New Behaviour wrt 'New Posts'?
 

Hi folks

Since last week, whenever I click on the 'New Posts' gadget, I get the posts since my last visit plus a load of unread threads with this text as the header:

The threads below have not been updated since your last visit or since forums have been marked read.

Why would I want to look at these threads since I have asked for 'New Posts'? How do I turn off this behaviour?

Marking the forums as read doesn't seem to do anything next time I log on. Can't see anything in the User CP that applies, either. There are normally around 4-5 pages of unread posts and another 15-20 of these other threads (none of which I want to read, that's why they're unread - doh!).

Seems silly to get worked up about, but it's the change in behaviour that bugs me. I never used to see these messages before...

Best wishes, Colin

I've got the same problem and have just worked around it. It's annoying to see all of the previously unread posts in bold letters every time I come back to the forum.

Me too.

I always go directly to "New Posts". It's a little weird after the format change. FWIW, I'd prefer going back to the old format.


Cheers
DD

We attempted to replicate the Today's Post issue on our end, but were unable to do so. We marked the entire forum as read, logged out, logged back in a few minutes later, and the only thread that appeared in bold was one that received a new reply while we were logged out. Any thread listed below the 'not updated or marked as read' divider remained in its previous state as it's supposed to. There are three different ways a thread will display on the Today's Posts page when you make a return visit:

• If a thread receives a new reply, it will appear in bold and be placed above the 'not updated or marked as read' divider.
• If a thread did not receive a new reply, it will appear below the divider in one of two states:
  • If it's in bold, that means the thread was not read (or marked as read) after its latest reply. It will remain bold until it's read, regardless of how many visits the person may make to the site in a given day.
  • If it's not in bold, that means the thread was read/marked as read and has not had any further updates. It will remain on the Today's Post page until 24 hours after its last activity, then disappear.

Are users reading a thread, leaving then returning to the forum, and seeing that same thread continue to appear in bold even without any new updates? If so, do you happen to know which browser(s) they are using when visiting the site?

Regarding the New Posts page you mentioned in your other email, it now behaves differently, but it's actually how New Posts was always supposed to work all along. The New Posts page will only show unread threads since your last visit. As soon as you read them, they are no longer considered "new" by vBulletin and the software removes them. We had a bug in the old tracking that prevented the threads from being removed properly, which is why they continued to display even when read and not in bold. Switching our read/unread statuses fixed that, but if you still want read/unread posts listed side by side, I recommend the Today's Posts view.

This change also affects every other discussion board I visit that's owned by the same parent company. No others.

I don't like it either.

More info-

I marked all forums read at 3:17PM local time. Logged back on at 5:03PM and have 3 pages of new posts and three more pages of "The threads below have not been updated since your last visit but still contain unread posts." the newest of which was at 3:16 and the oldest at 10:28AM.

Never used to do this.

Hey ALL, please see response below from IB.

This is a fairly big change to how the system handles tracking or read/unread threads but the change was necessary to fix some of the issues with cookie tracking and update the site to track these things based on username.

Basically now users can keep their history across different browsers and different PCs or mobile devices where cookies were only browser specific.
On our end when we first loaded the New Posts today we see 12 pages or so and can clear that with "Mark All Forums Read" and then the page is blank.

After waiting 10 minutes we can refresh and see 5 threads that have new posts on them. If we log out and then log back in then we see the same 5 threads but now the top shows this message "The threads below have not been updated since your last visit but still contain unread posts." which is how it should operate as those posts are still "New" and have not been viewed by me.

Regardless of whether or not the users cares to read them they are still New and Unread posts.
The system before was certainly different in some of the ways it operated. But the system was not properly working to show New Posts and would also keep posts you have read in the list un-bolded.

The biggest problem now seems to be that the posts stay in there as new for 10 days and we are looking to shorten that to a day or so in order to avoid the pages and pages of threads that are "New."

We will keep you updated on that fix as that portion makes very little sense and needs to be changed ASAP.



I agree its not ideal and I much preferred the old system, but reading between the lines, what we have now is what we have, period I'm afraid.


Thanks
Jim

The above would be a good compromise.

Thanks!

Thanks Mikey, as I said, I'm not a fan either of the new setup but we're stuck with it I'm afraid.

Hopefully the little tweaks that they may be able to do will help some

The "unread posts" line has been the usual behaviour for me for as long as I have been here.

I do not find it to be a problem because once I reach that line, I know where I am and can choose to continue or not.

It is more problematic that if one logs in, the "new posts" function sometimes marks posts read at the time of login and hides them from me.

What is a problem for me is maintaining a login beyond the one page where I have logged in to post a reply.

Because of that, I usually use the anonymous "today's posts". No problem looking at the time of the last post of a thread and comparing that with the time of my last visit to JF.