"new posts" changes without reading them...

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Hi - I noticed that sometimes I click on 'new posts', and many of the posts that previously qualified as 'new' no longer show. I would need to go to "today's posts" to see them.

For instance - this morning, I clicked 'new posts' which showed 5 pages of new posts for me - and I started reading but then had to do some work. A few hours later, I clicked 'new posts' again to "refresh it", and then only 2 pages of 'new posts' showed up (and I didn't click "mark forums read").

has anyone seen this? One note - I do use my laptop to access SMC from work as well as from home, and I'm not sure how or where vBulletin tracks what posts/forums have been read - could the change in location be causing this?

[Keith Outten]

John,

The vBulletin software automatically logs you out after 30 minutes of inactivity. When this happens it ends your session so any post that you did not read will be marked by the software as being read based on the time you were logged out. When you select the New Posts feature our software provides a list of the new posts since your last log-out. If you open all five pages of new posts in multiple browser pages you will have captured the new posts and be able to read them at will without worry about the logout clock.

Before anyone asks why we have an auto logout the answer is :

When each person connects to our server a series of processes are opened to support your access here. We often have between 300 to 700 people online so the load and the number of processes can become very large requiring a lot of server activity. Clock cycles on a server are not unlimited so the server is configured to only allow a maximum number of people at one time, the number is relatively high or you would occasionally get the equivalent of a busy signal. The auto logout prevents this from happening, without it our server would probably be down most of the time.

I'm not a server Admin so I can't explain how this works in detail but I think I'm pretty close
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[Tom Veatch]

The vBulletin software automatically logs you out after 30 minutes of inactivity...

Keith, does the software automatically log you out when you simply close the browser without going through a intentional logout, i.e. clicking on the "Log Out" button.

Just wondering if I'm hogging server resources for the "time-out" period when I simply navigate away from the Creek or shut down the browser.

[Keith Outten]

Tom,

If you close your browser without selecting the logout menu item vBulletin waits 30 minutes before it logs you out.
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[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Thanks for the explanation - and now, another question - if I only get 1 page into 5 pages of 'new' posts, are you saying there's no way to avoid "losing" the other 4 'new' pages unless I read them all right there and then?

and if the answer is yes - actually, I can live with that - just another reason to put off other things

[Keith Outten]

John,

The short anser is yes.

However if you have five pages of new posts you can open all five pages in separate browser windows and then take your time going through the posts.
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[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Thanks for the help, Keith.