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[Hosting] Reduce frequency of limit notification emails

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I have a host that is at 91.36% of its storage quota.
I’m getting 5 emails a day regarding this.

I know it’s using the storage, I don’t need that many emails to tell me about it every day.

Perhaps reduce the notifications so that they only get sent when threshold levels are passed.

IE 80%, 90%, 95%, 98%, 100%

???

D.

Sat, 25 Jun 2022 5:06:03
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The Hub
  • Pawel Pela
    • Ex Staff

    Hello Dave !

    I trust you’re doing well today!

    I’ve moved the ticket to the Hub project as the emails are actually being sent by the Hub systems (so I will be able to task this up in the appropriate board if needed).

    I will ask the Hub team regarding this and whether that’s expected or not and we’ll carry on from here.

    Regarding the thresholds solution – I’m not sure if that will work in this case. Some members disregard the emails about space running out, the disk gets filled up quicker than a threshold check is made and there may be some issues. In cases where the space is running short, sometimes a plugin or logging will cause the remainder to be filled very quickly, so we always suggest to take a look and see if there’s some way to clear out the space to prevent this.

    Warm regards,
    Pawel

    • Dave
      • New Recruit

      I agree that some people will ignore the email, I was doing it deliberatly myself as I had other more pressing things to deal with first. People ignore big flashing red lights. There is only so much you can do about it.

      The emails I was recieving were flagged as spam by MS and I found them in my junk folder. So that is probably another reason why the notifications are ignored by some people – they don’t realise they’ve been sent.

      The default WHM behaviour is to send out threshold emails. If you go over the storage limits your website stops working. Seems like an adequate solution to me. As I said, there is only so much you can do.

      D.

      • Pawel Pela
        • Ex Staff

        Hello Dave !

        Just a quick update to let you know that this is now being investigated by our Hub and Hosting teams. They’ve found some inconsistencies and at the moment are checking what can be done to fix this issue. We can confirm that indeed in some cases the emails may get sent multiple times per day and will be making adjustments. Apologies for the inconvenience here once again and thank you for bringing this to our attention!

        Warm regards,
        Pawel

  • Tony G
    • Mr. LetsFixTheWorld

    Add this to the long list of reasons for an API. If a site admin can poll for disk space and other metrics then they can use any kind of warning system.

    Of course the average admin wouldn’t do this on their own, but if an API is published there is no doubt that a number of utilities would be created to use the resources.

    Now, if someone is ignoring email about disk space issues, they probably will not be first in line for any other form of notification. But for people who are innundated with email noise, and they do actually want to earn their client’s support dollars, a better notification mechanism might help. That is, they could choose to use a tool that provides notifications with SMS or by phone call (bot voice) or by flashing the lights in the office (hey, I’ve done it, not wife-friendly, but effective). Of they could choose to run notifications through a filter that emails to a different account that will get attention.

    As I’ve said before, another advantage of an API is that Support can refer to it as a solution for many issues presented to Support and in these forums. That turns “no, we can’t do that” to “yes, You can do that. And with enough requests for some feature, DEV can query their own APIs to retrieve data which then gets rendered. The abstraction layer would allow DEV to respond to requests much more quickly because getting information wouldn’t require knowledge or interface with source systems and data. Reduced lag beween feature request and feature implementation can be linked to improved client retention and revenue.

    All of this is integral.

    • Rupok
      • Ex Staff

      Hi Tony G,

      Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback. As your suggestion is different from the topic of this thread, can you please create a new suggestion in our Features and Feedback section? In that way, your one will have dedicated attention to the suggestions you have made. And other people will be able to vote for this feature there.

      Regards,
      Rupok

      • Tony G
        • Mr. LetsFixTheWorld

        Rupok you are correct that my suggestion is different from the specific request. However, I’m attempting to point out another example where, if we had an API, then there wouldn’t need to be a request list this – the problem described could be addressed in a way other than that which was conceived by person who experienced the problem.

        To be specific, there is a hard-coded trigger in the WPMU DEV server that monitors for a specific value, and it sends out a specific kind of notification at specific intervals. With an API where we can query for disk usage, we can get the current value, and process notifications of whatever type we wish, at whatever intervals we wish.

        I’ve already expressed my interest in this topic many times. James Farmer and the rest of the team there have patiently endured my mantra. I believe some form of API will be in discussions or design there after other priorities are handled.

        The reason I voice this here again is that it pains me to think that there will be another discussion there about implementing a user-requested solution, perhaps followed by budgeting, prioritization, resource allocation, and development. There will be hundreds of these requests processed through the queue before an API is seriously put on the table. There will be hundreds more that are not processed for lack of priority, resulting in disappointed paying clients here. All of that can be minimized if an API is put into the queue first.

        • Rupok
          • Ex Staff

          Hi Tony G,

          I totally understand your point. As you mentioned about priority, the number of users asking for something is a vital factor in setting up the priority. That’s why I suggested you to create a dedicated suggestion ticket. For example, only the OP and some other members may see this thread and more specifically, your comment. But when you have your own dedicated thread, it’s more likely for more users to see that. And you can express your suggestions better in your own dedicated thread.

          APIs are very powerful and pretty much everything can be done through API. But API is just a methodology. You have to design endpoints for each of the services, and in the background, a lot of things have to be done to serve results over the API endpoints.

          That’s why I suggested you to create your own thread so it gets more eyes and if a lot of people ask for the same feature, definitely our team will discuss this and it will make its way up in our pipeline.

          I believe that will help.

          Regards,
          Rupok

          • Tony G
            • Mr. LetsFixTheWorld

            I have already created threads and am comfortable that they will be processed appropriately.

            The last company survey asked about APIs and there was little positive response. I totally get that. This is not an audience of developers. This audience is not attuned to solving problems with code. This audience wants features produced for them. This is exactly the audience that WPMU DEV targets, and the audience is behaving exactly as expected.

            The company generously welcomes from this audience every possible request for “featureX” related to this platform. But this audience will not be asking for an API to solve their problems, and they will not vote for an API, per-se, because on the face of it that does not appear to be the solution to their personal challenges.

            But I’ll bet there would be a change of approach to problem solving if we saw enquiries like “please reduce the frequency of notification emails” with a response like “we’ll put that in the to-do list, but if you want to do this now there is another approach”. I’ll bet that if you say “no” now, but “yes if we had an API” then people would respond more like “hell yeah, then do the API”. They just don’t see that connection yet. That’s why I’m here now.

            I’m suggesting that the company should think like technologists, not like their customer audience. WPMU DEV has hit a wall in terms of supply and demand. The company generates much more demand than supply and it’s apparent that tough decisions are made constantly about what cannot be done. Interfaces to read and write data would allow developers at the company or outside to provide many requested solutions, to return the “yes you can” response in addition to or rather than “no we can’t”.

            Dedicated threads about an API will not get enough votes to justify development. Again, I totally get that. But if we litter some of these threads with “well, yeah, we could do that, if only people came to recognize that an API is not just a developer thing”, then maybe more people will get it, and more people will eventually support the underlying solution to their business challenges.

            Thanks for the exchanges bud, I’ve had my say here and won’t pursue it further in this thread. :grin: