I often get an “Access Denied” error when trying to access the Lenovo communities, especially after signing into the main Lenovo site. It usually fixes itself after a few minutes, but I’ve found that you can also open an incognito window and sign in again from there if you don’t want to wait. This also seems to work if you get locked out of the main site or run into issues where some shop buttons, like “Add to Cart,” don’t respond.
¿”…
@Parfutura9797 says,
Thanks for the tip! I’ll definitely try it out next time that stuff happens ! …”?
I got this message today when trying to access the forums:
Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://smbcommunity.lenovo.com/?" on this server.
Reference #18.2ba7cb17.1776780306.97586af
https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.2ba7cb17.1776780306.97586af
I was working fine until about 7 AM PDT and works again now (after about 7:15 AM PDT). I've had this happen a few times over the past 6 month and was wondering if it is user-specific or if everyone is locked out at the same time.
FWIW, I've had the same messages several times. It pops up when I open multiple Lenovo Community tabs at once or in quick succession. After several minutes, the sites reset and open as normal.
It's frustrating but not the worst thing.
I get these messages sporadically. Sometimes it will be limited to a single device or browser. Even when I have an issue logging into the forums I am still able to log in to the retail website, so it is not a system wide issue.
Just checking if there will be one as I see North American and Japan have one running at the moment?
Cheers and Happy New Year!
Thankfully, it looks like you got a giveaway for February. 🎉
https://smbcommunity.lenovo.com/giveaways/post/thinkpad-february-giveaway-eu-uk-HudU2SUzpjSiWSf
I wonder were any changes made in last few days?
I haven't had these pop up oin any of the Communities in the last day or two. I Probably have jinxed it now
Martin C. I am sorry to hear that, Martin. Did that happen recently? Messages consisting of a single word or test entries may be flagged as spam or reported as bugs by users. If you encounter any issues, please feel free to contact me directly :) I appreciate your support.
We've been working hard to improve the experience you have on our store and want to share our ideas for the future account homepage in the Lenovo Pro Store.
Thank you all for your valuable feedback. The team is currently making plans, so we will update as soon as they are ready! Thank you!
How do I check the new site? All I see is the blurred out image. Is there a link to the new Lenovo Pro site?
Site (smbcommunity) seem to work much better then in the past.
I suppose it's been months since I've last been here, & the boards are working much better then they did in the past.
Thanks.
I hadn't noticed, but you may be correct. There's loads of participation on the gaming site compared to here. But I find both work well technically, with the few occasional glitches.
I agree! I've had login issues in the past, but none recently. Performance has been very smooth.
Gaming and Creator have a lot more active users it seems. Why is that?
Hadn't noticed! — How are you measuring activity? Posts or topics? Something else?
Here, you get to be the big fish 🐟 ✌😄 Like others mentioned, the topics here are generally more business-oriented 🏦🏢🏭🏗🏢
My heartfelt thank you for leading this community to Beth and the other team members who make it so great! Happy New Year, and Thank you for the sweet prizes, discounts, and venue to get answers to those tough questions. Thank you for putting together the meetups, podcasts, and global partnerships. Let us look forward to 2025 with open eyes and an open mind to think outside the box so that every dream is possible to achieve!
Aww, thank you Judith. It is our especial pleasure and we are so thankful for you and every member of this community that give it all the life and advice it has.
Give thank you and Happy New Year from me, Mari and the rest of the team, including but not limited to: Kelie, Trent, Mak, Dan, Ben, Jessica, Nick, Sean and Matt. 🎉
Thank you Judith Smetana! We're happy to have you as such a wonderful community member. Happy New Years to you, and we're looking forward to sharing more experiences with you and our community in 2025! 🥳
I see all the Communities are aligned in theme now. I must say I refreshed a few times as I thought I was in the wrong place!
It's very nice to have Dark theme here. I wish it were the default.
Has there been a push to enable passkeys for logging in to the Lenovo site? I've been working to set up passkeys to replace other methods of logging in where possible and I don't see that option here.
Would love to have the same passkey for each of the Lenovo communities.
I wasn't sure about Passkeys myself until I did more research and started to use them on some sites. I'm no expert, but they do seem more secure and are definitely more convenient than user names / passwords. I would like to see 2FA using email / text go away altogether and replaced by authentication apps which are more portable and I also believe to be more secure.
Anyone else noticing notifications acting a little strange lately?
It seems notifications aren’t currently working as expected.
I’ve been seeing missing or significantly delayed alerts for likes and replies—some show up right away, while others are delayed by up to three or more days. There doesn’t appear to be a consistent pattern, and it’s unclear whether some are failing to appear altogether.
I’m starting to wonder if this might also be related to the ongoing MLR bonus points issue, where certain activities seem to be delayed or not registering in real time at all.
For reference, the issue appears across all three communities.
Hey Richie Solomon. Thanks for bringing this up. I'll look into it and we'll see what we come back with.
I was trying to create a poll using the new poll feature and it keeps giving me a "Request failed with status code 403" error. Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug?
Hi Richie Solomon,
Thank you for your report.
I tested a few times differently in one of the groups but I could not replicate it.
Would it be possible to provide us some screenshots?
Thank you so much for your support!
I'm not sure how well the notifications work in regard to replies to my replies or my comments. I seem to never know when people reply to maybe a comment of mine in threads. I just now found out how to view all of my Replies in the one user feed so I can manually see if I had anyone reply to me. But, I feel like I get some many notifications to every thread or Post that I have replied in that I never really see the ones where someone replied directly to me.
I'm not sure how the system can be better setup to show these types of replies. But, I wish there was a way to really pinpoint comments directed directly at me rather than just piling a ton on me from others who commented on the same Post.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Let me know.
I made the suggestion a while back to have an option to be notified only when a post of mine is replied to directly. As far as I know, that is not currently available. In the meantime, I stop following most threads to cut down on the number of notification.
I woke up this morning to find two “Rewards Redeemed” entries—each for zero points—in My Lenovo Rewards points history. I’ve never seen that before and have no idea what they could be from.
Does anyone else have the same entries in their history or know what might have caused them?
Heads-up that there are still a couple of glitches in the Pro MLR dashboard.
1) Both the "Receive a Reaction" and "Give a Reaction" activity limit sections are showing that they haven't yet reached their limits even when they have and the user is no longer receiving MLR points for those activities. This display glitch is in both Pro and EDU, but is correctly showing in Gaming.
2) The Total Lifetime Points section of the MLR dashboard is still just showing Available Points instead of Lifetime Points. It's been that way for over a year now. However, I don't think it's just a display glitch as it's most likely just pulling that info from the main MLR database, which is also incorrectly displaying the Total Lifetime Points as current Available Points in the main MLR account dashboard as well. This bug is in all three communities in addition to the main MLR account dashboard.
All the Lenovo community sites have the issue of getting default notifications for every reply to a post that I've replied to. This is both annoying, but also makes notifications useless. I only want to see notifications for replies to my reply, or replies to an original post I make. Yes, I can turn off notifications for individual posts manually, but I want it to be default that I only see direct replies to my comments and posts.
Please let us customize notifications! It's THE main thing that keeps me from fully engaging in the community.
I just want to note that people are still eagerly awaiting this feature. I'm certain there'd be additional discussion across the Lenovo communities if we could see replies to our specific posts.
The giveaways interface currently forces the user to go through a series of tasks in a specific order, unlocking one or more subsequent tasks as previous tasks are completed. The last task is always the bonus entry (one per day). The effect is that it forces the user to complete tasks (such as replying to a post) to unlock the next one even if they haven't considered a thoughtful reply. The end result is a flood of posts (sometimes rushed) at the start of the month and far fewer near the end. I would suggest the following:
Make the bonus (daily) entry available from the beginning without having to complete all other tasks first. This would eliminate the need for some to rush on the first day.
Either open up all other tasks at once so that they could be done in any order or scatter them throughout the month, but not make one's availability contingent on others having been completed.
The goal should be to encourage participation with high-quality questions and responses rather than rote posting just to get the entries.
Thanks for listening.
Make the bonus (daily) entry available from the beginning without having to complete all other tasks first. This would eliminate the need for some to rush on the first day.Either open up all other tasks at once so that they could be done in any order or scatter them throughout the month, but not make one's availability contingent on others having been completed.
I think #2 is a good idea. But, #1 is not.
I recommend the daily bonus (+1) remain locked until the prerequisites are fulfilled. But, combine that with #2. Let us complete them in whichever order we choose.
The end result is a flood of posts (sometimes rushed) at the start of the month and far fewer near the end.
To remedy the "feast or famine" behavior, I suggest the following:
Like Lenovo's other communities (EDU and LGC), include a +5 (or +1) per day "Leave a comment on Lenovo Pro Community content".
Even if that content is curated, that will lead to more consistent engagement. Ideally, let members choose the content for that one.
That will provide interesting data for Lenovo.
Do full-grown adults choose to "eat their vegetables"? Or do they gobble down the "cake and ice cream"? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Has it been almost 6 months since we updated the community experience? Time flies and we'd love to check in and hear how you are enjoying the community - both in value offering and in site layout and navigation.
Why have you joined the Lenovo Pro Community and why do you come back?
What do you look for when you visit the community and how easy or difficult is it for you to find that?
Do you have any feature suggestions, site improvement ideas or wish list items for the community experience?
Please share them in the comments below!
I joined the community because I really beieve this adds value to my life. The quality of the information and the people behind the scenes are wonderful. This adds great value to my life. I return because I love to read about the new products and the new ideas that Lenovo offers. I had a problem the other day with my laptop and since I have been in a hotel room for quite a few weeks, I was not able to utlize the waranty service on the computer. I will wait to have it serviced when I return back home. Instead I looked at the deals that were offerened and ended up purchasing a YOGA with the Snapdragon. I really wanted a Carbon but I settled. I cannot wait to break it in.
Wishlist! More Carbon giveways!
The homepage activity feed has been moved to "Discussions" tab and the "About Us" page is now your homepage experience - What do you think?
Does the change make sense? Does it impact you at all or not very much?
We've also made some minor adjustments to the discussion feed on the "Trending" and "Popular" views. Trending will now show posts posted within the last 30 days based on reaction or reply recency. Popular will now show posts from the last 30 days by reply count.
What do you think about this logic? Would you rather see all-time popular like this introduce yourself post?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
The change seems to provide the perfect landing page and one-click destination for new visitors and established members alike.
I am a member of several Lenovo Pro Community groups, but most don't seem to be that active. Aside from the "Coffee Break" group with around 3800 members, the next highest is the AI group with 35 (as of today). This group (about the happenings in the community) has only 21 which seems low.
Will anyone even see this post?
Do people default to posting in "Coffee Break" instead of a specialized group because the chance their post will be read is higher?
How do you find new posts? Do you go to each group you are a part of one by one looking for new content or have you found a more efficient way of doing that?
I've found the "For You" on the home page to be the simplest way, but the content there seems stale, so I am not confident that I am seeing everything if I just use that.
Steve
I know this is 2 months after the post but I'm seeing the same thing. I enjoy the content and discussion that comes but it seems like it's only worth checking every few days, not daily (still have it in my quick links tho). Thankful for those that post and respond because I've definitely learned some things!
Hey Steve Davis. This is a great post and awesome food for thought. I've been mulling this over quite a bit, recognizing the same conundrum.
The group membership converted to the new space in a way in which requires re-joining the group. Coffee break may become the default for the point you mentioned.
So, a few questions for you and the community then:
Would you rather see the groups easily listed in the left-hand navigation for easy checking?
Would you ever want to 'do-away' with groups and just see a category topic drop-down when creating a new post?
Let us know! We want to make sure everyone can get the best and most recent and relevant info in an easy way.
#opentoideas!
Is there any way to hide "Trending" and "For You" options on the new home page (or at least default to "Latest")? I much prefer chronological over curated feeds.
Hey Stephen (Steve Davis)! Thank you for mentioning - that is wonderful feedback. The default to "Latest" is a good callout and maybe a way most folks will naturally want to start browsing. I think that is a great idea. I'll bring it to the team but it is marked!
I am finding it very difficult to view discussion topics within groups I am part of. "Latest" and "Trending" only show a small subset of posts in some seemingly random order. "All Time" shows more, but still in an arbitrary order. Why am I seeing as the first post something from 2 years ago followed by something posted 5 months ago, then 7 days, then 6 months?
Am I somehow missing the option where I can enter a discussion group and see all of the posts in descending order by date posted? Why isn't that the default and why do other options even exist (I don't understand the rational behind them)?
Steve
Hello, Steve Davis! That is very understandable. Currently, our algorithm counts "likes" and "post reactions" as new actions, and sends those posts to the top of the feed. Therefore, you may see older posts that were simply liked or reacted to by a user.
We've received multiple questions with similar feedback, and are experimenting with different formats for the "latest" and "trending" tabs. I apologize that it appears confusing.
We value your opinion highly, and are working hard to give you the most seamless experience possible after our maintenance is complete. Thank you for your feedback! 🙂
Hi Trent. Thanks for the response. May I ask why so much effort is being placed on creating a curated / algorithmic feed rather than just showing posts by date order? I can see where it could be useful in an environment where thousands of posts are made per day, but that is not the case here. Even then, placing posts from years (or even weeks) ago anywhere near the top seems like it would not be useful to the user.
One more related questions, can the date and time of the post be shown directly in the interface without the need to hover over to view? This is what drives me nuts about other services (Twitter, Bluesky, etc). Seeing the number of days / minutes since the post was made is less useful and almost always stagnant unless it is constantly being refreshed.
Thanks for listening.
Steve
I feel like I have to log in four different times for the store, lenovo pro website, points redemption, and lenovo legion website. Given that these all seem to use the same login information this is very strange and cumbersome to me.
Had to log in 3 or was it 4 times to get here today.
That is telling enough.
First browser, login never completed. (Too much google-ism's in this website I suppose). Second browser, still couldn't log in, had to first disable adblocker. Finally logged in, then...
Join the ranks in the bug-finder league when you help find and report a bug or discover something that just isn't quite working the way it should!
We need your keen senses to keep improving the community space!
Good luck hunting!
Blimey! That's not cool! I'm sorry about that. Our AI spam filter is in training apparently... needs more direction. I'll check into a few things and see what we can do for y'all.
Thanks again for bringing it up and your patience as we get the right temperature on the mod tools.
I found a post which appears to be locked. Please help.
I cannot engage with it. The normal functionality is missing or disabled.
I cannot reply to the topic.
I cannot reply to others' replies.
I cannot like others' replies.
I cannot react to (emoji) the topic.
All my replies since 9/12 are getting flagged for moderation. There's nothing obvious in them that should be triggering the AI spam filter. Why am I getting flagged so often? I wouldn't be surprised if this post gets flagged as well...
This was an issue recently over at EDU as well with the old AI spam filter, but the problem seems to have been resolved when they updated the spam filter to a new version. Did Pro also update the spam filter as well or is it still using the same version EDU had so many problems with?
