Oooo...this is good data! This means that the issue is only when a user is logged in, so it must be somewhere in the style sheet for registered members as guests cannot like/unlike and guest access uses a different style sheet. What's even better is that we've definitively proven that the db is being written correctly and the data is there and in the right place. The only issue is on retrieval...which makes me wonder why unliking and liking again fixes it...and in fact, the bug in the ajax should be easy to find by comparing the code and query for when the likes are read after a like is initiated versus when they are read when the thread is initially loaded--and all this only for a registered user. Really narrowing it down!