"The following users were not found"

CelticRambler

When trying this evening to send a PM to a regular contributor (>5k posts, last post today, definitely not banned!) I got the message

The following errors occurred with your submission:
The following users were not found:
1. [username]

Does this mean that they've disabled receipt of PMs, or could it be because they've got a "&" in the middle?

dudara

Did you select their name from the drop down list that appears when you start typing?

If you just type in the name, it doesn’t work, you need to select from the list

CelticRambler

I started via the "Send a private message" link, so the name was pre-filled. That's how I've always sent PMs, so didn't know about the drop-down list, but have just tried doing it like that, and I'm getting the same error. The drop-down menu shows the username as [part1]&[part2] but when clicked, it reformats to [part1]&[part2] ; and then comes back with the same error. Is it that special character's semicolon (also used for separating users) that's messing things up?

Boards.ie: Mark

Hi CelticRambler,

It seems like the semi-colon would be causing issues here. Could you please PM me the name of the account that you're trying to message (or replace terms surrounding the special characters), so that I can attempt to replicate or work out how to get around it.