First unread post - Page 2

Hi and welcome :)

Well, I haven't logged into the C Forum since my last post in this thread on the 18th. Just went to the "first post" in a thread and this was it.

I guess we're not even going to be looking at this situation so I will not continue this thread. I may visit the Software forum some, but searching for the first post in a long thread (6 or more posts I suppose) is not likely so I'll probably just look at short threads.

As mentioned in my second to last post, I have been looking into it. I think I may have come on to something that might explain what you're experiencing.

To conserve database storage, threads are automatically marked read if they have not been accessed for 10 days (at that point, they're considered abandoned as it seems pointless to endlessly store in the database when every single user last visited every single thread, so we only store the last 10 days worth for each user).

Well, I missed the entire thread posted above, 19 posts in 5 1/2 days. I am missing posts less than 24 hours after moving on. So unless that 10 days for me is 2 time units short (10 minutes) that's obviously not the problem.

That is the only thread I looked at. Did you see the problem when you logged into my account? As I asked before, would looking at my cookies help? I believe that is the only thing on my computer that if there's an error would have this affect. But DaniWeb writes the cookies.

I'm still trying to learn how vBulletin tracks thread marking times. I know it's entirely database-based but I'm not 100% sure whether cookies are used as a backup if the database turns up no results.

Nope, as I suspected, cookies aren't used at all. Can you please give me an up to date list of roughly 5 threads that you've visited within the past 10 days along with when you suspect that you last visited them? I'll see if the time/dates you think match up with what the database thinks.

Remember, don't click into the threads when you give me the list, otherwise the database will just say they were all last visited today.

It would be easier if I just click on a few and tomorrow night you can look at them. I definitely don't remember what I visited 5 days ago. Would that work?

It would :) Cool. However, it would have to be existing threads that you visited, then hours later other people replied to, and you never went back to them.

On another note, if you don't remember what you visited 5 days ago, then how do you know that the system is broken? :)

It would :) Cool. However, it would have to be existing threads that you visited, then hours later other people replied to, and you never went back to them.

Happens all the time!

On another note, if you don't remember what you visited 5 days ago, then how do you know that the system is broken? :)

C'Mon, I've explained that over and over! If I haven't visited any thread in 5 days, there are enough new ones that I should see pretty much only post #1. I always see the last post.

IOW:
1) If there's a thread I've visited before with 11 replies, and the last post I saw was #3, clicking "first unread post" gets me to post #12, not post #4.
2) As above, I never visited the thread, and the post I was taken to was not #1 but #19.

That's how I know it's broken.

Next post, list of threads I'm visiting with the last post number in the thread.

I was being rather tongue-in-cheek. In one post you say you can recall a whole bunch of threads where the last post you saw was #3, you haven't visited since, and now there are 12 posts. In another post, you say you can't even begin to recall what you visited a few days ago, so there is the possibility that you subconsciously were surfing around the site and clicked on it without realizing it. Ya know what? Don't mind me :) It's 5 am and I haven't slept yet after two days of working on the Subscription Spy.

Dang! I lost the results on the C forum, and the C++ forum worked.

I just had a thought -- I think I just figured out whats happening. Here's what I do:
1) Middle click on the C/C++ forum to open the forum in another tab, expecting the 'first unread' icons to point to first unread posts.
2) Double click on the folder icon to mark the threads read.
3) Go to the tab and start middle clicking on 'first unread' icon.
4) Each thread is now at the last post.

What's happening is the double-click on the folder dynamically resets everything -- including the icons on the thread tabs. Which means before I even look at the threads, they've all been marked read.

Up until Oct/Nov, that double-click did not reset the "first unread" icons. Now it does.

I'll test this tomorrow.

Hahaha! Double clicking on the folder name has been marking the forum as read ever since vBulletin 3.5, which we upgraded to a very, very long time ago (well over a year).

However, if you ever had your Control Panel preferences set to have clientside scripting off (i.e. that option in the CP having to do with the hover tooltips) then that feature would have been disabled as well.

Haven't you noticed all these months that when you double clicked the folder, the icon turned from yellow to greyed out in real time?

Poor Walt ... being frustrated all this time and the solution was so simple. The reason why this happens is because the URL for the new post icon takes you to a page called newpostinthread.html, which then looks up the last post for you in the database, and redirects you there. However, by the time you click the icon to have it look up the post, it's too late, because it's already been marked read.

Yes, I noticed that the folder greyed out. I was under the wrong impression that if I generated the forum list, the 'first unread' would get me to the first post at the time I generated the list. I had no idea the link was a relative link and it would change on me.

Unfortunately, the way the code is designed, posts can get easily lost between the time a forum list is generated and you finish processing the forum. Any posts posted after you've finished a thread and before you get back to double click the folder will also become 'read', and therefore lost.

I guess I'll have to use the "forum tools" dropdown, unless you've added an easier link for marking a forum read on the forum page. Yes, I hear the groans about easier -- I've always been a proponent of the one-click club because I have rat-o-phobia -- I don't like the mouse and no one ever programs keystrokes anymore. Oh well.

There are three ways to mark a forum read:

1) Double click on it's folder. This works from the homepage as well as from the forum pages.

2) Use the dropdown menu from the forum page.

3) Forums are automatically marked read when the last new thread is read.

Yes, I know
1) I have to navigate back to the home page
2) takes multiple clicks and mouse movement
3) I don't look at every single thread

#2 is probably the most usable for timing purposes.

3) You don't need to look at every single thread. When you visit the latest thread in the listing, the entire forum gets marked read.

Walt, please confirm this thread can be marked solved (or do so). Thanks.