I have moved your question to this topic.
The card can only be registered once it has reached the recipient.
And it is normal for some cards to get lost on the often long journey and it is also normal that users left Postcrossing for whatever reason.
You can read a lot about it here in this topic.
she is inactive for 4 monthsâŚ
@safiyecansu Itâs not possible to register a card that is still on the way or maybe lost. We all understand how frustrating it is to know that cards wonât be registered because the member seems to have left Postcrossing.
These are my expired cards, some of them were sent to users whoâve become inactive for months in the meantime. 
Thereâs only a small chance that the user gets active again and registers the card after a very long time⌠It happened, but itâs a rare event. 
And if the card falls of the system eventually, Iâll be sad but I know itâs part of the process. And Iâll write new cards to new adresses. 
Thatâs frustrating. I experienced long waits like this in the past, and even now have a few mysterious delays too.
Have you sent them a message? Thatâs an option. One time I messaged a member and she told me their child had the card in her room because she liked cats, lol, and then the recipient found/registered it. An unusual situation, but you never know.
If a member is inactive for many months, in the message I ask if they are still participating in Postcrossing and would they please register my card when it arrives. Last year I had two recipients who said they had been very sick, and unable to keep up due to illness, but eventually they did catch up and registered many cards, including mine. Both of them explained this in a return message. Good luck!
My âlossesâ serm to cluster where Iâll have no losses for a long time, and then more than one sent roughly same time (not same dropoff) that fail. Happening now. I asked after 45 days when normal time would be a couple of weeks, confirmed other person never got it.
Hi all - Iâve had my share of expired cards and I know thatâs just part of Postcrossing life, but Iâm having a new experience lately thatâs really frustrating and I thought Iâd reach out to forum members for help.
I just received my second address where the Postcrosser hasnât registered a card in a really long time (in this case, for the past year) and they havenât signed on for a month. I got their address 12 days ago 
I get it that weâre all going to have some unregistered cards, but this feels like throwing money in the garage. Itâs really frustrating.
I did reach out to Postcrossing for help on the first scenario - a user who hadnât registered a postcard since 2017 (yes, seven years) and I got her address a few weeks ago. The user was continuing to send postcards but never receive/register them. I got a reply from Postcrossing that I didnât understand (Iâll paste it below), so I just chalked it up to a weird situation. But then I had the second situation (that I mentioned above) and I thought Iâd reach out to forum members in case this makes sense to anyone else.
Thank you!
Postcrossing reply:
It looks like that member has had their account set as INACTIVE, which you can read about here: How does the inactive state work?
While inactive, you donât receive postcards but you can still send them â which is why this member has such a large difference between sent and received.
Because a requirement of Postcrossing is that you send and receive, Postcrossing doesnât allow a member to just keep sending for very long⌠they have to receive at some point. That member might have reached that limit, and so they are due postcards back for all the ones they have sent.
Right now, they have 87 postcards coming to them.
I hope weâve managed to reassure you. Your postcard has only been traveling for a short amount of time, so please give it a bit more time.
It might help if you could explain which part of Postcrossingâs reply you donât understand? To me, this seems a fairly common scenario. I just send them a postcard and in the vast majority of cases (possibly all?) the postcard is registered.
I agree with Florallle: To answer your question, it would be very helpful to tell us exactly what you donât understand.
The inactivity? That simply means that you address wouldnât be drawn by other users but you can go on with sending.
Anyone can turn their account to inactive, when they can send card, but they wonât receive.
I can guarantee you, if someone is not registering cards for seven years, their address wonât be given. This is one of the best parts in this hobby: you are not forced to do this evenly, not every week, month, or year. And when life is uncertain, but you like to write, you can for some time/some amount only send, and then turn the account to active, when you will receive the cards.
So, during the inactive mode their address is not given, but they can write cards.
Only when they are back to active mode (an option they themselves tick on their profile) their address is given again
The postcrosser had their account set to inactive for a long time. It doesnât mean they really are inactive, they can still send (which they did) but their address wonât be given out. As the reply from Postcrossing team continues to explain - there is a limit of how many postcards you can send without receiving any. After that you must receive some postcards to be able to send again. Which is what happened to this user. They had to set their account back to active and you are one of the people who drew their address. Is it a bit clearer now?
Also you can look at the member stats, that shows their activity, I assume with this member you can see when they sent their cards, it can be years ago too, and even this is nothing to worry about.
So their address just doesnât appear to give to you, after years, unless they choose to receive the cards. The member now knows they are getting cards in the mail.
Edit.
The stats are in the profile, here you see mine:
If one has been inactive and only sent, the red line from that time âlivesâ, blue staying lower/straight.
I drew a similar member, receiving a similar response from asking staff, in my case they were looking at a couple hundred cards at once. I sent mine, and it was registered fairly quickly.
I had someone who totally disappeared from the site at the same time I drew their address, very frustrating, but their account was closed (by the system I believe) six months after they stopped logging in. Right now, the same thing serms to be happening to me again, âlast seenâ several weeks ago.
@Florallle @Angelthecat @Johnk60 @hankadl @xxxyyy
Thanks, all, appreciate the replies. If itâs clear to you all but not me, it must be my issue!
The reply from PC was in regards to the user who hadnât registered a card in seven years when their address was given to me. My confusion is in the whole scenario including PC saying they donât allow the user to do that for very long . . . when seven years seems like a very long time to me. (Apparently they meant they donât allow a user to have an imbalance of sent/received for âvery longâ). Of course my postcard was never registered, as one would expect of a user who hasnât registered a card in seven years.
Iâll just chalk this up to an anomaly. I do wish usersâ addresses wouldnât be given out if they havenât registered in a long period of time, but I donât make the rules! 
Thanks again.
If their address wasnât given to anyone there was nothing to register. It is usually not really an issue. I have been âguiltyâ of doing this too. Not for years but for months - I was only sending but didnât feel like receiving for various reasons. Once I set my account back to active, the postcrossers who got my address saw I had a lot more sent than received and no postcard registration for months. I am glad they all did send me postcards and I registered them the day I received them as I always do 
But I am sorry that your postcard has not been registered. I donât know how long it has been on the way, maybe there is still hope 
Understood. Again, this wasnât months, it was seven years
I am one of such users who has been inactive for several years on my official profile. I set my profile to inactive way back then (in 2016) for personal reasons and have not reactivated it since. Since 2016 my address has not been given to any postcrosser.
For the first few years of inactivity I barely sent anything, so I didnât have a big difference but now I am sending a few cards each month so the difference has grown quite a bit. I am still not blocked from sending (this level is different for every person) but I feel the time has come to go back to active and I hope to do it this month. Maybe even this week Who knows, maybe you will receive my address soon, too 
I am ready for the postcard flood, just want to update my profile a little first, it has grown a bit dated and obsolete in some parts - and this is keeping from the reactivation, as I simply donât have the time for profile editing But, I hope I will find it soon.
In any case, I am ready for my postcards and when I do go back to active, I will have a note explaining the difference at the top of my profile, so users will not feel uncomfortable sending their cards to me. I do hope they will send them
Here is one example:
I get a baby, and know I donât want to stress myself with registering cards, but still want to write, to keep me sane, so I check to be inactive.
I send cards, maybe few in moth.
Then baby is bigger, goes to school, and I remember postcrossing, and turn myself active.
I sent 70 cards with the baby.
Now when Iâm active, I am owed those 70 cards.
So, when I turn active mode, these will be sent to me.
Thatâs why it makes sense give addresses to those, who didnât register cards even such long time. No one sent cards to them during their inactive time, there was nothing to register.
Now, they have done something recently, that your address is given. The person themself has ticked the active mode, and has been online, they have sent cards, only the card back to them was âon holdâ, until now.
Because, if their address were not given, their sent/received numbers would be imbalanced forever.
I think they meant the âlongâ so that the number of sent cards doesnât turn very big.
You canât keep sending only forever.
When you have reached the maximum sent in inactive mode, you can stay that for so long you like. And when you can register cards, then check active.
The persons is here, active, so if you sent the card, it has as good chance to get registered as any other.
It does not matter if they didnât register cards for 2 moths, or this 7 years, because they have now themselves come here, and change their mode, wanting the cards.
These are my expired ones. The lower 3 ones are inactive. For the upper russian one, I sent another card. Hope, this ore maybe both cards will arrive save The french one mostly uploads in batches, so maybe my card will be in the next one?
I always send second cards only after 100 days expired (for special countries, I maybe wait longer). All second cards I sent in the past arrived and the members were so happy
