Can I change user preferences via mySQL?

whu606

I was exporting and importing my forum DB prior to testing 2.1 in a live situation.

Somehow, during the process, it seems that user preferences have been reset to a default option.

I've looked, but can't see any obvious table or record that holds this information.

Is it possible to change these settings globally, or does each user have to do it themselves?

I understand that you can set preferences via config.php, but that will only affect new users, afaIk.

Any help appreciated.

hgtonight

Vanilla 2 (and 2.1) store profile preferences in the User table (Preferences field). Some plugins store preferences in the UserMeta table.

It looks like they are stored as some type of object. Maybe the encoding changed from 2.0 to 2.1?

whu606

@hgtonight

Thanks for that; I hadn't noticed that field.

However, as far as I can see that field for my users in the User table is either empty or null.

hgtonight

Hmm... it has to be stored somewhere. I can keep looking lackadaisically for you.

/tangent In my main community, only 3 people (of roughly 300), have changed their prefs from the defaults. This either speaks to sensible defaults, lazy users, or a difficult interface. XD

whu606

@hgtongiht

Thanks.

If you happen to come across it it would be great.

I've asked my users to reset their preferences for now, but for future reference it would be handy if there were a global solution.

whu606

No luck with that, but as a workaround, if you want to set preferences for everyone:

Use the Vanilla Porter to export your DB.

Copy Preferences settings from config-default to config

In 2.0.18.8:


$Configuration['Preferences']['Email']['ConversationMessage'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Email']['AddedToConversation'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Email']['BookmarkComment'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Email']['WallComment'] = '0';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Email']['ActivityComment'] = '0';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Email']['DiscussionComment'] = '0';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Email']['DiscussionMention'] = '0';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Email']['CommentMention'] = '0';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Popup']['ConversationMessage'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Popup']['AddedToConversation'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Popup']['BookmarkComment'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Popup']['WallComment'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Popup']['ActivityComment'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Popup']['DiscussionComment'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Popup']['DiscussionMention'] = '1';
$Configuration['Preferences']['Popup']['CommentMention'] = '1';


where 0 is off and 1 is on.

Set them to how you want everyone's to be.

Use Import from the Dashboard to re-import the data to your DB.

Settings for all users should now be as per the rules in config.php