Missing Posts (was Re: Isn't it too early to be '08 II?)

[Angelique Wins]

"...please remember this very important part of the forum's guidelines:

It's also up to you to be sure to read and follow any instructions that might be posted to either the "Testing. 1, 2, 3..." board and/or specially marked topics atop any of the other boards. Failure to read additions/amendments and/or special posts will not be considered an excuse should you violate a guideline or fail to comply with a request.

While my question is not about the mysterious future archive board, I do have a question about the above quote.  I usually count on "show unread posts" to see what I've missed, but recently, I can be gone for a week or so, and see that there are new posts from the "most recents" listed on the home page, but when I click "show unread posts," it says "No messages."  If I only have time for a quick visit, but don't check out ALL the new posts, are the newish ones (which I still haven't read) lost in BoardLand?

Judy

[Mysterious Benefactor]

They will be lost so far as the main "Show unread posts since last visit" feature goes. But so long as you haven't clicked on any of the "Mark as read" buttons, using the "Click here to try all unread topics" feature that appears within "Show unread posts since last visit" will bring up all the posts you haven't read.

I hope that helps. 

[Angelique Wins]

"...using the "Click here to try all unread topics" feature that appears within "Show unread posts since last visit" will bring up all the posts you haven't read.

I hope that helps. 

Thanks, MB.  And that would help.  If it worked for me like that.  But I KNOW I have never gotten around to reading EVERY topic/post on the boards.  I don't think I have ever marked anything unread, and still my "all unread topics" is only ever one page of posts. 

Judy

[Mysterious Benefactor]

How very odd. And you know what's even odder? I checked out your account using IE and Firefox, expecting to get the same results, however, Firefox comes up with three times more unread posts than IE does.      I have no idea why that's happening. And it doesn't just happen for you - it happens for me too. However, unlike you, when I click on the "All unread posts" link, the missing posts do show up in IE.

Something very odd is going on. And that leads me to warn everyone that using the "Show unread posts since last visit" may not be reliable at the moment and could be missing posts. A better alternative might be to use the "View the most recent posts on the forum" link down in the "Forum Stats" section of the "Info Center" on the BoardIndex page (the main drawback of which is that it brings the latest posts up first, which means you can easily read replies before you come across the post being replied to). Or to just visit each board individually whenever it displays the "New Posts" icon (which is what I've always done) because it's apparently the most reliable method for catching everything.

And when I get a chance, I'll have to check out the SMF home site to see if anyone else has been experiencing this same problems with "Show unread posts since last visit"...