# "Last Visit" - read / unread question



## AKJayhawk

Is there some sort of time limit for when the forum decides you "last visit" and thus resets all your "view first unread post" markers? Have noticed a couple of times that if I get distracted and do something else while reading a forum that causes the page to sit there unrefreshed for a while suddenly all my thread get marked "read."

Really difficult in things like the XBOX threads -- then you have to sift through several pages of posts to try and figure out where you were in the thread.

I've only noticed this a few times intermittently, and just today is when it dawned on me that I had spent some time on one page. When went back to the main forum, it had reset my "You last visited" marker to that time and reset all the new post markers.

Thanks
Jeff


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## dkaz

Current settings for our forums (default ones for vBulletin) will mark all threads "read" after your session expires.

Current session timeout is set to 20 minutes, which means that you were probably idle for 20 minutes in those instances.


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## AKJayhawk

Thanks for the info -- is that something the user can set, or is it in the backend and not user controlled? Didn't see an option for that, so assuming it's something in the underlying structure.

Guess I'll have to make sure I stay engaged and get through all the boards when I open them so I don't lose my place!

Thanks
Jeff


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## dkaz

unfortunately it's a global flag


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## Marc

Any chance you'd enable the option to retain per-thread read-status for each user?


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## Royster

If not per-thread (that sounds like an awful lot of data), then is there a per forum option? It would be nice to know that my place were being kept in HH if I just popped into Season Pass Alerts.


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## marct

Marc said:


> Any chance you'd enable the option to retain per-thread read-status for each user?


That would be awfully nice. I keep trying to use the last unread post function and didn;t understand why it was not working till I read this.

Please consider this. How do we bring this further to see if it could be enabled?


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## Marc

Royster said:


> If not per-thread (that sounds like an awful lot of data), then is there a per forum option? It would be nice to know that my place were being kept in HH if I just popped into Season Pass Alerts.


From my experience with vBulletin (you know where ), there are three options available:



> _Inactivity/Cookie Based_ - once a user has been inactive for a certain amount of time (the value of the session timeout option) all threads and forums are considered read. Individual threads are marked as read within a session via cookies.
> 
> This option is how all versions of vBulletin before 3.5 functioned.
> _Database (no automatic forum marking)_ - this option uses the database to store thread and forum read times. This allows accurate read markers to be kept indefinitely. However, in order for a forum to be marked read when all threads are read, the user must view the list of threads for that forum.
> 
> This option is more space and processor intensive than inactivity-based marking.
> _Database (automatic forum marking)_ - this option is the same as a previous option, but forums are automatically marked as read when the last new thread is read.
> 
> This is the most usable option for end users, but most processor intensive.


They seem to use option #1 here. Certain other places of which I know use option #3 and it has many benefits from the user perspective.


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## dkaz

I'll look into using #3...it had indeed triggered my interest as well when I read the original post in this thread.


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## dkaz

Marc, since you seem familiar with the option, do you know what the user experience would be like on a switch over to #3?

Would everyone's state be unread when we switched?


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## Royster

There's definitely something flaky going on with Last Read. It seems to get stuck for me so that hitting the First Unread button always takes me to the same posts.


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## rhuntington3

Royster said:


> There's definitely something flaky going on with Last Read. It seems to get stuck for me so that hitting the First Unread button always takes me to the same posts.


Yeah, I've noticed that too. Especially annoying when there's many new pages in a thread and you read them all and it comes back like you didn't read them.


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## Marc

My threads aren't being marked as read like they used to either. 

_Edited to add..._

I think it was a browser issue. My system was behaving funny, and since I rebooted, things are working better for me now.


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## orangeboy

AKJayhawk said:


> Is there some sort of time limit for when the forum decides you "last visit" and thus resets all your "view first unread post" markers? Have noticed a couple of times that if I get distracted and do something else while reading a forum that causes the page to sit there unrefreshed for a while suddenly all my thread get marked "read."
> 
> Really difficult in things like the XBOX threads -- then you have to sift through several pages of posts to try and figure out where you were in the thread.
> 
> I've only noticed this a few times intermittently, and just today is when it dawned on me that I had spent some time on one page. When went back to the main forum, it had reset my "You last visited" marker to that time and reset all the new post markers.
> 
> Thanks
> Jeff





dkaz said:


> Current settings for our forums (default ones for vBulletin) will mark all threads "read" after your session expires.
> 
> Current session timeout is set to 20 minutes, which means that you were probably idle for 20 minutes in those instances.


Resurrecting an old thread because it exactly fits my issue. Is the current timeout still 20 minutes? Would there be any overhead if the limit was bumped to 60 minutes or more? It's not too hard to follow a link in a post (relevant to the topic) and easily eat up 20 minutes of time.

For example, a topic about the CCI byte may reference a link to a government pdf file that if goes unread, the remainder of the topic is hard if not impossible to follow. Or a thread about the TiVo vs. Echostar court case that references a court transcript, patent application, or other relevant document, that becomes the focus of the thread.

Edit: Another example is taking 20+ minutes to draft a post, which also leads to the timeout problem!


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## Fofer

Yes! That'd be a very welcome change.


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## ellinj

Fofer said:


> Yes! That'd be a very welcome change.


ditto, and I am aware of much larger forums then this that use per use database marking without issues.


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## orangeboy

I was going through the Coffee House threads this morning, with some of the replies being fairly long. Once all the threads were read, I went to the main forum index, and found that the rest of the forums had been marked as no new posts! 

Can we PLEASE extend the timeout period?


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## Fofer

Seriously.


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## pianoman

Adding my voice to the chorus - can we please change this setting?


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