Unread messages

[Minnewaska]

I like the feature that threads I haven't read remain bolded with a marker to skip directly the first unread post within the thread. Its particularly helpful, when threads run to several pages and I couldn't know where I left off.

However, if sign on to find a dozen or so threads with unread messages and remain online for what seems to be several minutes, all the other unread threads become marked as read, even if I haven't opened them. Is this a setting that I can control?

[bacampbe]

I know this is an old thread, but was there any resolution? Way back, I used to be able to browse a few threads here and there, and have things I didn't read still marked as unread when I came back later. But over the last few months (year?) every time I leave and come back, it seems like everything gets marked as read--even things I haven't looked at yet.

Is there a setting for this I am missing? As it is, it seems like I am missing a lot of stuff, since I rarely browse the whole site in one sitting. I've developed the habit of popping in to read just one thread after seeing the an interesting post in the RSS feed--is the unread issue somehow related to this?

[Minnewaska]

Not only is it unresolved, you can see no one even replied to it. Makes one wonder why there is a technical forum at all.

[tdw]

Originally Posted by Minnewaska

Not only is it unresolved, you can see no one even replied to it. Makes one wonder why there is a technical forum at all.

yes, well you may be right.

Not something a mod can help with I'm afraid. This is very much admin area.

[Minnewaska]

I guess I like yelling into an empty room

This issue still hasn't been fixed and does not exist on another site that I frequent that uses the same software.

This morning, I noticed something related. When I signed on, under my screen name at the top right, it said I last visited 9 hrs ago, which was correct. I check both New Posts and subscribed threads and both have many since I was on 9 hrs ago.

I begin to read new posts and the Truimph post takes a while to catch up. Recalling there were many more New Posts, I return and there are now only two. I then notice the top right box says that I lasted visited only 36 minutes and is only showing me unread posts since I signed on this time, not the last.

This is still the same session, I never logged out or even left the site.

[bacampbe]

Originally Posted by tdw

yes, well you may be right.

Not something a mod can help with I'm afraid. This is very much admin area.

How does one report an issue to an admin? I assumed that's what the tech support forum was for.

[Minnewaska]

Just noticed a bit more of the bug. I last signed on about 9 hours ago. Came here, opened my subscribed threads and new posts and saw everything bolded since I was here last. I read about half the new post and decide to go to Quick Links and click Mark Forums Read, to clean up all the others that I didn't intend to read.

The feature works, but I noted that last visited still said "9 hours ago" right above the Quick Links tab before I selected it. As the page refreshed after clicking on Mark Forums Read, my last visited was change to "1 minute ago".

I don't really care what it says, but clearly I didn't last visit 1 minute ago, I just selected something one minute ago. Herein lies the bug, I'm certain of it.

[Faster]

Minne, I've reported this post/thread to admin.. maybe he has some ideas.

[Minnewaska]

Originally Posted by Faster

Minne, I've reported this post/thread to admin.. maybe he has some ideas.

Many thanks.

[administrator]

the problem is with the forum software that we use Vbulletin. This has been an outstanding request to them for many months to fix and they've done nothing to date other than to say they're researching the problem. Some items they're very fast to correct and some seem to languish for months. They did have a change in ownership last year and a large turnover in the development staff so I think they're struggling right now with their priorities.