Marking forums read, even when I havent been to the forum...

[Lewzephyr]

This was an issue on the old forums as well.

Lets say I go into 2 or 3 forums, read what I want in them and mark all read (only in those specific forums).  Then I need to close my browser, for what ever reason... need to reboot, boss comes in office, um... just because.
Now, I come back later and threads in forums I have not even opend up, are marked read.

Was hoping to have a switch to turn this off.. Id much rather force a forum read manualy, rather than miss new posts.

Thanks, and keep up the awesome work

[DiosT]

That is the default for PHPBB... if you close all the browser windows, or reboot, it thinks you read all the forums you care for on your last visit..

I know I personally 'abuse' the feature constantly, I cant read every post...

There is no 'setting' i can easily change to make it not forget, I'd have to go into the code... but then ya have to consider not everyone would want it changed

[garios]

Not to agru with the admin or anything but isn't that what the marked all as read button is for?

[DiosT]

yes, but it auto-marks them based on factors I havnt looked into..

and to make a 'setting' that would turn auto-marking on/off would require a lot of forum modifications.. including changing/adding to the profiles of the templates, and looking at the php code to see what causes the the auto-marking...

then setting up php variables for each user to store the settings..

I just dont have the knowledge to edit PHP on that level yet, nor do I have knowledge, or access to, the MySQL database...

I'll try to find a script that does this, but I'm not too confident...


the 'marking all forums read' is simply changing all the topics to being read... it's not actually saving any setting to say if it's been marked or not... there's another part of the php code that will auto-mark them read by default, if you come to the board, then leave, and dont come back fast enough--that's the general desire of most phpbb communities...

As i said, there's no 'setting' I can add easily that can turn the feature on/off, unless i can find a script or code to follow to do it... I'll look for one

[DiosT]

ok, did a little research


will definatly be complicated to fix... I'll try a mod to see if that clears up some problems, and in the process of doing it, hopefully i'll see a way to fix the auto-marking...


basically what happens is when you come to a forum with unread articles, it puts them on your 'unread articles' list.. shortly after you leave.. it clears this list... when you come back later.. only new posts since your last visit are remembered

[garios]

but then ya have to consider not everyone would want it changed

I was mainly commenting on this.  If people like this feature they can use the mark all forms are read button.  I understand that could take alot of work to fix.  Sorry if i came off as being an ass but personally i find this bug very annoying because I sometimes have to close the browser before i can catch up nd it makes it hard to remeber what i have looked into or not.

[zaab]

I find this very annoying.  I log into the forums first thing in the morning, see many shields and unread messages, read one, go back to forum index and everything is marked read.
I have been running phpbb2 for years, and there is an entry in the admin setup called "Session Length in seconds".  I have mine set for 3600, but my conferencing system is small, so this works fine.  With a system this large with as many posts, it should probably be set for at least 7200.  I would be curious as to what it is set to.

[DiosT]

session length is 9999 or 99999 :-P

problem is, if you leave the board it will clear the cookie.. that's why people typically are getting reset...


alternatively, if you log in to besatlords.demonhouse.net, then browse the forums it'll reset your cookie when you click on the forum and it redirects you to beastlords.org...


for those of you having the problem... what is your 'bookmarked' address? or what do you type to come to this page?

I'm still trying to track down the problem, mainly this problem comes up because of 2 key reasons:


You log into the board/come to the board from one of our old domain names (beastlords.demonhouse.net), and when you click any link, the board 'fixes' your address by pointing it to where it's prefix is set to be (www.beastlords.org/forums/)... this causes your cookie to change domains, and clears the cookie's unread list...

THe other time it clears, is when you leave the board to go to another site (such as by a link on the board), it can cause the cookie to clear if you leave then later come back...

I'm still investigating this, it -shouldn't- clear your cookie, it has a longer delay than even eqbeastlord.com used, the problem is in the login location i'm pritty sure...

if not i'll look into a mod for this, but that's a large change that'll be a bit hard to implement... since unread flags are stored by cookie, not by the server... (server stores last visit information, and unread posts are generated into a cookie that your computer saves based on Post TIMESTAMP > Last visit TIMESTAMP variables... getting the cookie to hold the data longer will be interesteing, especially when I dont really know them too well :-P)

[DiosT]

following up to show i care :-P

I came to the page by means of www.beastlord.org/index.php,
I spent exactly 55 minutes 46 seconds browsing the forums

never were they marked read unless
1) i read them
2) I marked the forum..


will next try logins from other possible domains, just showing that under the 'proper' conditions, this is not the 'default'

[DiosT]

ok..

went to beastlords.org/forums/index.php -- had no problems, preserved the read list... note that this has no www, so www or not these 2 work interchangably...

the problem is i think people who have beastlords.demonshouse.net/ still as their bookmark, I went to that address, had to relog in (didnt have to do that when i stayed in the beastlord.org domain), and when it logged me in, it switched me to www.beastlord.org, and cleared my read topics list...


I -think- this might be the problem.. please check your bookmark, let me know what it is, and change it if necessary :-)

[Lewzephyr]

thank you for the follow up and all your work Diost....

Ill goof around to see if its still happening to me
I usualy directly click on  http://beastlords.org/forums/
and very rarely go to the home page at all.

[Lewzephyr]

Ok,  just after last post I closed all browser windows.  Restarted Internet Explorer, clicked on the link:  http://beastlords.org/forums/   All were marked read.   Sevearl forums I didnt even browse, and a few I browsed and did not read all the messages.

Again, its not a big deal...  all your time and knowledge are appreciated.

[DiosT]

Ok, just after last post I closed all browser windows. Restarted Internet Explorer, clicked on the link: http://beastlords.org/forums/ All were marked read. Sevearl forums I didnt even browse, and a few I browsed and did not read all the messages.

Again, its not a big deal... all your time and knowledge are appreciated.

That's how phpbb is 'supposed' to work.. that's how it's designed because -most- message boards people dont read every single post, and prefer the way phpbb does it..

Infortunatly that way of handing posts has been integrated into phpbb2, it marks topics read based on the timestamp of your last visit & action, roughly.. if someone posts something just as you leave, it'll be 'unread'--then you close the window, and come back later, your timestamp will say you left after said post, thus it should be 'cleared' from your cookie list...

it would be impossible to 'fix' this without rewritting several core php files, which I don't plan to do, would make furthur updates, and maintenance, very hard...


I think i might have confused some of your problem with the marking of the entire forum as read, but I knew of that problem...

in general though, 99% of the time it -shouldnt- mark topics read accidently(that is, you're in the middle of browsing the board, go back to the index, and everything is marked as read), every now and then though, someone will make a post just as you leave, and in that case, you wont see it...

Again, not much i can do with this problem..

if we tried to store information in the database of each user's unread threads..

Assuming 500 bytes to hold 250 entries(hope my old C++ data type knowledge isnt too rusty--this is 2 bytes per entry, permitting a maximum value of ~65,000(2^16)), assuming 100,000 entries eventually, and 5000 users... 953 Megabytes to hold that much information... (200kb per user)

This neglects the fact that 2 bytes cant store an entry of '90,000' (Value is higher then the field can handle at 2 bytes, 16 bits of data per entry) -- We'd actually have to bump it up to 3 bytes per entry, 16,777,216 maximum entries before the database would cry

That's why phpbb uses timestamps & cookies :-) and why I cant really build a system that will track it server-side...

Client-side tracking would work under the assumption you:
1) Never log in somewhere else
2) Never clear your cache/cookies

...

So ya can see, from a coding/resource standpoint, this simply isnt something we can do..

can try tweaking settings to try and 'reduce' the number of mis-marked posts.. but.. that can lead to accidental markings of posts you made being marked unread (by making the timestamd go back X miliseconds, if you make a post and close the window right after)...

Wow, this problem is even more complex then i thought when i first looked at this :-/


Point is:
Does the board clear cookies while you are still here?

I'll put it on my list to add to the search function the ability to check back only a few hours, but will have to see on that...

[Lewzephyr]

Point is:
Does the board clear cookies while you are still here?
...

No sir it doesnt... working fine in that manner...   I completely understand the inabiltity to change the way the message board handles the cookies and browser closing etc.  no worries, your doing a fine job..

Would like to say Props on the transition from  :

Reading a forum and say mark all messages read (with in that forum) and the now VERY short transition back to the main forums list..  looks good, and is very fast.