Mark forum read.... doesn't?

Wolverine · #1 (**permalink**) 05-September-2005, 06:51 PM

I've noticed that after going to "Forum Tools" and selecting "Mark this Forum Read", if I leave the board and return, previously marked fora show as having new posts when there aren't any. Anyone else getting this, or am I missing something?

Arneb · #2 (**permalink**) 05-September-2005, 07:31 PM

I had the same problem - but only yesterday, here at my office computer (see bug bin thread).
Later at home, and today at the office, everything was O.K.

Arneb · #3 (**permalink**) 05-September-2005, 08:08 PM

Ooops, Wolverine, no i see what you mean.

All the threads that I hadn't read when I marked the forum "read" turned up unread at the next login an hour later.

So, same problem as you.

Tinaa · #4 (**permalink**) 05-September-2005, 08:49 PM

Doesn't work for me either.

sci_tchr · #5 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 01:35 AM

That is one of the poor features of vBulletin. It also lacks the navigation bar at the bottom of a long series of messages. vbulletin costs money too. I guess its like the Don Mclean song, "A horse is worth what you pay for it".

Another board I frequent changed to vbulletin from phpbb.

I'm disappointed but will persevere.

Jeff

Humphrey · #6 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 02:44 AM

happening to me too. kind of anoying. so ive started to pay attention to post times.

Fraser · #7 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 02:47 AM

You probably want to try clicking on the "New Posts" button up at the top of the menu bar. It beats the whack-a-mole of watching unread forums turn colour.

NEOWatcher · #8 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 06:02 PM

It seems to me that there is some time lag. At first it seemed like cache, but after several tries it goes something like this.
1. go into the thread.
2. click back to the root of the forum (icon not changed)
3. Refresh (icon not changed)
4. navigate back to the forum, no icons un-read
5. Back to the root of the forum (icon changed)
with 3,4,5 repeated occasionally

Captain Kidd · #9 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fraser

You probably want to try clicking on the "New Posts" button up at the top of the menu bar. It beats the whack-a-mole of watching unread forums turn colour.

Even that way it still does it. I'll mark all forum read and it'll correctly show no new posts. Then when I come back, the same posts show up again under "new posts".

Fraser · #10 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 06:34 PM

Okay, I'm going to spend some time on the vBulletin community and see if they can help explain this.

Wolverine · #11 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NEOWatcher

It seems to me that there is some time lag.

I've noticed that as well, especially in the case of thread views not seeming to update in real time.

NEOWatcher · #12 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Kidd

Even that way it still does it. I'll mark all forum read and it'll correctly show no new posts. Then when I come back, the same posts show up again under "new posts".

I see what you mean... I thought I saw a pattern of time lag, but now things are reappearing at random (or so it seems)
Does anyone know the mechanism how this is kept track of? All I can think of is that there is some grand cross reference table somewhere.

Gillianren · #13 (**permalink**) 06-September-2005, 10:18 PM

okay, yesterday, the threads I'd read were saying I'd read them. they're back to not doing this, which is odd. this means that the "last post read" feature doesn't work, either, and I don't like "last page," as it is in fact "last post," a feature only useful if there's only been one post added since you last read the thread.

NEOWatcher · #14 (**permalink**) 07-September-2005, 06:41 PM

Here's another clue if it helps.
This is the 3rd time I've been on today.
Each of the 3 times I have marked the forums as read.
All of today's ones have re-appeared (or unread) - My welcome message also says the last time I visited was yesterday, and the cuttoff time/date of the unread messages corresponds with that last visit time/date.

Fraser · #15 (**permalink**) 07-September-2005, 06:47 PM

I wonder if it's the length of time we've set for the login timout. I'm going to put it back to the default time of 15 minutes.

NEOWatcher · #16 (**permalink**) 07-September-2005, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fraser

I wonder if it's the length of time we've set for the login timout. I'm going to put it back to the default time of 15 minutes.

Sounds related. Can you elaborate? What was is modified to? What was the reasoning for changing it? (Not that I want to pick on you... just curious)

jt-3d · #17 (**permalink**) 07-September-2005, 06:56 PM

IMO 15 minutes is too short. It doesn't take much of a distraction to cause you to get logged out. Still, if that's what it takes to fix the larger issue, then so be it.

Fraser · #18 (**permalink**) 07-September-2005, 06:59 PM

The description in the admin setup is:

Quote:

Time-Out for Cookie
This is the time in seconds that a user must remain inactive before any unread posts are marked read. This setting also controls how long a user will remain on Who's Online after their last activity.

It's set by default to be 15 minutes. We changed it to 24 hours when Phil got a "timeout error" while he was working on a post announcing the forum. We thought the timeout might have been the problem; although, that kind of sounds crazy. My new theory is that we had some kind of userID collision because both Phil and I were using the Philser account to make admin changes.

When we created Philser, we were so busy wondering if we could, we never stopped to wonder if we should. That chimera has been put out of its misery.

That made it look like we had close to 1000 people on the forum, however, since it was counting the last 24 hours, so I switched it to an hour. And now I've put it back to 15 minutes.

So, let me know if it continues... I've pretty much run out of administrative things I can do, so it'll be on to vBulletin's technical support shortly.

Sleepy · #19 (**permalink**) 07-September-2005, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jt-3d

IMO 15 minutes is too short. It doesn't take much of a distraction to cause you to get logged out. Still, if that's what it takes to fix the larger issue, then so be it.

You wont get kicked off the board, to you nothing will happen except the last visited time will change. To other users though after 15 minutes you will no longer be listed as browsing the board.

Caveat if you've set the board to not remember your login then you may well have to log back in.

Wolverine · #20 (**permalink**) 07-September-2005, 07:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fraser

I wonder if it's the length of time we've set for the login timout.

I'm thinking that's what's causing the gremlins. The board still shows me as having last visited late yesterday night despite leaving and returning several times.

NEOWatcher · #21 (**permalink**) 07-September-2005, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fraser

The description in the admin setup is:
Quote:
Time-Out for Cookie
This is the time in seconds that a user must remain inactive before any unread posts are marked read. This setting also controls how long a user will remain on Who's Online after their last activity.

That's kind of a strange description. The second part of the description is pretty much the same as a session time-out. The first part is what's confusing me. If I'm inactive for 15 minutes my unread posts are marked as read???