Previously read posts and scrollback issues

[dan_inbox]

It seems that when someone adds a "Like" to a post, even to an old one far up a thread, that post becomes again the "first unread" post in that thread.
Worse, when we click on that thread to go to first unread, the display starts at the bottom of the post "Like"d. So we see a Like, but not what was Liked. Not particularly clear. Surely there must be a better way to do this.

Personally I am not in favor of a Like modifying the first unread pointer at all. If someone Liked my posts I'm notified, if they Liked someone else's post I don't particularly need to know.

Especially since anyway the "first unread pointer" is not the most reliable feature of the Xenforo software. I consistently experience plenty wrong pointers, where it sends me to some old post that was read long ago, even if it wasn't edited or liked since.
"Plenty": rough guess 10%-20% of those pointers are wrong. Haven't found a pattern yet. It seems to happen more often in the general/aerospace section.

This is all the more surprising, since generally the whole forum is very stable and works perfectly as expected. Kudos to your stewardship, Paul.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

If you click on the notification (alarm icon) of a new like in a topic you are following, then it does take you to the post that was liked. That is totally logical. There's no new post to see, the notification you got is not of a new post, its of a new like in the topic, so going to that like make sense. How are you getting into the topic? From which part of the interface? Main topic list, new topics widget, notification?

Regarding the first unread pointer, as discussed before, initially, read/unread was only preserved for 30 days, I altered it to 365 days, but this won't be retroactive, so topics you read before I altered the setting to 365 days will have lost the read/unread marking after 30 days. Topics older tham 365 days will always lose the read/unread status.

If you can give a specific example which isn't covered above, I could refer it to the developers.

 

[dan_inbox]

This morning I clicked on Forum, Aerospace. then on the thread "SpaceX general discussion" to go to 1st unread. (I had last visited yesterday).
it took me to the middle of post 361198: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/spacex-general-discussion.13774/post-361198
This was definitely not my 1st unread.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

This morning I clicked on Forum, Aerospace. then on the thread "SpaceX general discussion" to go to 1st unread. (I had last visited yesterday).
it took me to the middle of post 361198: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/spacex-general-discussion.13774/post-361198
This was definitely not my 1st unread.

Was that location before or after the last message you read? What was the last message you read? What browser?

I've tested it fairly extensively and it seems to work fine for me on Chrome. If there are new unread messages, I get taken to them. If the thread is entirely read (not bold) then it just takes me to the first post.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

In fact the only way I can make it do something odd is to use the browser back button to return to the index. If I do that, then clicking on the topic again will take me back to the message I just read. This is because I didn't refresh the page, so its basically all just cached locally. Refreshing the page or using the breadcrumb links correctly marks the posts as read and unbolds the topic.

 

[Hood]

I noticed the same issue but just with that thread, for about 4 days it kept taking me back to here https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/spacex-general-discussion.13774/page-50#post-359685
I haven't noticed it on any other thread. I just assumed it was all the Twitter links that might have thrown the page off?

 

[dan_inbox]

Was that location before or after the last message you read? What was the last message you read? What browser?

It was before my last unread. My browser is Maxthon 4.

 

[dan_inbox]

Just browsed Aerospace again. All threads behaved well except "Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik UAV revealed", which took me to halfway down Deino's post #144.
Not to the begining of an unread post, but to the middle of an already-read post. (in fact to the text "F-117A Nighthawk" before the black planform).
It wasn't there because of an end of thread: there were enough new posts to scroll down 2 more screen heights. (I'm on a laptop)

 

[dan_inbox]

Today again, went to Aerospace / SpaceX general discussion.
it took me to the middle of post #2010, when my first unread was #2015.

Playing with my browser's back/forward arrows, when there is a speed hiccup it looks like it actually first goes to 2015, then jumps up/back to 2010.
No idea what is going on.

[edit] Same thing happening in Space Projects / KH-1 Kennen: my 1st unread was #19. It goes briefly to #19 and scrolls back to the middle of #16.
Every other thread I browsed today acted normally.

==> a preliminary observation to reinforce Hood's suggestion: both threads are full of Twitter quotes. Maybe that hints to the cause?
(And boy, are those twittyrepeatquote threads ugly and painful to read!! Triple-yuck. Maybe the twittyquoters hope to look cool and in, but yuuuck!)

 

[kitnut617]

Yesterday I was discussing SpaceX with my son and the subject came up about why SpaceX reverted to stainless steel for Starship. I told him some ceramic tiles are to be used and I came on the forum to show him the photo of Dragon with some experimental tiles attached to it which is in the thread. After he had seen it I had logged out of the forum while still in the thread, this morning when I viewed the thread it jumped straight to that post with the dragon photo when I opened the thread, although I had previously read everything in the thread. Not sure if that's a clue for anyone about the issue as I've experienced the same issues as what the others have described.

 

[Arjen]

Twitter messages fankle xenforo

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

The likely scenario here is that the page is first rendered without the twitter post 'expanded', then the twitter posts expand, making the page bigger than it first was, which means some browsers scroll upwards to an earlier point in the topic.

It depends how the browser is coded - if it say jumps to position "75% of page", then if the page gets longer due to post previews being expanded, then perhaps your view position changes.

Like I said, I don't think this has happened to me in Chrome, but it would explain why it mostly affects posts on current programs. Its also possible the same problem would affect Youtube posts.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I've replicated this in Chrome with any topic with lots of URL unfurling (Twitter posts are the worst culprit). The browser opens at the correct point, then scrolls backward as the page gets bigger as the URLs are expanded out.

URL unfurling is done at the time the page is rendered. The URL is visited and pics, titles and tags downloaded. This changes the page size. There's no way to permanently place this metadata into the post, its always retrieved at the time of viewing.

The only way to prevent this 'scrollback' would be to disable URL unfurling. I'm not annoyed enough by this behaviour to do this.

 

[dan_inbox]

The only way to prevent this 'scrollback' would be to disable URL unfurling. I'm not annoyed enough by this behaviour to do this.

In general, URL unfurling is moderately useful to begin with: Its "usefulness" begins only when the poster was too lazy to explain what he refers to in the first place.
In the case of Twitter it is even less useful, since the posters already quote the text content.

But,hey, if you don't mind, then we'll all have to live with it.