Problem with "unread posts since last visit"

[grumpy]

I was out of town all day today (Sunday Sept. 24th). When I got home this evening I clicked on "show unread posts since last visit" and the result was only one post! I went to the "home" screen and saw that every topic had a most recent post dated today so something must be wrong.

Grumpy

 

[yakers]

Wife been looking at the site when you are away?

 

[ladelfina]

I have also been having problems off & on with unread posts. Currently, when I click on "all unread topics" I don't get any in the list, though there should be tons of pages...

This happens either from the lower right corner of screen listing Unread Posts Since Last Visit, or if there are no UPSLV, from the prompt line with embedded link.. both take me to http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?action=unread;all;start=0 but there's nothing there many times...

Going to the separate boards shows correctly the topics with "new" posts.

 

[TromboneAl]

I use "unread posts" as my primary means of accessing the forum. I'd be interested in knowing exactly how it's supposed to work.

My impression is that sometimes it decides that you've had your chance to see all the posts, and marks everything as read.

But sometimes it seems that when I go to an individual section, there are new posts there that never showed up on unread posts.

 

[kcowan]

I think it stores a cookie on your machine when you click view and the day is different. I suspect that when the day gets older than yesterday, it defaults to today. I have erased the cookies when I have a problem and it seems to work OK again.

 

[mickeyd]

My impression is that sometimes it decides that you've had your chance to see all the posts, and marks everything as read.

I'm with Al on this one. Since I have no earthly idea how all of the technology involved in this process works, I attribute it all to magic and sometimes mirrors, but mostly just magic. Gotta love the magic.

 

[retire@40]

I think it stores a cookie on your machine when you click view and the day is different. I suspect that when the day gets older than yesterday, it defaults to today. I have erased the cookies when I have a problem and it seems to work OK again.

I don't think it stores a cookie on your computer because I access this site through different computers in different locations (not on the same network) during the day, and it has always known which posts I've read no matter which computer I go on.

 

[yelnad]

Grrr. It used to work so well. I haven't been here in a couple of weeks and it says I've read everything. Annoying. It's usually the only way I use the forum.

 

[donheff]

I use an RSS reader. I have noticed several times (right now is one of them) when I have been out for many hours and the feed shows nothing new. I pop over to the actual web site and there are lots of new posts.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I guess hiding my head in the sand isn't fixing this problem. I was hoping it would. You'd be surprised how often that works.

Although I haven't seen this problem I have a pet theory on what may be causing it. I'll throw a few fancy words out there like MyISAM, InnoDB and table-level locking versus row-level locking. The database table that tracks what posts each user has read in each thread is updated every time a logged-in user reads a topic, and that happens a lot around here. Flipping the switch from MyISAM to InnoDB for a couple of tables sounds easy enough, but it has some ramifications that need to be figured out first. I'll see what I can find out. But if my theory is right, that should solve the issues you're talking about.

I'm not sure about the RSS thing, though. donheff, what RSS reader to you use, and do you know if it logs in as you when it reads? I'm thinking if your reader is your browser like FireFox Live Bookmarks or IE7's RSS thingy then it's probably using your credentials, and if not, probably not unless you typed them in for the reader.

 

[donheff]

I'm not sure about the RSS thing, though. donheff, what RSS reader to you use, and do you know if it logs in as you when it reads? I'm thinking if your reader is your browser like FireFox Live Bookmarks or IE7's RSS thingy then it's probably using your credentials, and if not, probably not unless you typed them in for the reader.

I am using bloglines.com. I didn't provide any login information to bloglines but I am normally logged in anyway. I use bloglines to skim over the post summaries and then click on the ones I want to read in detail or respond to. I assume I stay logged in because of the intermittent (fairly frequent) entries into the actual forum. Bloglines keeps its own track of what the last post I read was. If I go to Bloglines from a remote PC I am up-to-date. But if I click on a post to enter the forum proper I have to login to respond to a post, unlike at home.

My guess is there is a problem at Bloglines - maybe they are not pulling the feed frequently enough or something about their settings periodically causes the connect to fail.

 

[HFWR]

I guess hiding my head in the sand isn't fixing this problem. I was hoping it would. You'd be surprised how often that works.

Although I haven't seen this problem I have a pet theory on what may be causing it. I'll throw a few fancy words out there like MyISAM, InnoDB and table-level locking versus row-level locking. The database table that tracks what posts each user has read in each thread is updated every time a logged-in user reads a topic, and that happens a lot around here. Flipping the switch from MyISAM to InnoDB for a couple of tables sounds easy enough, but it has some ramifications that need to be figured out first. I'll see what I can find out. But if my theory is right, that should solve the issues you're talking about.

I'm not sure about the RSS thing, though. donheff, what RSS reader to you use, and do you know if it logs in as you when it reads? I'm thinking if your reader is your browser like FireFox Live Bookmarks or IE7's RSS thingy then it's probably using your credentials, and if not, probably not unless you typed them in for the reader.

I love it when you talk techical...

 

[BigMoneyJim]

Okay, I flipped the switch on a couple of tables relating to unread posts. Let's see how things go from here on out.

If all goes well there's at least one more table I want to switch over, but it's a pretty important one so I'll wait.

Those of you who've had problems please report back after you see if there are any differences or not.