Question: Posting a reply sets all threads to "no new posts"

Off-topic
1

I did a couple of searches for any previous discussion of this, but didn’t turn up any thread titles that were obviously relevant. So I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question:

When I post a reply in any thread, all of the thread icons in all of the forums are reset to “No new posts.” Why is this, and is there a way to avoid this happening? Thanks.

2

I’ve had this happen on occasion. I think it has more to do with idle time more than replying.

3

You may want to clear out all your cookies and try again.

4

Just dont get sick eating them all.

5

I can end up tossing my cookies when that happens.

6

Web forums are notoriously bad at keeping track of your read and unread posts. I haven’t found a web forum yet that does a good job of tracking what posts I have read.

I’m not sure what to do to minimize the problem or keep it from happening. Maybe logging out when you’re done reading posts and not leaving yourself logged in and idle for a long period? Don’t know if that would actually help.

Gilby might have some ideas since he’s more familiar with how the forum tracks you high water mark or last read post.

The root of the problem is that HTML is a stateless protocol meaning that it does not keep track of your state from one session or connection to the next. The use of cookies is one way to add a little bit of stateness, but cookies are far from from a perfect solution to adding stateness (the ability to remember variables and keep track of what you’ve done). It’s easy to mess up state tracking with cookies by using the back button on the browser for example.

The forum is always messing up my last read mark because I like to jump around and not read posts in order from oldest to most recent.

7

It goes by your last visit to the site and says that if you have been inactive for a period then the next time you load a page you are starting a new visit.

The reason that forum software does not keep track for each user on a per thread basis is that it can use a lot of CPU load to do it.

8

Thanks to all. Not a problem; just something I was curious about.