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Cannot mark as read one of my watched threads [MERGED]
- Thread starter UliBaer
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That fits the previously observed pattern, as do each of the threads I've observed. @surferfb may be onto something.
Just to follow up on my initial observation, it has since happened to a couple more threads for me, and they all meet the "dormant for months then a recent post" criteria. Also, it's happened to every one of those types of threads (i.e., there hasn't been a dormant post that then gets activity that doesn't become "impossible to mark as read".
That's not the case for me. It's happened on a few threads in the iPhone Accessories forum (as just one example) that are active everyday or most everyday.
Meanwhile these are also stuck for me:
For the last to clear i have to mark the complete subforum as read.
For the last to clear i have to mark the complete subforum as read.
Can you provide links, please? I'm very curious as to what the actual differences are.
Many threads are exhibiting this issue for me. One of note is the iOS 26 Speculation thread
despite the age of this thread (aka the issue) and now 130+ posts, and several pings to the site owner - the problem is getting worse. Seems that all our reporting here goes into la-la-land.
Some update sure would be appreciated.
Some update sure would be appreciated.
Here are just some of the culprits for me.
I’m seeing something I think may be related.
If I click on a multiple page thread I’ve previously read, it should take me to the first unread post, but it takes me to the initial post instead, even after manually marking the thread as read.
These are threads which I am not watching.
Edit to add:
It even does it here. I click on the post and it takes me to the initial post. No matter how many times I mark it as read.
If I click on a multiple page thread I’ve previously read, it should take me to the first unread post, but it takes me to the initial post instead, even after manually marking the thread as read.
These are threads which I am not watching.
Edit to add:
It even does it here. I click on the post and it takes me to the initial post. No matter how many times I mark it as read.
If you mark a thread as Read, and you then click on the thread again with no more posts, then the correct behavior is for it to take you to the first post of that thread. One can debate whether that's the most sensible (e.g. taking you to the last post of the thread), but that is how the forum software normally behaves.
To me, it sounds like it's working as expected.
It should be easy to test this on threads that have only 1 page of posts, and haven't seen any new posts for a while. To find candidates, pick a forum and go back a few pages in the threads listing. Example:
It does it when there are new posts as well. It just did it again now.
I typically browse the site via “New posts”. I clicked on a post which I’d previously posted in, so I’d obviously read it, yet it took me to the first post, not the first unread post.
Other forums I frequent behave the way I expect. MR is the outlier here. Perhaps for some reason it’s a conflict with cookies, MR and my iPad?
I typically browse the site via “New posts”. I clicked on a post which I’d previously posted in, so I’d obviously read it, yet it took me to the first post, not the first unread post.
Other forums I frequent behave the way I expect. MR is the outlier here. Perhaps for some reason it’s a conflict with cookies, MR and my iPad?
I don't mind too much when this happens as long as the "Jump to new" button exists and works (which is usually all the time).
The "Jump to new" button doesn't exist in posts that have been read but are stuck as unread in the Watched list. That means the database knows that the thread has been completely read? It also means the database flag used to show the "Jump to new" button is different than the database flag that indicates unread threads in the Watched list?
There are several threads that are never showing read for me even though I have read them.
For example,
When going into the iOS 26 Speculation thread in the iOS 26 forum, it always takes me to the post below, regardless if I've read the thread or not. If I mark it read, then refresh the page, it goes back to unread and still takes me to the same post as of Jun 10th even though I have read the entire thread.
Many other threads are behaving this way.
What you describe is the behavior of a "stuck" thread. "Mark Read" in the thread itself will not unstick a stuck thread.
AFAIK, the only solution for a stuck thread is to click the "Mark Read" button for the forum it's in. This is only a temporary unsticking. It will be correctly marked as read until the next time you visit the thread. If there are unread posts, it will take you to the most recent unread post, but the thread will then become stuck at that post. You then have to repeat the forum-level "Mark Read" trick.
When will Arn, or the developers chime in and provide an update to us users of this ongoing issue?
Peculiar turn of events: I just noticed that the UK Court thread noted above is now marked as read, though nobody has posted to it in over a month. Could that length of time somehow be pertinent to this isolated remediation of the issue, as it sometimes appears to be pertinent to causing the issue in the first place?
The iPhone case thread, in contrast, is still refusing to be flagged as read, and someone just posted to it half an hour ago. I read that thread just a moment ago and reloaded my Watched threads page, but it still shows that thread as unread. The issue also affects the counter next to the "Watched" link in the header -- but (ahem... usually) only on the Watched threads page and the iPhone forum page which hosts that thread; the counter is normally correct on any other page. Except, you know... mere moments after I posted this comment. (Sigh.)
Presumably this problem is buried in some pretty complex code. Out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know what software underpins the MacRumors forum? If it happens to be open source, maybe one of us could take a look at the problem.
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I have a theory here. I know the forums run on some synced servers located in different places. I'm guessing what is happening is marked as read threads are not properly syncing between cached servers, so depending on what server you happen to hit, the threads may or may not be properly marked as read.
pinging @arn or @WildCowboy to take a look.
I can sit here and command-r refresh and all threads will show marked read (as they should be), then ten seconds later another command-r shows four old threads unread. This happens over and over.
That would suggest a data integrity issue, as opposed to a code issue. Since it's not open source, I obviously can't contribute meaningfully to debugging the code... but personally, my gut instinct is to think that this is more likely to be a code issue. I could very well be incorrect.
Here are my own observations, for what it's worth:
Just now, I noted that the iPhone case thread had a new comment and was marked (correctly) as unread. So I read that most recent comment, posted 16 minutes ago. I then immediately went back to the Watched threads page and hit refresh. It was marked (correctly) as read. I then immediately after that hit refresh again. It was marked (incorrectly) as unread, even though there were no additional comments in the thread. This brief experiment took place all within less than ten seconds, and (for me) is reliably recreate-able, every time someone posts to one of those threads.
With all due respect, I would think that if this was a caching issue as you theorized in #146, it likely wouldn't be quite so consistently predictable.