Previous/Next Thread goes to Wrong Thread
 

I've been noticing sporadically that the Previous Thread/Next Thread function at the bottom of the page doesn't work. It sometimes directs me to a thread i the forum that isn't the previous/next one. This is not a matter of sticky threads or of new posts at the time. I notice what he next thread should be, before going to a thread, click on next thread, am surprised by the result, and then return to the (refreshed) forum page to check that I was still right about where I should have been taken.

I've noticed this in several fora and it's been happening for at least several weeks, although initially I thought that I might be imagining the problem.

This one works ok :)

If you notice one that's going to the wrong thread, tell me what page it's on...

it's been happening today on the DL forum a lot. Earlier it was wrong at least once on the China forum.

It just happened to me again on the DL forum:

From "GA didn't fill all of FC" (last post 5:12 pm)

Click Previous Thread

Go to "Flight 6128 out of DTW complete incompetence" (last post 4:35 pm), which was at least several threads beyond the "previous" one that I had expected to appear.

When I go back to the DL forum page that lists the most recent threads, I see that there were eight more that were between the thread where I was and the thread to which FT erroneously sent me when I asked for the Previous Thread:

"SYD-HGK now that there is no VS option" at 5:10 pm (SHOULD HAVE APPEARED)

"Homeland Security...." 5:08 pm

"DT TPAC...." 5:07 pm

"Any Diamonds...." 4:57 pm

"Minimum Connection....(SLC)" 4:53 pm

"Delta's Award Chart" 4:47 pm

"Testing the Delta SC..." 4:39 pm

"Update to DL SC...." 4:38 pm

before the thread that I was incorrectly taken to.

Hello MSPeconomist,

I have reported this to our Tech team to see what the problem may be. We will keep you updated. Thank you for your patience.

It's still happening. This morning, I tried to go to previous thread, again in the DL forum, from

"Lag between inflight food..." at 9:15 am (Central time)

and was sent to

"Using Skymiles from SEA to Asia" with last post at 7:29 am.

There were fourteen threads inbtween these two threads.

"Next thread" is determined chronologically by when the thread was created. The tool seems to be working as designed.

No, in the past, it has always gone to the next thread below on the forum list, which would be the thread with the next most recent post. Similarly, for previous thread, it has always gone to the thread listed just above on the forum page, which would be the thread with the next most recent but earlier most recent post.

If you haven't visited a forum for a while, you go to the top thread after all of the sticky material, look at that thread, and then keep clicking "previous" until you've seen all of the new material in the order that threads are listed on the main page for the forum, which is ordered by the most recent post, not by when the thread was created. For example, if something has been added to a sticky thread, I see that one in the order it would be if it weren't stickied. And if someone has posted recently in a lounge thread, going through clicking either next of previous gets me to the lounge thread where it is in the list. Otherwise, since the lounge threads are generally many years old, one would never see new posts there by clicking Previous or Next.

OK. Apparently this is a very complex issue.

The functionality is supposed to be as you described. Click Next, go to the next newest *new thread*, or the next thread with a *new post*. If that's not happening, there's more than one possible reason. One is, it's not working as designed -- but tech does not seem to believe that.

The other possibility is that between the time when you come into the thread you're currently reading and the time when you click Next, the list of threads in that forum has changed and the table the tool is using to determine what the "next" thread is, is out of date -- therefore it won't take you where you think you should go. To relieve this, you can try refreshing the page before clicking Next.

Tech is also going to try a back-end experiment that may or may not resolve this. If it does, great. If not... try the refresh page trick.

Paul

At first I thought that perhaps the problem was indeed that there were posts in the interim, but this clearly doesn't seem to be the case in the examples I provided in my post #4 and post #6 above. In both cases, I wondered whether FT was using a cached version of the forum to determine which thread was Next or Previous, but the problem occurs when FT doesn't seem to otherwise be having database problems.

It's happening again in a crazy way on the DL forum. Just now I tried previous a few times starting with the thread having the most recent post and each time it skipped over some threads, sometimes going back an additional hour.

Tech does believe this is a cacheing issue; try clearing your cache?

It's happening again, this time on the AA pre merger forum. Clicking next thread resulted in skipping ten threads with more recent posts than the one to which I was sent.

BTW, I had cleared my cache not that much earlier, although I had visited the AA forum since then.

It's definitely cacheing the old page. If this happens, clear your cache, reload the page, and it should work. Right now, cache clearing is the only workaround.