Daniweb link history - apparent error

[EnderX]

I'm sorry if the title isn't the most informative, but this is something that I've had happen to me twice recently. I don't know if it's a problem on my end, I don't know if it's something that really needs to be worried about, but I thought I'd toss it out so that those more knowledgeable than I could take a look at it.

Twice recently, I've apparently had my links history undone. That is, threads that I had visited, which had previously had the 'already visited' link style (non-bolded), were once more in the bolded, 'unread' style. Additionally, the 'New Subscribed Threads' space in my control panel reloaded itself with threads I'd already been to that hadn't been updated since that time. I had not manually logged out at either of these times.

I do not know what caused the problem the first time. The second time, the problem appeared after I hit the refresh button on my browser twice, as the server appeared to be taking too long on the first refresh...that is, the green progress bar at the lower left corner of my Firefox window was visible but empty, and remaining so. I do not know that my double-refresh was what caused the problem, but it is the only thing I can think of that I did about the time the situation occured.

I do not know that this is a critical problem. After all, all that's really happened is that I've regained some old items in the control panel, and I've had to go by memory in figuring out what I've already looked at in the threads. It's not a hardship, it's just something I was curious about. I simply thought I'd toss it out to see if anyone knows anything about why it's happening, or so that any appropriate steps can be taken should they be needful.

-EnderX

[John A]

This problem has been repeatedly happening to me over the past few days. It occurs most often when I'm switching browsers, which shouldn't be a problem since this site, to my knowledge, does not use cookie-based tracking on logged-in members. It would be rather nice to have this fixed.

[MidiMagic]

DSid someone change the system clock? I can imagine this causing such behavior.

[Dani]

The table in the database which stores which of the latest threads have been read has recently been changed to a HEAP memory structure, which means that it's now completely stored in RAM. This was done because, as you can imagine, the table gets written to every time a member views a thread, so there is a speed improvement there, as the old MyISAM table format succumbs to table locking (meaning the entire table locks up when it's being changed, so multiple writes must wait in line).

However, I believe that the database server was restarted once or twice over the past couple of days, and when that happens, all of its HEAP tables get wiped out.

Let's gie it a couple more days as I'm not sure if the problem is the HEAP structure to begin with, or if it's restarting the db that caused the problems.

[EnderX]

Just had the following occur: A 'Server is taking too long' error on attempting to refresh the Perl forum page, a database error on trying to refresh the Geek's Lounge page, and a repitition of the incident; all of the links and control panel stuff just showed up again.

[The Dude]

The best way to do it is by using 'COOKIE BASED THREAD TRACKING' its the least resource heavy on the DB and works much better Dani :)

[Dani]

Unfortunately we have a great many members who visit DaniWeb from both home at work machines, or their laptops, or all sorts of multiple machines. (The vast demographic, actually) Therefore, cookie-based tracking isn't ideal because it doesn't carry over between machines. Additionally, a couple of the moderators and regulars within the Tech Talk forums frequently clear out their cookies (a few times a day) when helping to debug browser issues. (This was brought to my attention at a previous time when I introduced cookie-based tracking for something.)

[Dani]

Just had the following occur: A 'Server is taking too long' error on attempting to refresh the Perl forum page, a database error on trying to refresh the Geek's Lounge page, and a repitition of the incident; all of the links and control panel stuff just showed up again.

We were having server troubles.

[~s.o.s~]

This notification thing is killing me. Even when I click on those threads _again_, they still refuse to move out of my CP. Any idea WTH is going on?

[hollystyles]

Any idea WTH is going on?

-Code creep.

-Victim of it's own success.

-leaky abstraction (trying to abstract away the fact that http is conectionless, which is like saying windscreen wipers mean it's not raining anymore mr driver, no really, it isn't!)

-Proxy servers (You cached/stripped my what? gee thanks that's really helpful, I got outdated junk. Well at least I got it real fast!)

.
.
.

I could go on.

[WaltP]

This notification thing is killing me.

Let me kow when the funeral is.... :icon_twisted:

[MidiMagic]

Whatever is happening, the little arrow that takes you to the first unread post has been taking me to the same posts for the last few days, even though more posts were added each visit.

I'm starting to think the post notification trouble, the link history trouble, and the wrong last unread post are all the same error.