Disappearing threads

Sorry, not sure which section this should go in.

When I come on here, I always click the 'New Posts' link, as a quick way to see what's new that I haven't read yet. Sometimes though, if I hit new posts but don't have time to read them all, and come back later, threads have disappeared. I suspect there is a setting somewhere in the forum software that tells it to mark a thread as having been read as soon as it is shown in a list, so that if you don't have time straight away, and you come back later, they don't appear as the software thinks you've seen them.

Is it just my setup, or does it happen for everyone?

 

Nope, it's not your setup, happens to me too. I then have to try and go through the site to find any threads I've missed.

 

I know what you both mean. If that happens to me, I go to the quick links and on that drop down menu, there is a thing for 'todays posts', which I believe are the last 24 hours or so. I'm not too sure, but that is where I look, when the new posts disappear!

Hope this Helps!

 

Oooh you are a star plant1star. Thanks for that.

 

If you go to "new posts, it will show you all the posts "since your last visit." If you log off and come back immediately, there will be none as it shows you the new posts "since your last visit."
As has been said, in that case best to use the posts in last 24hrs facility.

 

Wow, I just did the 'Todays posts' thing and it came back with three pages of results. I reckon I've been missing loads of stuff up until now. That's a really useful trick, I'll use it from now on.

I think there must be a configuration option in the forum software, as other forums I use, that use the same forum application, don't mark a post as read until you've actually been into it.

 

Yes, I know. I wanted to add on to mine I had put in a while ago, and it was gone.

 

Here's what I do:

Click New Posts

Click on Page 2, then Page 3, until I get to the last page (without reading any of the threads)

Right Click on each thread on the final page that I am interested in (I actually Right click on the icon as that takes me to the most recent unread post in the thread) then I select Open In New Tab / Window from the drop-down menu.

Repeat for each thread of interest (no need to actually read them as yet, you are just "loading" them)

So now I have got to the top of the final page of new posts. I press BACK to get to the previous page of New posts. If I have opened a lot of threads in separate Tabs / Windows I now go deal with them, but if I haven't opened any / many I repeat the open-in-new-Tab/Window for the that page of New posts, and so on until I have worked my way back to Page 1 of the New Posts.

(Slight benefit here in that whilst the thread itself is opening in a new tab/window I am opening more, working my way back up the lists of new posts, so by the time I actually start to read the new Tab/Window its fully loaded, and scrolled to the position of my last read message, and I don't have to wait ).

After reading each thread, and perhaps replying, I then close that Tab/Window. And then I deal with the next Tab / Window's thread.

Eventually I have read all the new messages, and replied to any that I wish to, and I'm back at the top of Page 1 of the new posts. I now note the TIME of the 1st post in the list, press NEW POSTS and see if there are any newer posts. If so repeat! until there are no more. This is an important step.

If you "go away" for any length of time (and it isn't long, 10 minutes perhaps?) the system resets your "Last seen at" time. All posts up to that time are considered read. So if there are posts that are newer than what you have already displayed on the New Posts page you are a bit stuffed :(

Example:

The time is now X
Open new posts page
Spend a minute opening 10 threads in New Tabs / Windows
Spend 10 minutes reading and replying
During this 10 minutes 5 new messages have been posted.
The time is now X + 10
Now go away for 60 minutes
The time is now X + 70
All messages between X and X+10 (your last recorded activity) are assumed to have been read :(

If at X + 10 you had pressed New posts you would have been fine

You are also stuffed if you come back and just do, say, a search for an old post and do NOT check the new posts page a the same time - Next time you come back everything between your last New posts action and the Search will have been deemed to have bee read :(

That's what causes disappearing threads".

There is a bit of a way around this, you can use the Quick Links : Today's Posts to see all new posts in the last 24 hours. If there is a gap between what New Posts is showing you, and where you actually got to, this should show it up. So I use Today's Posts when I know I have been distracted for more than 10 minutes or so.

Actually of quite a while I used Today's Posts rather than New Posts - I just noted the most recently timed message on the page before refreshing it, then scrolled down (paged down if necessary) until I got to that cutoff point)

If I am distracted for more than the magic 10 minutes here's what I do:

I FIRST click on Quick Links and then Right Click on Today's Posts and open that in a New Tab/Window

Then I deal with whatever I haven't yet opened up on the New posts page I was already looking at - including using BACK to work my way back to the 1st page (that is usually cached, so pressing back will usually give you what you saw the first time around, but not always ... I suppose if its been a very long time the Cache will have become stale too :( in which case revert to using Today's Posts instead)

I do that because the little icon saves me time scrolling / finding the first unread post.

When I get to the top of Page 1 I note the time, switch to the Today's Post Tab/Window and find the cutoff point noted from the top of my New Posts page - that might be on a later page, in which case I press [2], [3] ... in turn until I get to that point.

I now work my way back through those pages until I get to the top. If I am lucky most / all of the unread threads are above the "New" line, and thus have the magic icon. if I'm unlucky they are below that line, do not have the Icon, and I have to right click on the Subject instead - which takes me to the top of that thread and I have to scroll down and work out where I had read up to.

As an alternative you can click on the http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/images/buttons/lastpost.gif[/ing] Icon (in the Last Post column) instead which will take you to the last post in the thread - that's often easier as scrolling up is usually a shorter process than scrolling down

Now I'm a computer techie geek, so I don't find that all that annoying, but I fully expect that for ordinary mortals its a right royal PITA.

Other forums that I use genuinely remember what I have read, and what I haven't, and thus work how Humans would expect ... but this vBulletin software has a lot of other good points to recommend it so I live with this particular annoyance. Lets hope they improve it Real Soon now :thumb:

I'm sure you know, but the [img]http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/images/misc/subscribed.gif Icon (to the right of the Thread / Thread starter column) indicates that you have replied - so you are likely to be interested in the thread. Sadly there is nothing to indicate that you have added a thread to your Favourites - which would definitely help me find other threads that I was interested in, but hadn't contributed to as yet.

 

"I think there must be a configuration option in the forum software, as other forums I use, that use the same forum application, don't mark a post as read until you've actually been into it."

Nope, not in vBulletin :(

SMF, for example, does have that ...

 

The Volvo forum I use to figure out how to keep my 16 year old car running uses vBulletin, and on there the posts don't show as read until you've been in them. Of course it is possible that they've modified their version of the app, as I believe it is open source. Perhaps the standard build doesn't have the option. Oh well. At least if we know about it we can work round it.

 

Thanks OhSmartOne. I've had a trawl around the vBulletin support site and turned this up:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1725879#post1725879

the software does indeed have the ability to track what you have read, and what you haven't, but I guess the option is not turned on here.

Persoanlly it would make a huge difference to my enjoyment of browsing this site if tit was turned on. I wouldn't have to work my way though all the unread posts in one sitting in order to try to avoid hitting the Diassppearing Posts syndrome, nor have all the faffing about when I have to attend to something else and come back only to find I'm over my Magic 10 Minutes limit :(, I could just come and go as time allowed.

 

Same here.

 

same here..

 

Well on a slightly different theme, I have been having very odd sign in issues since this morning. I usually stay logged in each time I close the site down so I don't have to keep re-entering my password. But this morning I wasn't...so I logged in...didn't recognise me, so I sighed and did the password reminder thing.

Since then, each time I visit, I have to put my username/password in, have clicked "remember me" button and each time it takes me to "invalid password page"...but I am then logged in on that page!

Hope that makes sense.