TiVo Community Forums Archives - Forum software change?

Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/avsforum/archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/archive_functions.php on line 31

Warning: include(http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/header.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/avsforum/archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/archive_functions.php on line 31

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/header.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/avsforum/archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/archive_functions.php on line 31
Pages:1

Forum software change?
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: TiVoOpsMgr

Either three things have changed recently, or I'm going crazy.

1. It used to be that if you post a thread with title X, and then edited the title of your post to title Y, the thread's topic (displayed in the thread list and in the title bar) would change from X to Y. Now it seems like it's stuck at X.

2. I posted a new thread and then tried to delete it. I was given a "no permission" error page. I thought that we were previously able to delete threads.

3. Browser caching -- if you write a PM or post and then are very efficient and write another one within 60 seconds, you get an error message about posting speeds. That's fine. It used to be that if you hit the browser "back" button, you'd see your post again (in the text area of the form), and you could wait 60 seconds and submit it again. But now when I'm in that situation and go back, the form area is clear and I've lost the text that I've typed.

Can others reproduce and verify that these are changes? Or am I missing something?

Thanks,
Stephen

Posted by: walters

1. I think once someone posts to it, you can't change the title.
2. It's been like this for some time now, due to thread deletion abuse.
3. I think it's always been this way. You can fool your browser (assuming IE) into not doing this by going offline (File -> Work Offline) before going back.

Posted by: David Bott

Stephen...You have been a member for quite some time and you do not know of these things? All three points mentioned have been like this for a very, very long time. BTW #3 has nothintg to do with site software and is all browser related.

Posted by: dswallow

To get around #3 instead of going back, just hit the refresh button in the browser and answer OK to resubmit the form info. Repeat until it's accepted. 60 seconds seems like a very long time sometimes. ;)

But #3 is really caused server-side, or at least can be -- so it's not necessarily the only way to cause it. The pages with the form are being marked as non-cacheable so once presented to you, they immediately expire. When you return to the page using the back button, the page is retrieved again from the server and thus has blank form fields rather than being retrieved from cache where it would have the cached contents of those fields, too.

There was a time in recent memory I could use the back button... not that long ago; I sometimes even made comments in postings when I'd had to wait for 60 seconds to pass, and I was using the back button to do it. Then at some point the fields were cleared when I used the back button. It's probably been several months at least, but I'm not really sure. And except for any of the many Windows XP patches, nothing on my system had changed over that time, so I would suspect that something server-side did change; either a default setting for the entire web site affecting caching (my first guess for another reason), or changes to the pages themselves such that the web server is told how to send the various header info to control the caching.

A simple example of why I'm guess a web site setting...

Go to AVSForum in one window, go to TC in another. In each go to a forum and click on new thread. Enter some text in any field. Click the back button then click the forward button.

In TC, the field is blank. In AVSForum, the field retains its contents.

Similarly, if you have a number of unread threads with new postings, go to the user control panel. You'll see the icons indicating unread messages; click on a message to read it, then click on the back button. On TC the page is refreshed to now show that thread has no unread postings. On AVSForum it isn't refreshed automatically.

Which way is better? The need to go to the server to grab the page again even when using back/forward navigation buttons is probably pretty intensive performance-wise, so it might be a good idea if the server ever seems a bit loaded/slow to explore what's different between AVSForum and TC and get TC working like AVSForum; it should save a lot of bandwidth and database accesses, though at the expense of some niceties like seeing the thread status icons change properly without having to manually refresh the page.

Posted by: dswallow

Also, with regard to #1, I have changed the title to a thread when there are no additional postings. And I have changed the title to a thread when there are postings... but it seemed like it took awhile -- 10 or 20 minutes maybe -- so maybe a moderator noticed my attempted change (since it was mentioned in the thread I think, and you could see the title to the post which should've been the thread title as I changed it) and took care of it for me. Or maybe there's some other issue with regard to database caching on the server (for the same reason # of views of a thread doesn't update immediately) and it takes a little time to update.

P.S. Hey TiVoOpsMgr... how about bumping me into the HD DirecTV DVR beta -- just imagine all the detail I can give in feedback if I can go on for so many paragraphs about form fields! Please please. ;) Please. :D

Posted by: TiVoOpsMgr

quote:
Originally posted by walters
1. I think once someone posts to it, you can't change the title.

That's what I thought too, but in testing, it seems that you can't change the title at all once it's posted, regardless of whether or not someone has responded.

quote:
2. It's been like this for some time now, due to thread deletion abuse.

Gotcha. Been a while since I tried to delete a thread.

quote:
3. I think it's always been this way. You can fool your browser (assuming IE) into not doing this by going offline (File -> Work Offline) before going back.

Something definitely changed for me about this. I don't know if I changed my browser configuration or what... But before, doing a back then forward wouldn't cause me to lose what I was typing.

Posted by: TiVoOpsMgr

quote:
Originally posted by David Bott
Stephen...You have been a member for quite some time and you do not know of these things? All three points mentioned have been like this for a very, very long time. BTW #3 has nothintg to do with site software and is all browser related.

Gotcha. I thought I was going crazy and I guess I was! It has been a very, very long time since I needed to change a title or delete a post. For #3, I'm suspecting that I must have changed a browser setting. Thanks for your help.

Posted by: TiVoOpsMgr

quote:
Originally posted by dswallow
To get around #3 instead of going back, just hit the refresh button in the browser and answer OK to resubmit the form info. Repeat until it's accepted. 60 seconds seems like a very long time sometimes. ;)

Excellent tip, thanks!

quote:
There was a time in recent memory I could use the back button... not that long ago; I sometimes even made comments in postings when I'd had to wait for 60 seconds to pass, and I was using the back button to do it. Then at some point the fields were cleared when I used the back button. It's probably been several months at least, but I'm not really sure.

Ok, so you have the same experience as me, that something changed (whether on the forum side or because of Windows patches or some other mysterious cause).

Now that I'm aware, it's pretty easy to work around.

Your other comments definitely bear looking into but I'll leave that for David's capable hands.

Posted by: TiVoOpsMgr

quote:
Originally posted by dswallow
P.S. Hey TiVoOpsMgr... how about bumping me into the HD DirecTV DVR beta -- just imagine all the detail I can give in feedback if I can go on for so many paragraphs about form fields! Please please. ;) Please. :D

I can't even get into that beta myself! But I'll put in a good word for you... :)

Posted by: ccwf

To change a thread title, ask a moderator. They have that power.

Posted by: dswallow

I notice the pages are no longer being told not to cache as I described above, and therefore form fields retain their data when you navigate with the forward/back buttons. ;)

Posted by: David Bott

I was just coming here to post this. It was a mod_gzip issue with this server. Yeah.

Posted by: TiVoOpsMgr

I'm soooo glad that you fixed this! Thanks a ton David.

Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/avsforum/archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/archive_functions.php on line 37

Warning: include(http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/footer.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/avsforum/archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/archive_functions.php on line 37

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/footer.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/avsforum/archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/archive_functions.php on line 37