Forum Performance Issues

[Bealdwine]

Ah first to post, virgin territory :D

Just a quick note about an issue I get on the site.

 

Because I tend to use the 'View New Posts' option to go directly to new content the site doesn't recognise that I don't need to be alerted to new activity in the 'containing' fora so the icons for these are still yellow if I go into the forum manually == confusing :?

 

Eg. I use View New Posts to go to the latest chat in '[REL] Skyrim Unplugged' but once I finish if I go into the main forum the icons are telling me there is unread content in /Mods, the Universe & Everything and then /Specific Mods as well. As you plan to use layers of sub-fora for organisation this is going to recur quite often.

 

Just a small glitch but might be fixable?

[MontyMM]

Yes, I must admit I am finding harder it to keep track of everything.

[stoppingby4now]

I've used View New Posts, and it behaves as I would expect where forum icons update as I've read the posts. How are you navigating? Are you hitting the 'back' button to return to areas? If so, your browser will have cached information and not update the icons. Even if you did that, refreshing the page would then resolve the issue. Also make sure there aren't additional unread posts you may have missed in a forum that may be causing it to still show like it is unread.

[stoppingby4now]

Well, I just put my foot in my mouth. I just navigated back to home (via links) after reading all of the new posts, and the top level forum still had the yellow icon (the sub-forum didn't).

 

Will see if we can track this down.

 

EDIT: This is apparently a known bug in relation to searches, and won't be fixed till 2.0. As a short-term quick fix, how about a link on the search page to mark all as read? Worst case, you would need to redo the search and if nothing is unread, you could click a link to force marking the forum as read. Not a complete solution and there is the risk that someone posts something between the time you ran the search and clicked the mark all as read link.

[z929669]

I have the same issue on my work computer but not my home computer... at work, I have to hit 'refresh' to update. so this is either a browser issue or we need to force refresh of pages at each visit (if possible). I am no browser/surfing expert by any means. I use it all but have always been confused by it!

 

EIDT: In thinking more on this, I realize that I use Chrome @home and at @work (both Win 7 Pro) and sync across the cloud, so IF it is a browser issue, then some other factor may be at play. It might be a good idea to poll the users and determine their experience and what OS/browsers they use.

[stoppingby4now]

To expand on my edit above, this is a known bug with searches when you have sub-forums of forums. Adding the additional sub-forums has brought this bug into the spot light. I'm looking to see if there may be any patches available.

[z929669]

I just confirmed (seconds ago) that I DO NOT have the issue on my home computer... just @work. I tend to navigate the forums by loading the main page and drilling down on the 'golden' icons (which signify new posts). once I get to the supposed updated post, I read it and scroll up the the top of the page and hit the "S.T.E.P Community" on the breadcrumb. When the main forum page loads on my home computer, the previously 'golden' forum is white, but at work, it remains 'golden", and i hit refresh and it turns white.

[stoppingby4now]

If you drill down, you will not experience the issue. Your problem at work is most likely browser cache related.

 

An example of this issue would be to use "View New Posts" and read a thread in a sub-forum (this assumes no other new posts anywhere else in the tree). If all threads are read in that sub-forum, it gets marked as read. If you then go to the forum index, the top parent will still show as being unread, but only because you haven't navigated to it yet. When resolving forums as being read, the code is not checking to see if it should mark the rest of the tree as read.

 

Hope that makes sense.

[z929669]

yep, it does.. thanks!

[z929669]

does this relate explicityly to "View Today's Posts" in the top panel of the main page?

 

Never use that, but what a convenience it would be eh?! (if it worked?)

[venkman781]

does this relate explicityly to "View Today's Posts" in the top panel of the main page?

 

Never use that, but what a convenience it would be eh?! (if it worked?)

 

I noticed this behavior too. I've been using the View New Posts link and after reading the posts, the parent forum icon doesn't reflect a change to read status unless I drill into it and then back out.

 

Not a huge deal, but as you say, it would be quite a convenience if it worked. ;)

[stoppingby4now]

Yeah, unfortunately when using searches and going straight to posts, you are going to experience this. I found an old bug ticket from someone that posted some code to fix the issue, but that was with the prior version. Unfortunately, there are only two ways to fix this that I can see at this point. Either modify the code directly, or add a "mark forums as read" link to the search page.

 

Immediate quick fix would be the link route.

[z929669]

Yeah, unfortunately when using searches and going straight to posts, you are going to experience this. I found an old bug ticket from someone that posted some code to fix the issue, but that was with the prior version. Unfortunately, there are only two ways to fix this that I can see at this point. Either modify the code directly, or add a "mark forums as read" link to the search page.

 

Immediate quick fix would be the link route.

 

 

Did you happen to post a new ticket? Problem with the link is that a new post could conceivably go up while reading an updated thread, right?

[stoppingby4now]

I did list that as a potential downside. Unfortunately they have already rejected a submitted ticket with a reason that it will be fixed in 2.0. So, we're on our own.

[z929669]

oh well... minor inconvenience. I don't blame them for focusing on 2.0. Do you think that 1.6 will be a seamless upgrade to 2.0?

[stoppingby4now]

It'll probably be awhile before 2.0 is out, but it should be. No one does a major update without ensuring an easy and seamless upgrade path...unless they feel like shooting themselves in the foot. :)