Hello,

We are running bbPress 2.6.14 on a WordPress 6.8.2 site with a private forum.

We have noticed a strange issue:

Some subscribed users receive email notifications when new topics/replies are posted.

Other subscribed users (from the same forum) do not receive anything.

We checked spam/junk folders, nothing there.

Trying to unsubscribe and resubscribe does not solve the issue.

So I have two main questions:

Where are subscriptions stored in the database with bbPress 2.6.14?

I don’t see a wp_bbp_engagements table in my DB.

I also don’t see any _bbp_subscriptions or _bbp_topic_subscriptions entries in wp_usermeta.

Yet some users clearly do receive notifications.

How does bbPress decide who gets notified?

Is it handled directly via wp_mail() when a reply/topic is created?

Could private forums behave differently compared to public ones?

Troubleshooting guidance

Is there a way to “rebuild” or “reset” subscriptions to ensure consistency?

Should I try to manually create the wp_bbp_engagements table if it is missing?

I’d really appreciate if someone could clarify how subscription data is stored and how email notifications are triggered in bbPress 2.6.14, so I can debug why some users receive emails and others don’t.

Thanks a lot!

[@robin-w Moderator 11 hours, 34 minutes ago]

a few years ago it was stored against the user.

But it is now stored against the post, so is held in the postmeta table under

_bbp_engagement

so topic with ID 33990 will have an entry in the postmeta table under

_bbp_engagement with user id’s eg 1191 2563

etc