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Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me.

Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Hey Glen, the forum software is not resetting the message read flag.

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Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769
Posted: 02:47am 14 Aug 2020
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Hey Glenn ...

for the first 6 1/2 pages of threads, back to July 26, the new message flag is not re-setting. I logged out then logged in again ... no change.

Paul in NY
 
Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5160
Posted: 03:04am 14 Aug 2020
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You sent me a message about this, I know about it, didn't need its own topic.

The forum has lots of little bugs, working on them as time allows.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ
 
bigmik

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Joined: 20/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 2971
Posted: 03:07am 14 Aug 2020
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Glenn, all,

I have noticed this too, but it seems to correct itself after a few hours..

The biggest problem is I dont get notifications of a PM .. I get message notifications but not PM.

Regards,

Mick
Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<<
 
Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769
Posted: 04:57pm 14 Aug 2020
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  Gizmo said  You sent me a message about this, I know about it, didn't need its own topic.

The forum has lots of little bugs, working on them as time allows.

Speaking of which, that's another bug. I couldn't send you a message, or at least it didn't seem to work.

Take it easy ... you'll get them fixed eventually.

Paul in NY
 
Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769
Posted: 05:33pm 14 Aug 2020
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HEY ... IT'S WORKING!!!

Paul in NY
 
Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769
Posted: 09:24pm 14 Aug 2020
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Whoops, it stopped working totally. Now there are no new post indications at all.

Paul in NY
 
CircuitGizmos

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Joined: 08/09/2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1427
Posted: 11:05pm 14 Aug 2020
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Always hit or miss for me.
Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite
 
Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5160
Posted: 12:23am 16 Aug 2020
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To make this work the code needs to detect when the user last left the web site, so it can display any new posts with a date stamp after that date/time

Reliably detecting when a person leaves a web site is tricky, it depends if the user closes the browser, which means the session is killed cleanly, or if they just navigate to another web site, which means the session will fizzle out later. And some browsers ( Safari ) are just plain pricks and wont tell you anything. As soon as you get the code to work, a OS update on the client breaks the code. Browsers dont like web sites asking to many questions.

So the code did work fine a few weeks ago, but some update has broken it, and I'll get to it in the next few days. For now, just use the Active Topics page.

Please post messages about forum bugs in Site News or as a message to me ( I do read them ), dont clutter other topics.

Glenn
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ
 
bigmik

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Joined: 20/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 2971
Posted: 12:51am 16 Aug 2020
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Hi Glen,

I must make it hard for you, I access TBS using an iPad, PC win10 Firefox, and my iPhone..

Depends on where I am and what I am doing.

It’s no big deal for me, however I would like the notification of a PM to be emailed to me I might miss the number next to the message in the top of the main menu screen.

Regards,

Mick
Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<<
 
Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769
Posted: 02:39am 17 Aug 2020
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Hi Glen,

I logged in and read posts about 8 hours ago.

I logged in again a half hour ago and only newer modified threads were flagged as they should be.

I read the marked threads, went to another website, closed the browser, restarted the browser and went to TBF again. This time the thread read flags were not reset.

When, exactly, does the software reset this flag?

Paul in NY
 
Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769
Posted: 02:42am 17 Aug 2020
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Hi Glen,

I just posted the above and when the forum list reappeared the read flags were reset which is as it should be.

Hmmmmmmmmm....

Paul in NY
 
Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5160
Posted: 12:25pm 17 Aug 2020
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This is how it works. This is the simple way of doing it.

The codes uses cookies and sessions. Sessions time out after you leave the web site AND/OR close the browser, plus a few minutes. If you leave the browser open, even to visit another site, or go make a coffee, and come back, the session is still active.

Cookies last longer, 1 year in this case, the forum uses that cookie if you tick the box to remained logged in.

When you visit the site, the code checks to see if the session is still active. If it isn't, it looks for the cookie. If it finds the cookie, it looks up your details in the database including a field called "LastVisit", and stores this in a variable, and sets up the session to keep track of you. It then puts the current datetime into the database, a new "LastVisit".  So now you are logged in, but the datetime of your last log in, the LastVisit, is stored in a variable ( and a fresh one is in the database for the next time you visit ).

The codes compares this old LastVisit datetime to the datetime of the posts in the forum. If the post was saved AFTER your LastVisit, it flags the post as new.

So, if the session doesn't expire, the code has no reason to look up your last LastVisit. Remember, sessions can hang around longer than you like. If you close the browser or shutdown the computer, and go make a sandwich, it will probably clear, eventually.

This system works well enough. It flags posts saved after your last LastVisit datetime.

A better system would store the date and time of every post you read, ( eg, you opened the only/last page of a thread ), and save all that data ( post ID and datetime ), and compare that to the current time, to display the unread flag. This would mean every time you visit the page that lists the posts, the code would need to get the last datetime of every post on the page, and look up your data for a matching post ID, and check its date. This means more CPU time and a bigger database.

But I'm not going to do this.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ
 
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