View New Posts oddly unreliable

[BWP]

When I visit the forum, I do as I assume most people do, and click on "view new posts" to see what's been posted since my last visit. I actually regard this as an essential requirement of any message board -- otherwise it can make it extremely difficult to catch up on what you want to read. I won't bother with a website that does not have this feature.

Any way, the odd thing is that on this web site the feature is not reliable -- but only in certain threads. That is, for most threads that I read, everything works perfectly. For two or three threads, though, the message board seems to "forget" what the last post I read was. Every time I visit, it takes me back to the same place in those threads, and then I have to manually navigate to the actual new posts in the thread.

The threads affected are mostly workbench threads (but not all of them), plus the "look what I've added to the Stash" thread.

Any clues about what might be going on here? It can't be my cookies, surely, otherwise every thread would be affected? Also, I see the same problem (with the same threads) on a couple of different PCs that I regularly use.

BTW, may I make a suggestion about the "stash" thread -- it would be a little less daunting in size if it were split into years (i.e., "added to Stash in 2013" etc.) -- with a new thread started each new year.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Hi Bruce,

Not sure I've seen that behavior, could you send me a list of some specific problem threads and I'll try to track them for a few days.

I do not use "View New...", I prefer to plod along, but I have noticed a few times that I click on the orange (go to last read) icon in a thread and I am taken to the top of the thread, although I can't say that isn't just on new, short threads. Perhaps the behaviors are related, I'll try to test some of them also.

Or maybe we should just delete old stuff in the "stash" thread, it's not exactly useful reference material ?

[BWP]

John, from memory the threads affected are the "Stash" thread, and workbench threads of Softscience, AndrewR and Dirk ... there may be others ... but it's definitely mostly Workbench threads that are affected. But not all of them!

Personally I would hesitate to delete anything, but if it's split into years the old stuff will "age" naturally and can be archived or whatever at a future date.

Alternatively, should each member have a "stash" thread of their own, rather than a communal one?

[SJPONeill]

Phew...I thought it was just me...I get this issue regularly but mainly on the threads that are running into dozens of pages and for sure on those that are over 100 pages e.g. the OMG my stash... thread and AndrewR's workbench thread being two long threads that I visit regularly... - more often than not, 'view new posts' will take me to a post some 2-3 pages back - as the thread progresses, the 2-3 pages back still advances. Sometimes it will only be one page back but most time 2-3...

[SJPONeill]

I agree re the stash thread - for the most part, it's info that time expires quickly and not likely to be a source that would be mined years into the future...

[BWP]

Yes, that describes the issue exactly.

Perhaps the indexing of some of the larger threads is getting a bit dodgy. A health check may be in order.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Hmmm, Flak may need to push magic button not available to those at my pay grade ....

Let me make one suggestion / ask one favor.

Read everything you want to, then before you sign off go to the main page and click the "Mark everything read" button, even a couple times. When you come back next, see if the problem persists.

[SJPONeill]

OK, thanks, John, done that...just waiting for someone to buy something and gloat about it....

[JohnRatzenberger]

Might take a couple iterations of post - read - post - read to garble things .... conceptually, if you just went to they very end of the thread (your last read), then it's all working right ... for now ...

[AndrewR]

Might well be the length of the thread which causes the problem, as Bruce suggests. Does the same thing happen to 3 word story for instance - that's a long thread too.

cheers

Andrew

[coptermech]

I find that usind the "view unread post" button works for me. I have run into the issue with posts, but not since I use that particular feature

[Ian]

View New Posts always works for me. I do notice that when clicking on View Latest Post that I see the latest post, then the thread scrolls down my screen.
I think this is something to do with photos as I get to see the text of the latest post and then as the photos appear the scrolling begins so I suspect that the forum shows the IMG links (or not) and then, as the photos are shown it 'pushes' you up the thread that amount of space.
Does that make sense?

[flakmonkey]

I'll take the site offline for maintenance shortly and do a full back-up and re-synch. No warranties offered or implied though; I see this behaviour on a lot of phpBB3 powered sites.

ETA: All done, maybe that will help.

[SJPONeill]

It may be something in the core engine as it's just happened again - at least now, I know the work-around...

[BWP]

Made no difference here I'm afraid, tried the "mark all as read" button as well.