It's not a huge inconvenience or anything, but, seems like the forum can't remember what I've already read. Stuff that I've already come in and looked at is still showing up as unread.

I've logged out and back in, just to check... still happening.

This is a relatively recent development -- at least, I've never noticed it happening before.

Thoughts?

--sofaspud
--

I'm glad your wrote this. I thought I was going senile or something. Yeah its been doing it for a couple weeks. Grr.

t.
Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - HST

I've noted something similar, but only when I come back for another visit within a relatively short time (undetermined, but probably less than an hour).

Have you been leaving your browser open? I've found that the cookie doesnt seem to update about when my last visit was unless I've closed firefox in between visits...

... you can close browsers?!?

Heh.

I can't say that I remember, actually -- I typically have Firefox up pretty much, uh, all the time. I'll test that today and see if it makes a difference.

--sofaspud
--

I don't know what could be causing that, actually; nothing's been changed in the forum's configuration, as far as I'm aware, since the move to the new server some time ago, and I haven't had it happen to me so far. It occurs to me that I log back in almost every time I come here, because my bookmark goes to dcboard.cgi?az=login automatically, but whether that has anything to do with anything I don't know. I do know that I logged out inadvertently once and was very confused by the lack of proper mark-as-read behavior until I realized I was in guest mode, but it sounds like you've already looked at that...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

The automatic marking _never_ worked properly for me, so I just mark things as read manually.

On the other hand, I hate almost all web forum software, so I'm probably not a good judge. Maybe what I consider 'sucks horribly' is what everyone else _likes_ and is working as designed.

Shalon Wood

>The automatic marking _never_ worked properly for me, so I just mark
>things as read manually.

Oh! The light dawns.

To the best of my knowledge, DCForum doesn't have fully automatic marking. You have to click "mark as read" at the top of each forum when you're finished with the topics therein (which automatically takes you back to the lobby). What logging in does is record which places you've done that in.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>To the best of my knowledge, DCForum doesn't have fully
>automatic marking. You have to click "mark as read" at the top of
>each forum when you're finished with the topics therein (which
>automatically takes you back to the lobby). What logging in does is
>record which places you've done that in.

No, I'm pretty sure I've done that. I've been assuming it was a Firefox 3.0 glitch from hell....like most of F3, frankly.

yours,
t.

Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - HST

According to the info under Preferences in the User Menu, if you don't have 'Use MARK Time Stamp Feature' set to yes, it uses the last-visit timestamp to keep track of new messages -- that's what I meant by 'automatic marking'.

Shalon Wood

>According to the info under Preferences in the User Menu, if you don't
>have 'Use MARK Time Stamp Feature' set to yes, it uses the last-visit
>timestamp to keep track of new messages -- that's what I meant by
>'automatic marking'.
>
which is the method I personaly use, and as I noted it only updates last visit timestamp if I close firefox in between visits.

>>According to the info under Preferences in the User Menu, if you don't
>>have 'Use MARK Time Stamp Feature' set to yes, it uses the last-visit
>>timestamp to keep track of new messages -- that's what I meant by
>>'automatic marking'.
>>
>which is the method I personaly use, and as I noted it only updates
>last visit timestamp if I close firefox in between visits.

Seconded.

However, I was completely unaware of (oblivious to?) the mark-as-read clicky. I'll look at that as well.

(and, I tested, and it does indeed work -if- I close Firefox. I'm not sure why this is. I suspect it's something to do with cookie-caching, perhaps, but who knows.)

--sofaspud
--

>(and, I tested, and it does indeed work -if- I close Firefox. I'm not
>sure why this is. I suspect it's something to do with cookie-caching,
>perhaps, but who knows.)

Hmm. Well, the user interaction mechanisms in DCF do work via cookies, so if anything's going wrong with cookie handling, that would tend to foul them up.

Ordinarily, at this point I'd suspect that a point-release to Firefox had dropped that incidentally messed up something in cookieland, Firefox point releases being traditionally a bit stealthy like that, but I'm using it here, and I appear to be using the current version.

Just for laughs, have you tried it with any other browser?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Doing so now, with -- ugh -- Internet Explorer, it being the other browser available to me at the moment. (I can try Chrome once I get home, if it seems indicated.)

I'll check back now that I've established this browser's cookies for the forums, and we'll see what happens. Quick, somebody post something! *grin*

--sofaspud
--

... and, same behavior.

My test methodology:

1. Opened IE, came to the Forums, logged in. Posted the message above. Closed browser.

2. Opened IE, came to Forums. As expected, this conference was the only one showing new content. Viewed message -- hi, self! -- then navigated away to another site (an internal one, first, then to Google, then to the Drunkard's Walk forums, just to be safe)

3. Came back. This conference still showed a new message, but the only new message was the one I'd already read.

4. Closed browser, reopened, came here. All conferences gray -- no new messages.

So, in essence, identical behavior to Firefox on my system. It only works properly if I close the browser between visits.

I'm running XP Pro, if it matters. Doubtful, really, but who knows.

Still, now that I know... closing the browser is a workaround I can live with, heh.

(One question: I _still_ don't see the mark-this-as-read button/link/whatever it is. Can someone tell me what I'm missing?)

--sofaspud
--

LAST EDITED ON Mar-04-09 AT 06:40 PM (EST)
 
>So, in essence, identical behavior to Firefox on my system. It only
>works properly if I close the browser between visits.

Weird. I got nothin' at this point, I'm afraid.

>(One question: I _still_ don't see the mark-this-as-read
>button/link/whatever it is. Can someone tell me what I'm missing?)

It's one of the labeled icons in the row at the top of the page in lobby or forum view. The row that starts with Logout, FAQ, Search, etc, just above the "Conferences -> $whateverforumyou'rein" links, which are in turn just above the heavy blue stripe.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>It's one of the labeled icons in the row at the top of the page in
>lobby or forum view. The row that starts with Logout, FAQ, Search,
>etc, just above the "Conferences -> $whateverforumyou'rein" links,
>which are in turn just above the heavy blue stripe.

I still couldn't find it.

However, experimenting with the User Settings for my account reveals that said Mark All button is only there if you elect to use the MARK feature -- that is, if you tell the forums you want to mark stuff manually, don't remember when I showed up last, thanks.

Which explains why I wasn't seeing it, at least. Heh.

Anyway! Thanks for looking into it!

--sofaspud
--

The reason it won't update until the browser is closed is probably that it uses a cookie with timeout 0 to figure what constitutes one "visit". Such cookies expire when you close the browser.

The alternative would be to start a new visit when the time since last page update passes an arbitrary limit, or a combination of the two. The option used here has the advantage of simplicity.