 10/12/2019 at 9:35 PM, The Old Man said:

Yep, something is up with Birthday Greeter @Mike John. I noticed that there are 2 widgets with the same name. One is the default IPS Today's Birthdays block that correctly shows today's birthdays as they appear in the Calendar. The other one that comes with Birthday Greeter says there are no birthdays when in fact there are.

Thanks, that actually helps narrows things down. Because both the alerts and widget follow some of the same settings. I would first recommend you check what you've got set for your "Activity Cut Off Limit", "Age Cut Off Range" and "Exclude Groups" settings.

On 10/15/2019 at 6:12 AM, Matis Soppe said:

Can you add support for the Automation Rules so we can send some points with members shop?

Is that a custom app? I'll add support for my own Points app in a future update. If any other Points app author wants to integrate, you'll need to check with them for the code and I can include that in my next update.

[The Old Man]

3 hours ago, Mike John said:

Thanks, that actually helps narrows things down. Because both the alerts and widget follow some of the same settings. I would first recommend you check what you've got set for your "Activity Cut Off Limit", "Age Cut Off Range" and "Exclude Groups" settings.

Thanks for the reply.

I have time set to 00:00, with a time buffer of 1 hour (used to be 6hrs until this week).

Activity cutoff limit is 1013 days.

Age cut off range set to 16 to 130 years. It stopped working once before and started again after setting this.

Exclude Groups set to Guests and a group for members who have passed away.

Many thanks.

 

[Michael.J]

18 hours ago, The Old Man said:

I have time set to 00:00, with a time buffer of 1 hour (used to be 6hrs until this week).

That wouldn't affect the widget then. I may need board access to troubleshoot further. Are you using cron to run your tasks or board activity because you would need to have some board activity at midnight to ensure the task is run within that 1 hour gap.

[The Old Man]

Thanks Mike, yes I have a 1 minute Cron working fine.