Forum functionality issues

[Alex]

Please post any functionality problems you encounter or other Forum software issues you note. We will use the input to better address the errors the recent database changes made.

[hotdogPi]

The Facebook photos in the addition game (checked page 53, since that's the page I needed to go to to make my next play) aren't showing up for me.

Also check the thread title here: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=33722

Quebec is now Québec. 🦆

[kirbykart]

Also check the thread title here: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=33722

I just found one with the same problem: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=33853.msg2871717#msg2871717

Were these quotation marks before? I think they were. However, the 'NY 17/"I-86"' thread displays the quotation marks correctly.

EDIT: Apostrophes seem to also be glitched in the same way, but the sequence ends with a trademarked symbol rather than oe. (Edit to the edit: I made this edit before I saw 1's post.)

[hotdogPi]

However, the 'NY 17/"I-86"' thread displays the quotation marks correctly.

Straight quotes are in ASCII, but curly quotes aren't. Which one gets used is browser-dependent; your keyboard can only input straight ones, but many browsers auto-change them. The same is true for apostrophes.

[Alex]

It looks like collation settings in the database need to be switched, I'll look into it next.

[kirbykart]

Quebec is now Québec. 🦆

Quebec is fine on my computer.

[hotdogPi]

Quebec is now Québec. 🦆

Quebec is fine on my computer.

I should have made it clearer: only Québec is changed. Anyone typing it without the accent won't have it happen. (In addition, anyone typing it after the reopening a few minutes ago is also fine.)

[fwydriver405]

Quebec is now Québec. 🦆

Quebec is fine on my computer.

Montréal (Montreal) was also showing as Montréal for me in addition to the above, as with special symbols like ½ (1/2), though this mostly is with past replies and not with anything new.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=28024.msg2852486#msg2852486

[hotdogPi]

The "last posting within 15 seconds" bug has not been fixed yet.

So far, I've figured out that it only happens when there has been a post (by anyone, anywhere on the forum) within the last 15 seconds, but I've also seen two posts 11 seconds apart, so it doesn't always happen.

[Alex]

One change made was that we switched the database from mySQL 5.5 to MariaDB 10.6. The previous collation was "utf8_bin". That is not an option with the MariaDB, so we set it to utf8mb4_unicode_ci

There's more to research this with the SMF forums, but I will be away the next few hours. So try to ignore the character issues for the time being. Thanks!

[1995hoo]

I notice some posts I remember having read prior to the shutdown are now marked as unread, but that's not something I would expect the moderators to try to resolve because it has to be more trouble than it's worth to fix it.

[hotdogPi]

I notice some posts I remember having read prior to the shutdown are now marked as unread, but that's not something I would expect the moderators to try to resolve because it has to be more trouble than it's worth to fix it.

It affects about a 12-hour window and that's it.

[webny99]

Thanks, it's good to see the forum is back up and running. I believe that was the longest outage there's been (or if not, one of very few) since I joined in 2017.

One small change I've noticed - and I say "change" because I haven't fully judged whether it matters enough to the forum experience to be an "issue" - previously, after clicking on a board, then back to the home page, the green arrow next to that board would turn gray, to represent that board having been viewed. Now, the arrow remains green even after clicking on and off a board several times. My guess would be that the arrow will still turn gray, but only after each individual thread in that board has been viewed, although I haven't tested this yet.

[Hunty2022]

I notice some posts I remember having read prior to the shutdown are now marked as unread, but that's not something I would expect the moderators to try to resolve because it has to be more trouble than it's worth to fix it.

Some of the posts on my "unread" show me as the person who last posted. How do I not read my own posts?

[formulanone]

The Facebook photos in the addition game (checked page 53, since that's the page I needed to go to to make my next play) aren't showing up for me.

I think it was doing that for a while, possibly just Facebook creating expiring hotlinks.

[hotdogPi]

I notice some posts I remember having read prior to the shutdown are now marked as unread, but that's not something I would expect the moderators to try to resolve because it has to be more trouble than it's worth to fix it.

Some of the posts on my "unread" show me as the person who last posted. How do I not read my own posts?

This has happened in the past when your own posts are moved from one thread to another.

The Facebook photos in the addition game (checked page 53, since that's the page I needed to go to to make my next play) aren't showing up for me.

I think it was doing that for a while, possibly just Facebook creating expiring hotlinks.

They expire in less than a week?

[LilianaUwU]

I notice some posts I remember having read prior to the shutdown are now marked as unread, but that's not something I would expect the moderators to try to resolve because it has to be more trouble than it's worth to fix it.

Some of the posts on my "unread" show me as the person who last posted. How do I not read my own posts?

Some members' posts are so low quality you'd think they don't read their own posts.

[webny99]

One small change I've noticed - and I say "change" because I haven't fully judged whether it matters enough to the forum experience to be an "issue" - previously, after clicking on a board, then back to the home page, the green arrow next to that board would turn gray, to represent that board having been viewed. Now, the arrow remains green even after clicking on and off a board several times. My guess would be that the arrow will still turn gray, but only after each individual thread in that board has been viewed, although I haven't tested this yet.

Update: All boards are still showing the green arrow to represent unread posts even after clicking all unread threads in that board, except for GHT and OT, which have a yellow arrow to represent unread posts in child boards. Using the "Mark Read" feature within each board removes the yellow "New!" message from each thread as usual, but the green arrow on the home page remains.

[Hunty2022]

My post count here says 892, but on my posts page, it shows 894. I believe it may be my last two posts before the forum shutdown. I am thinking about deleting them and reposting them.

[Max Rockatansky]

I notice some posts I remember having read prior to the shutdown are now marked as unread, but that's not something I would expect the moderators to try to resolve because it has to be more trouble than it's worth to fix it.

Some of the posts on my "unread" show me as the person who last posted. How do I not read my own posts?

This has happened in the past when your own posts are moved from one thread to another.

The Facebook photos in the addition game (checked page 53, since that's the page I needed to go to to make my next play) aren't showing up for me.

I think it was doing that for a while, possibly just Facebook creating expiring hotlinks.

They expire in less than a week?

Usually they expire within 3-5 days I've found.  That's why I usually just link the actual post if there is a Facebook photo that's somehow worthwhile.

[hotdogPi]

On the home page, the regional moderator names for the boards appear more than once for some of them — and apparently 74/171FAN sees it differently from the way I do.

[kphoger]

One small change I've noticed - and I say "change" because I haven't fully judged whether it matters enough to the forum experience to be an "issue" - previously, after clicking on a board, then back to the home page, the green arrow next to that board would turn gray, to represent that board having been viewed. Now, the arrow remains green even after clicking on and off a board several times. My guess would be that the arrow will still turn gray, but only after each individual thread in that board has been viewed, although I haven't tested this yet.

Some of the posts on my "unread" show me as the person who last posted. How do I not read my own posts?

If you read the notice at the top of the forum, you can see that the maintenance was "to expunge a number of posts from a banned user".  This might understandably wreak havoc on how thread replies are counted.  My assumption is that what used to be your most recent unread post in a thread is no longer correctly identified as your most recent unread post in the database.

Now, I'm no computer whiz, but my expectation is that this stuff will either (a) work itself out in the wash, so we just have to be patient, or (b) be addressed by the admin team as time allows, but not on a mission-critical timeline, so we just have to be patient.

A lot of back-end work had to be done to un-break the forum, so I'd say that what appears to be 95% functionality is a big success.

[ZLoth]

A forum administrator or three needs a weekend off now.

[74/171FAN]

I am having an issue with the green arrow still appearing on boards even though I have caught up on posts.

[kphoger]

A forum administrator or three needs a weekend off now.

1.  What timing, too, right as they've been working on the new Wiki.

2.  I'm sure there's still plenty of work ahead of them to fix the remaining glitches, so maybe this week-end is too soon for that vacation.