Toby said:
Also, and I don't know if this is happening to anyone else, I'll go to New Posts and there'll be a ton of new posts in bold type. I'll have time to read one or two, then I'll leave the site to do something else. When I come back and hit New Posts again, the same long list shows up, but almost nothing is bold. There might be a few in bold, but all the other posts that I didn't get to before are in regular type.
That is because the bold facing of threads (and also the tracking of which post you read last) is based on the Recent Activity timer, and that timer expires after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Let me walk through how this works again, maybe I can spell it out better.
Any activity on the server answering a request from your browser is called a "hit". Opening a thread, or changing pages on a thread, or viewing who's online or anything where data has to go between your computer and the server is a "hit". Sitting on one page scrolling down and reading, or spending time replying is not a hit. OPENING the page to reply is a hit, but if you spend 15 minutes in the reply screen, your last HIT was 15 mins ago.
Lets say that you were here at 8:00pm last night when you finished reading everything and logged off. For sake of simplicity we'll put your last "hit" at 8:00PM exactly.
When you first visit PoA in the morning at 8:00 AM, your initial Hit starts a "session". When your session starts, a record called a cookie is opened on
your computer that contains information about when you last read any threads on PoA. Meanwhile, the PoA Server starts tracking your current session, so you have the following information floating around.
On the server: Your last visit was 8:00 pm yesterday and your current session's last hit was at 8:00 am.
On your pc: You havent read anything since 8:00 pm yesterday.
Now you open a thread. Lets call it thread 1000. You read the posts in that thread and return to the forum list at 8:05 am.
Server: Last Visit: 8:00 PM yesterday. Session latest hit: 8:05 AM today.
Your PC: Last Read: 8:00 PM yesterday - EXCEPT -> Thread 1000 - 8:05 AM
At 8:10 AM you open thread 1005, which you've read before, but which was posted to during the night. You open it by clicking on the 'view first unread post' button.
When you request thread 1005, the server looks at the cookie on your computer (your computer and the server are constantly handing the cookie back and forth) and says, Oh, you read this at 8:00 pm last night - ok the oldest post SINCE then is THIS one, so I'll jump you down to that post.
Now you have;
Server: Last visit 8:00 PM yesterday. Session Latest hit: 8:10 AM today.
Your PC: Last Read 8:00 PM yesterday EXCEPT -> Thread 1000, 8:05 AM. Thread 1005, 8:10 AM.
And so it goes - every hit, every thread read, updates the above information, and your PC cookie about what you read last gets bigger and bigger.
And then after your latest click at 8:30 AM you have to go AFK (away from keyboard). At 8:30 AM your info looks like:
Server: Last visit 8:00 PM yesterday. Session Latest hit: 8:30 AM today.
Your PC: Last Read 8:00 PM yesterday EXCEPT -> Thread 1000, 8:05 AM. Thread 1005, 8:10 AM. Thread 1010, 8:15 AM. Thread 1020, 8:25 AM. Thread 1050, 8:30 AM.
Now... you're AFK for 15 minutes (or longer). In that time, your browser and the server haven't talked at all. No hits. At 15 minutes, the server terminates your session, and the cookie on your computer expires.
When you return to the computer at 9:00 AM, you get a
new session, and a new cookie, and its info looks like this:
Server: Last Visit: 8:30 AM. Session latest hit: 9:00 AM.
Your PC: Last read 8:30 AM.
From this point forward, if you click Recent Activity, you'll only see threads with life since 8:30 AM. And if you click on New Posts (which does not reset its *server* info), you'll still see all the threads that you saw when you got here at 8:00 AM, but the list of threads will be bold or not bold based on your cookie, which says, 8:30 AM, so only the threads with life since 8:30 AM will be bold in New Posts.
Fun, ain't it?
You think its bad for you as a user?
I have to support it! Not a week goes by I don't ask vBulletin when we get the new improved "mark read" functionality - I'm not the only person who hates it.
