Marking read posts - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

dpetryk · #1 04-30-2002, 02:54 PM

This post is for the administrators of this board.

I (and everybody else) have an annoying problem.

When viewing new posts, the system decides to mark them as viewed after 15 minutes of time. It is annoying because I have not had sufficient time to read and respond before the system decides to mark them as read.

I also use this software (Vbulliten) to on my webserver and I am familiar with the configuration settings. So I know how to set this timer. I do not see the need to have the system timeout ever and mark the posts as being read. It only causes me to miss reading all the posts that I have not yet read.

The setting that controls this is in the "User and registration options" section.

The actual timer is controlled by "Timeout for Cookie" setting.
This is the time in seconds that a user must remain inactive before the unread posts are reset to read. The default is set to 900 seconds.

So if I am on line reading my unread posts for more than 15 minutes. The system marks them as read. If I walk away from my terminal for any reason I loose the posts that I have not yet read. Can you change this setting for a much longer value such as 3 hours or something like that?

I would appreciate making this change and I know others would as well. Thank you very much.

MikeTangas · #2 04-30-2002, 07:23 PM

Is that what is happening?? I was blaming my computer, POS that it is, that or my ISP having hiccups. All this time I thought I was the only one.

Ashman · #3 04-30-2002, 07:55 PM

Its not just you mike.

I concur that it would be nice to be able to see posts not read. In fact, I would love it if any posts not read, would remain no read no matter what unless you read them, but that might be asking much.

In anycase, I think its a good idea if the timeout was much longer as stated.

Alon

dpetryk · #4 05-01-2002, 09:34 AM

I got confirmation yesterday from the administrator that he has set the number of seconds to timeout to 21600 which is like 15 days. Problem should be solved.

The only other agrivation I suffer is when I am viewing new posts and I respond. I seem to loose my place when I try to go back to the page showing the unread posts. I get an error about a page timeout or something like that. So I then must go to the home page and click on "view new posts once again. It is frustrating. I dont know of a fix for that one. Do you guys experience the same thing?

greenacres2 · #5 05-01-2002, 09:55 AM

Dave,
I think 21,600 seconds would be more like 6 hours, although there are times when 6 hours feels like 15 days. It looks like you did your calculation based on 21,600 minutes.

dpetryk · #6 05-01-2002, 09:57 AM

oops!

dpetryk · #7 05-01-2002, 02:36 PM

I have noticed the huge number of users that have occured since the changing the cookie timeout value. I think they must be connected. I suspect that most users do not logout and the system relies on the timeout timer to drop the user off the system. Well now it takes 6 hours to do that. So it appears like there are more people logged in than there actually are. Vbulletin has had some upgrades and patches lately. Maybe this problem has been fixed. If not it needs to be reported to them which I plan to do.

greenacres2 · #8 05-01-2002, 05:19 PM

I noticed that when I don't logout (which I had never done before today) that the system misidentifies my last visit and shows all the interim posts as unread. I'm getting in the habit of logging out which is a good security step anyway. Not that anyone else in my house would order parts through my account. This does, however, prompt me to think about logging out of other secure sites instead of just moving on.

Bear · #9 05-01-2002, 05:32 PM

Dave re your problem when replying to a thread you get a page expired message.Just keep hitting the back button until you get back to the new posts,it confused me until I worked it out.Bear