First unread post

Today it was really bad. It seems I missed all posts from 3:30AM or so to at least 10:00AM, and many through 2:30PM.

And the post times are off. It's 3:05PM and the recent posts are 3:45+ (a DST problem?). My settings seem to be correct.

Im on GMT and that and the "post sincelast visit" thing never seems to work quite right either

Scroll down to the very bottom of the site and, right above the copyright, it should say "The time now is XXX". Make sure the time it says is the same as your current local time. Otherwise, change your settings accordingly.

daniwebs time is wrong!!!

Its 23:08 now
daniweb says 11pm!

Huh? 23:00 == 11 pm ??

Also, there's a setting in your profile to use a 24-hour clock instead of a 12-hour clock (am/pm).

I have mine set @ 24 hour :)

Remember WALT,"Database thread tracking" is in effect here and if you dont click MARK ALL READ,your "New posts" wont be updated (All posts you didnt read that were NEW before will still be marked that way)

Scroll down to the very bottom of the site and, right above the copyright, it should say "The time now is XXX". Make sure the time it says is the same as your current local time. Otherwise, change your settings accordingly.

Daniweb time: 12:00PM. Current time: 11:00PM.
My settings: GMT -6 Central with Automatically detect DST. I'll switch it to Always on.

I have mine set @ 24 hour :)

Remember WALT,"Database thread tracking" is in effect here and if you dont click MARK ALL READ,your "New posts" wont be updated (All posts you didnt read that were NEW before will still be marked that way)

Always do. And if I didn't read them, they'd still be marked. I'm seeing posts are not marked that were posted after I left the system.

Latest data:
At 4:18PM I shut down my computer with no unread threads
At 10:31 I was back up and entered Daniweb. In Software Programming C and C++ forums:
First thread error: Missed 3 posts timestamped from 6:30 on (5:30 actual)
Second thread error: Missed 1 post timestamped 7:40
Third thread error: Missed 2 posts timestamped from 9:43 on
Forth thread error: Missed 1 post timestamped 9:51

Daniweb time: 12:00PM. Current time: 11:00PM.
My settings: GMT -6 Central with Automatically detect DST. I'll switch it to Always on.

Now set to Always off. Hey! I got the right time! Looks like a bug in the Automatically detect DST setting.

Left last night (this morn?) at about 4:00AM. Came back at 11:47.
All of the following posts were marked read:

=== thread, first post missed, and time of all missed posts

[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473521.html#post473521[/url]    #1  8:29  8:43
[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473597.html#post473597[/url]    #1  6:54
[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473623.html#post473623[/url]    #1  9:39 10:09
[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473411.html#post473411[/url]    #1  6:01
[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473466.html#post473466[/url]    #1  7:04  7:23
[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473609.html#post473609[/url]    #3  6:57
[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473614.html#post473614[/url]    #5 10:34
[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473667.html#post473667[/url]    #6  8:05 thru #12/11:01
[url]http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post473669.html#post473669[/url]   #14  8:45

Depending on how the code is written, you might need to refresh the forum page before using that link.

I've been following this thread, but the reason I haven't really had much to comment is simply that the whole marking as read and new posts since last visit features are standard vBulletin, which haven't been touched by myself at all. I'm not sure how much investigation I can do.

I'd suggest looking at what time-value is used to designate when posts are read vs. unread and when that time-value is set and reset. If I don't explicitly log off, is the value set at other times regardless of my on-line or even on-site status?

I'll snoop around. :)

My understanding is that if you don't explicitly log off, the system will auto log you off after 20 minutes of inactivity.

What did you expect? DST itself is a kludge.

This is still happening... Done at 3:30AM and missed posts thru 11:00AM

... the whole marking as read and new posts since last visit features are standard vBulletin,

Maybe they broke something themselves...

I'll snoop around. :)

Anything yet? Is there more information I can get you?

Do you need me to let you know when I leave the site and stay away for half a day at least so you can look at my dates & times and compare when new posts come in?

Do we need to connect offline so I don't change time settings by logging in to help track this down?

Over 2 months (close to 3 actually) and still going wrong. Can we try to figure out what's different about my account that causes "first unread" to be "last posted" please? Dani, I know you mentioned something about waiting until the new VBulletin goes in, but that was over a month ago.

Please????

What you need to do is refresh the page the "first unread post" link is on before selecting the link.

Also check to see if you have cookies disabled.

What you need to do is refresh the page the "first unread post" link is on before selecting the link.

What??!? Doesn't opening the page imply a refresh?

Also check to see if you have cookies disabled.

I have to disable cookies when I go to Daniweb. She's sweet enough without them... :icon_rolleyes: & :icon_wink:

------------------

Today things seemed to be working. Let's see what tomorrow brings...

Why do you have to disable cookies?

Why do you have to disable cookies?

I'm reasonably sure that was a bad joke by WaltP, but I could be wrong...

Don't always take things at face value. :icon_wink:

Why do you have to disable cookies?

I'm reasonably sure that was a bad joke by WaltP, but I could be wrong...

Exactly... I use :icon_rolleyes: to denote satire in cases like this. I've been around long enough to know about cookies.

Today things seemed to be working. Let's see what tomorrow brings...

False alarm.... Still broke.

If you use the back button to return to the page with the first unread post link, it is still the copy of the page you saw before you went into a forum. You are looking at a cached page.

Refreshing this page updates the link to the correct location.

This has been going on for over 3 months now. And only in Software Dev, nowhere else. I am getting tired of searching for the real First Unread Post, esp when it's on a previous page.

I will continue check out other forums, but Software is rarely going to be one of them until the problem is looked at. It's too much of a PITA.

Hmm ... it only happens in Software Development? Very strange. I'm wondering if this has something to do with the fact that you visit this forum the most frequently ... I'm really not sure.

The features related to new posts and posts since last visit and marking forums read is all standard vBulletin (unhacked), and I don't use any of these features myself, to be able to fully grasp what's not working right.

Is ANYONE else experiencing this problem? Does ANYONE else notice the Software Dev category behaving differently?

Remember, you need to double click the yellow folder icon on a forum to mark that forum read.

Narue, I know that you use these features - have you noticed them not working correctly?

The way I process all the forums:
1) I open DW in Software index using FireFox
2) Middle click on the forum name to open the forum in a new tab
3) Double Click on the folder to mark forum read
4) Change to the forum tab
5) Middle-click on each "First Post" icon to open each desired thread in new tab
When I nav to each tab, the last post posted is usually the active post. I might have 1 to 10 posts above that post, all of which were posted after I left DW, usually the night before.

If you need to log in to my account to see what's happening to me, be my guest. I won't return to Software forum until tomorrow night so tomorrow afternoon you can see what I'm up against. Hopefully.

Would seeing my DW cookies help? Especially if you don't see what I see?

I won't have a chance to look into this until later today, but in the meantime, maybe this will help. This is a copy/paste of information related to Read Thread Marking from the vBulletin control panel:

This option controls how threads and forums are marked as read.

1. Inactivity/Cookie Based - once a user has been inactive for a certain amount of time (the value of the session timeout option) all threads and forums are considered read. Individual threads are marked as read within a session via cookies.

   This option is how all versions of vBulletin before 3.5 functioned.

2. Database (no automatic forum marking) - this option uses the database to store thread and forum read times. This allows accurate read markers to be kept indefinitely. However, in order for a forum to be marked read when all threads are read, the user must view the list of threads for that forum.

   This option is more space and processor intensive than inactivity-based marking.

3. Database (automatic forum marking) - this option is the same as a previous option, but forums are automatically marked as read when the last new thread is read.

   This is the most usable option for end users, but most processor intensive.

We have been using option 3 for roughly a year and a half. Before that (aka pre-vBulletin 3.5) we were using option 1, as it was the only thing available back then. We decided to switch because allowing it to be database-based instead of cookie-based allowed us to keep track of what a user has read as they move from home to work machines, or multiple machines at home, or when they clear their cookies, as many of our users frequently do. However, as mentioned, this switch happened a very long time ago, nothing within the past few months.

woho,out of my league,looking foreward to using this site