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Cannot mark as read one of my watched threads [MERGED]

@WildCowboy thank you for stepping in to acknowledge the ongoing issue with stuck read/unread threads. It means a lot when administrators/owners communicate directly with us, the MacRumors users, on matters that have been frustrating us for so long. For over a year now, the complaints have been stacking up, and aside from one or two brief responses early on, most of the discussion has been users trying to figure things out on our own - which we can't do. Without updates from staff, we’ve been left to speculate and even create our own narratives about what’s going on behind the scenes at MacRumors. That uncertainty has only added to the frustration.

Even when there isn’t an immediate fix available, consistent communication goes a long way in showing that we aren’t being forgotten or neglected. Communicating with us demonstrates a commitment to good customer service and reinforces that the owners and administrators care about maintaining a positive user experience here. Posting updates here helps manage expectations and strengthens our trust towards MacRumors. I hope to see improved and ongoing communication between the administration and us users on this issue, and other issues in S&FF as well.
 
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After a bit of sleuthing, I have discovered that the issue with these threads may not be the threads themselves, but rather specific posts within the threads. I view the forums via the web on my Mac but via Tapatalk on my phone. In both cases, the threads seem to want to open at what it determines to be the first unread post in the thread. And in the two remaining threads that I am still watching (I've "unwatched" several) that display this issue, both open to a specific post in each thread.

I've documented the posts in each for reference:


Perhaps documenting the triggering posts will help the MR staff sort the issue.
 
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So, uh, right after viewing the above post ... everything started working for me. Not sure if Macrumors did something on their end but ... even this thread, which has been a problem since I re-joined Macrumors months ago - is now showing as read.

Very cool... haven't seen this for awhile 😀

(For clarity's sake: the problem was, this thread and about 4 others were always showing as unread no matter how many times I opened them, and when you open them, it went to the first post, instead of the last). I no longer seem to have this issue as of today.

1758472648585.jpeg
 
BigMcGuire said:
So, uh, right after viewing the above post ... everything started working for me. Not sure if Macrumors did something on their end but ... even this thread, which has been a problem since I re-joined Macrumors months ago - is now showing as read.

Very cool... haven't seen this for awhile 😀

(For clarity's sake: the problem was, this thread and about 4 others were always showing as unread no matter how many times I opened them, and when you open them, it went to the first post, instead of the last). I no longer seem to have this issue as of today.

View attachment 2555407
Click to expand...
DOH... short lived... refreshing my watched threads - lol - it's back:

1758472791441.jpeg



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And after another refresh, it's gone for now... lol

1758472909999.jpeg



Just FYI, for the last few months - no matter what I did, I couldn't get that Watched counter to go to 0. This is the first time I'm seeing that in awhile. 😀
 
WildCowboy said:
We're looking at it, but haven't found a solution. Latest effort at rebuilding some caches didn't help.
Click to expand...

I suppose there might be some fear of really digging in on the production environment. I hope there is a test environment where the problem can be reproduced. I see that Arn was fussing over the other environments in 2021

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Cloning a Xenforo install without threads/posts

I find the size of our database to be cumbersome in making a development/staging site. It's a bit of a pain, and takes up a lot of room on our development server. To the point where we can't easily have multiple installs to do testing on different things. We already don't copy...
xenforo.com xenforo.com

and had an approach to creating smaller versions of the site. But, now the full site needs to be cloned (without attachments and such). Certainly a clone would exhibit the bug, allow someone to diagnose the problem, and try solutions.
 
dwrufus53 said:
After a bit of sleuthing, I have discovered that the issue with these threads may not be the threads themselves, but rather specific posts within the threads. I view the forums via the web on my Mac but via Tapatalk on my phone. In both cases, the threads seem to want to open at what it determines to be the first unread post in the thread. And in the two remaining threads that I am still watching (I've "unwatched" several) that display this issue, both open to a specific post in each thread.

I've documented the posts in each for reference:


Perhaps documenting the triggering posts will help the MR staff sort the issue.
Click to expand...

I'll say that for me, the threads don't seem to open to a specific post. It's either the very first post, with no option to go to first unread, because I've read them all, OR it goes to the first post and then I get the Go to First Unread for any new posts. All of mine are currently all up to date, so I can't actually tell if the First Unread takes me to a "vintage" post, but I'll check that the next time one gets resurrected.


BigMcGuire said:
DOH... short lived... refreshing my watched threads - lol - it's back:

View attachment 2555408


-----------

And after another refresh, it's gone for now... lol

View attachment 2555409


Just FYI, for the last few months - no matter what I did, I couldn't get that Watched counter to go to 0. This is the first time I'm seeing that in awhile. 😀
Click to expand...

I probably spend way too much time on MR but for weeks I've been having all threads intermittently read as all read/up to date, but refreshing the screen once it's at zero will almost immediately bring back the badges and fake unread threads. But at least 1-2x a day now I'll get them to zero out, however briefly.
 
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mollyc said:
OR it goes to the first post and then I get the Go to First Unread for any new posts.
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Okay, I had one of my problem threads commented on overnight, and yes, it did take me to the first post in the thread when I clicked the link in my Watched List, but also gave me the option to Go to First Unread. So clearly the software knows which thread post I am supposed to go to, but glitches me to the first post for some reason.

I previously noticed this behavior on other dormant threads, I think the sofware wants to give you the option to "catch up" if you don't remember the activity (and I see this on other websites, presumably with the same forum software) but once you actually get to the end the whole thing gets marked as unread and behaves like any other thread. But we obviously have the glitch going on, so it never stays Unread.
 
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Sital said:
It's starting to sound like there are no coders for the forum software.
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Yeah. I believe MacRumors just self-hosts the forum software. Because of that, they probably have no support from the developers of the software.

I also suspect there are no developers on staff at MacRumors (i.e. someone working for MacRumors in a developer capacity). So the support of this website would be sort of a hobbyist effort. Perhaps Arn was the only one seriously engaged in it and he's stepped away for personal reasons. That seems likely to me.

If something more substantial breaks, then they'll probably hire someone to get it fixed (if someone has the authority to make that happen). If Arn is really no longer available and hasn't handed off authority or ramped someone up, then the site will fold or be sold.
 
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so i am sure that i will now jinx this, but i haven't had the issue in a day or two, despite multple refreshes trying to cause the unreads to pop back up.
 
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It is interesting how it comes and goes - to the point where I think, oh hey it's fixed! Then BAM, I'll have a week where 6 threads are showing unread. Haha.
 
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