@Francesca, no, there is nothing at all in my regular inbox - not for forum posts (either started by me like this one or simply replied to), nor for DMs (again either sent to me initially or replies to ones I sent originally). I have added the admin email to contacts. I've gone repeatedly into my spam/junk folders both in my mail programme and in hotmail online, and nothing is there either.
If I am on the forum itself, I see notifications of DMs in the messages tab at the top, but nothing to say that a post I've subscribed to has been updated.
I have gone into my settings here and checked they were correctly set to notify me (when TSP first started, I didn't realise I had to say I wanted notifications, unlike TSF). Just recently as part of this process, I unticked and reticked the "notify me when..." boxes, and I have also checked that individual posts are set to notify me.
None of this has had any effect - see above where I said I'd try these things and asked for another reply to test it.
This clearly isn't just an issue with me or with hotmail addresses - above Acorn says this happened to her with a BT account.
It seems to me that it is something wrong with either TSP or with the (Simple Machines?) programme behind the site. One possibility is that it isn't recognising that some users have asked to be notified. For instance, does it matter that I use a Mac? Another is that it is sending out notifications in such as scary form that some email servers are eating them and not even letting them get through to junk mail. Either way, it shouldn't be happening as particularly with DMs, there is no way of knowing that you should even look for them if you didn't initiate the conversation.
I currently have a case open with hotmail to see if they have an answer, and can find the lost notification emails in their system. I will let you know if they say anything useful.
Also it might be worth contacting the company that makes the system behind the forum to see if they have an answer. I'm not at all being grumpy with the admins here (though I am a tad disappointed about missing that Bernina coverstitch machine because I didn't get notified of a DM and so the seller thought I wasn't interested when I didn't reply), but the system ought to do what's been asked to if a user's settings are correct and everything else is set up right.
Carol xx