Bug in Unread posts...

[bubba]

The cookie thing might be a false lead - i've never looked in any detail at how smf handles the "unread" stuff so it might all be done from a database record instead.

 

[martinm]

Hi all. FYI, I use Firefox on a Linux system.

I can confirm that if I visit the forum, click on 'Show unread posts since last visit.' Then close all my browser windows, when I return to the forum and repeat the above, all the previously displayed unread posts have disappeared since this is counted as a 'new visit'. (Which it is, nothing to do with cookies really.)

It causes me no problem, cos I don't normally do this. I normally read what posts I want to, then click on the 'Mark all read' link at the bottom. Then I click on 'Show unread posts since last visit.' again when I return and want to check for new posts.

Cheers,
Martin.

 

[Dep]

Interesting - I will now reverse the case.

90% of the time 'unread' stuff persists through different sessions - so I see every topic ever updated until I either read it or I mark it as read.

10% of the time it all disappears when I close the browser.

I thought as it was less frequent that the 10% was wrong.
Now I can see from other's comments, and especially ttxela's comment about "since last visit" that I have it back to front.
Now based on its behaviour I always interpreted that as "since last visit (to that topic)"

But in fact I have the behaviours the wrong way around by the looks of things - I see the apparent bug 90% of the time and correct behaviour only 10%.

This is definitely not cookie driven - I have checked timestamps and so on - they don't change and are set to the last time I logged in. It must therefore be a DB thing.

My guess is that the SMF is not usually detecting the fact that I have gone away, and therefore does not re-flag those topics as read by me.

I have to say I find the 90% behaviour, the apparent bug to be a more useful functionality then the 10% 'correct' behaviour.

Now if the SMF software could be made to only flag a topic as read by you if you either read it or mark it as read it couldn't fail - I know another forum program which does this perfectly and simply with just a single column in the user's table!

 

[ttxela]

I prefer it working the way it does, anything you've decided to ignore is gone the next time you check in.....

 

[paul]

The cookie thing might be a false lead - i've never looked in any detail at how smf handles the "unread" stuff so it might all be done from a database record instead.

Definitely not Cookies. I often browse the Forum during lunchtime at work using Windows XP/IE6 then sometimes at home in the evening using Ubuntu Linux/Firefox and the Messages since last visit always works regarding messages not read. Of course Unread messagessince last visit will not show any messages I didn't read at lunchtime since in the eveneing it is a new visit. This is the way I would expect it to work. But messages which remained inread at lunchtime will still be marked as unread in the evening - they just won't show up on the list of Mesages since last visit.

So there must be a user ID-specific flag marking messages unread in the database.

 

[ttxela]

Yep, it knows if you've visited on different machines or even on a mobile phone and counts that as the last visit.

 

[kay]

I have a different problem in that sometimes I get no posts at all showing - even though it may be days since I've logged on and there are dozens of unread ones. Anyone else get this?

 

[Dep]

I have a different problem in that sometimes I get no posts at all showing - even though it may be days since I've logged on and there are dozens of unread ones. Anyone else get this?

I've not seen it do this.

 

[Elaine]

I have a different problem in that sometimes I get no posts at all showing - even though it may be days since I've logged on and there are dozens of unread ones. Anyone else get this?

Yes, although we usually get the very latest posts. But none of the others that I can see have been posted since I last logged on, but don't come up as unread. Eventually they will, sometimes a day or two later (or longer).

 

[bubba]

Occasionally i find a post that's not in the unread list but is marked as unread when i go to the forum view.

 

[Dep]

Just to add it's not a complaint or anything - I can still find what I want here, so don't worry about fixing it or anything - I suspect it is deeply embedded within the SMF PHP code - throw in some environmental variations and the issue quickly goes beyond anything worth investigating seriously.

 

[andymorgan]

I lose all the unread list if I close my browser, and re-open - its always been this way.

Me too.

Me too, although for a few days recently the posts I hadn't read previously remained. I think this was just after the upgrades Bubba made recently.