CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

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CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby driggs » Apr 1, 2010 1:30 pm

Here's a screenshot of the Everything Bats forum; note the following battiness:

* There are two "Topics" sections
* The "READ ME FIRST" sticky thread is linked twice
* My screenshot doesn't show it, but rather than paging all the threads over multiple threads, I see many threads listed on the only page for Everything Bats
* On the big list of threads, I see many unclickable ones posted "by Guest » Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm"

Screenshot is large, so I'll link to it rather than inlining it: http://speleo.us/~driggs/images/cavechat_everything_bats_bug.png

:cavechat:
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby Phil Winkler » Apr 1, 2010 2:22 pm

Dave, looks ok to me. Maybe someone has played an April Fool joke on you? Expect a resolution tomorrow? :tonguecheek:
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby NZcaver » Apr 1, 2010 3:00 pm

Hi Dave,

I see what you mean. Thanks for picking it up and mentioning it. I can only imagine it's a phpBB software glitch.

I recently modified and reposted the Read Me First post. It shows up at the top (where it should be), and that second box appears to be a quick reference to recent posts. I'm not sure why it's there twice, but I suspect if I delete one it will delete the post from everywhere (and that would be bad). I took a look at a few other sub forums, and can't see the same problem. Maybe I'll take a quick poke around in the forum admin area and see what I can do without breaking anything.

PS We know about all the blank "guest" posts. As far as I know they appear in all the sub forums and it's been that way for a couple of years. My understanding is these are unintended "artifacts" which somehow appeared when we did a major forum software update. They are 1969-dated headers which link to recent posts for some weird reason. Unfortunately we're stuck with them. I guess deleting all the posts and starting again *might* work, but I think that would make a few people unhappy.

PPS I see the "single long list of topics rather than individual pages" and "duplicate Read Me First post" problems also apply to the NSS Topics sub forum. :doh:
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby NZcaver » Apr 1, 2010 3:38 pm

After some careful tinkering under the hood, we're back where we started.

For some weird reason that extra block of recent posts still appears at the top, and all the topics are listed on a single page. The global setting is 50 topics listed per page, but even overriding the count for that specific forum doesn't work. Everything is still on one page.

Administrator David might try tinkering with it, but I'm stumped. You might have to just live with the status quo, I'm afraid.
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby Phil Winkler » Apr 1, 2010 3:44 pm

With an earlier version there was a maintenance thing where the data tables (posts) could be rebuilt. It meant taking it offline for awhile, tho. I'll have a look and see if anything like this is over there.
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby NZcaver » Apr 1, 2010 3:47 pm

Knock yourself out, Phil. I'll refrain from touching anything in the ACP for a while, lest we both manage to screw something up.
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby PYoungbaer » Apr 1, 2010 4:30 pm

I'm running into a different issue: everytime I pick a topic - no matter which forum - it tells me to enter a password - which is already typed in (a string of dots), and when I try, it says the password is no good.

Maybe it's a sign I've said enough? :roll:
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby driggs » Apr 1, 2010 4:41 pm

PYoungbaer wrote:I'm running into a different issue: everytime I pick a topic - no matter which forum - it tells me to enter a password - which is already typed in (a string of dots), and when I try, it says the password is no good.


I'm also now being prompted for a password when I try to view the Everything Bats forum; it lets me view the WNS sub-forum and posts without issue however.
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby NZcaver » Apr 1, 2010 6:31 pm

I should be fixed now.Post here if you still have problems.

I won't go into the details, but it was probably my fault. I noticed it happened a few hours ago, when I was messing with settings. I figured out why, and immediately corrected it. I'm really not sure why it did it again. Regardless, it should only have affected the bats forum and nothing else, so I'm not sure what is causing the issue for Peter.

Apologies for the inconvenience folks.
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby onebat » Apr 1, 2010 6:43 pm

The Everything Bats forum still asks me for a password.
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby NZcaver » Apr 1, 2010 6:49 pm

Thanks for the heads up. It just worked a couple of minutes ago, but now it doesn't. :punch: Give me a few minutes.

...OK, try now. I logged out of the forum and I can still get into everything bats. So hopefully it's fixed.


PS Dave Riggs - this probably goes against personal nature for both you and I, but I guess there is some wisdom to the "if it ain't broke and it still works, don't mess with it" rule. :doh:
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby driggs » Apr 1, 2010 8:57 pm

NZcaver wrote:...OK, try now. I logged out of the forum and I can still get into everything bats. So hopefully it's fixed.


While I'm no longer prompted for a password, I still see two "Topics" boxes, two links to "READ ME FIRST", and hundreds of threads listed on a single long page (including the Guest '69 threads). Logging out and back in had no effect. It's good enough for me, but could be indicative of some nasty database issue lurking beneath the surface.

:shrug:



NZcaver wrote:PS Dave Riggs - this probably goes against personal nature for both you and I, but I guess there is some wisdom to the "if it ain't broke and it still works, don't mess with it" rule.


I'm not sure how you pay for your cave gear addiction, but I do computer work when I'm aboveground; if I tried to count the number of times that I'd "improved" something which already worked, then wound up spending the rest of the night repairing the damage... I'd run out of fingers!

:doh:
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby driggs » Apr 1, 2010 9:20 pm

OK, I have done some testing to determine that things are still batty in the Everything Bats forum... Moderators may delete my testing posts [1], [2], [3], [4] when they see fit.

1. The bottom Topics box contains all "old" threads which were originally created prior to March 31. Threads are sorted by most recent post within the thread (like every other forum on CaveChat).

2. The top Topics box contains all "new" threads which have been created since March 31. Threads are sorted by original post time (not most recent comment). All new topics wind up here.

:yikes:

Edit: Oops, my fourth test post shows that both Topics boxes are sorting threads by original post date, not by most recent post!
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby NZcaver » Apr 2, 2010 1:19 am

I deleted your test posts. I thought members were able to delete their own posts, but obviously not. I duplicated your permissions and it wouldn't let me do it. I guess I have to be me to delete whatever you say.

From what you said in your most recent post, I think you've got it all figured out. I'll let you into a couple of secrets. One - everything bats is not the only sub forum which has these issues. Two - many of the moderators (those who are awake and notice such things) have known about these issues for literally years. Because of my pedantic nature, I did find myself slightly more annoyed by this than others. But I got over it. Mostly.

Perhaps we will have to wait and see if the next big forum software release fixes nasty lurking database issues like this. Of course new versions might come with other nasty surprises to entertain us.

driggs wrote:I'm not sure how you pay for your cave gear addiction, but I do computer work when I'm aboveground; if I tried to count the number of times that I'd "improved" something which already worked, then wound up spending the rest of the night repairing the damage... I'd run out of fingers!

I know the feeling, and not just with computers and online problems. I'm also not sure how I pay for my cave gear addiction. :doh:
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Re: CaveChat "Everything Bats" forum gone batty

Postby David Grimes » Apr 2, 2010 11:02 am

Sorry to chime in late on this one. I have not been messing around with any settings but I may know the solution, the forum contains settings which can automatically bring old topics to the top of the list if a new post is added. These settings can also close a forum if there is no activity. I suspect that the Everything Bats and the other forum in question have the settings set to close the forum if there is no activity and since everyone is so preoccupied with the WNS forum the Bats forum has gone relatively unused, after my topic about how many bats are considered significant was moved to the bats forum it and the other recent post were put into a new topic box which likely can't be fixed. New posts should go to the new topics section as long as the forum is used fairly frequently it will not create a new topic box but if it goes dormant again it will create another one. The same goes for the duplicate "Please read me first" topic, since there is a new topic box the post is duplicated and placed at the top.

The old posts are still open for posting but will never be moved to the new topic box. I will check out the settings and see if I can stop it from doing this in the future.

As for the guest posts I am not sure, they have existed here since before I became administrator but I will do some research and see what I can find.
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