disappearing posts & date snafus?
 

Since 1/22, I've had the following problems:
- the 'reply counter' sometimes does not match the number of replies
- some of the posts dated 1/22 and 1/23 sometimes do not show at all
- the 'last post' date and time are not in sync with the last post displayed
- edited posts don't show up for over 3 minutes
- a new post or reply does not show on screen after the usual 'thank you for...' screen (causing me to post my first dupe http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif ). The thread displays exactly as before the reply, without one's reply shown.

What is baffling is that sometimes everything works as it should and at other times I run into the above issues.


I have not changed or installed anything on my computer, which is VERY stable and running W2K SP2 with IE 5.5 SP2. Cookies are off, but allowing them didn't resolve matters.

Anybody else experiencing those problems?

I sense some system update is underway since OMNI is so much faster http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by monahos (edited 01-24-2002).]

We're not aware of anything going on with our server at this end.

Do these errors happen only in certain Forums or all over? Could your system be caching pages and showing old results (forum numbers)?

Dan, try and post those instructions you did for Netscape and IE when we switched over to the new FT in July.

It involved clearing cache and deleting cookies and the like. I have a feeling that monahos's pages just aren't automatically reloading every time he is hitting a page.?

Thank you for your advice. Some details:

- I cleared the IE cache and history, no effect
- changed IE's cache lookup from 'automatically' to 'every time', no effect
- I have been a frequent visitor to FT using the exact same computer and configuration since August 2001, and this is the first time I experience those problems; this is my work computer, no sharewhare/spyware/freeware etc. installed
- am an experienced computer user... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
- 'reply counter' not matching the number of posts: rare and sporadic problem. Most recently occured in FT Miles\OMNI and FT Miles\KLM forums. Now cannot replicate this issue.
- regarding the discrepancy between the last post date and time, this only occured in some FT Travel forums, such as Paris (shown: 1/20/02, 8:33am ; actual: 1/22/02, 5:54pm), Asia (shown: 1/19/02, 4:33pm, actual 1/23/02, 7;23am)... This with a completely empty, freshly flushed cache
*** UPDATE: while I was writing this this specific problem went away, at 1:28PM FT time ***


Please do not waste your time trying to solve my problems, if nobody else notices these symptoms.

Anyway, I am much more enclined to blame Microsoft than the FT server.

Thanks for the feedback!

It _could_ be that your work's network is caching pages, as we've seen this happen with larger networks that have proxies that cache frequently hit pages to reduce load time on the end user.

A little update:

- I have noticed a sharp increase in the number of duplicate posts by experienced FT'ers on 1/24 (check some of the newer threads in OMNI)
- I am positive my work network is not using proxies; the provider's proxy is also set to be bypassed. Now I have no idea if the provider started doing yet something else...
- the non-updated page problem goes away if I open a thread using the 'open in new window' function, which gives the full URL in the address bar


This definitely looks like a caching problem. It may be a MS IE issue, as I started experiencing non-refreshed pages on some other sites as well, in the same timeframe.

Once again, thank you for your concern.

I don't know how much load it would put on (an already busy) FT server but isn't there a meta tag for HTML that prevents caching of documents?

ScottC, yep, there are meta tags for that. I'll look into how much it may affect our servers's performance... thanks for the tip.

monahos, you mention "the non-updated page problem goes away if I open a thread using the 'open in new window' function, which gives the full URL in the address bar"

That seems to indicate to me that some type of caching is going on at your end, although we can't seem to narrow it down. Also, you mentioned that you're experiencing this type of problem on other sites now.

I'm stumped http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif But at least you can get a refreshed page by opening a new window...

I've been having the same problems for a similar time period as monahos. I had been guessing it was caching by Comcast, which switched from atHome's network to its own network on 1/22.

It just happened again with my post above. I was able to get a refresh by opening in a new window, then pressing CNTL while clicking refresh.

[This message has been edited by dhacker (edited 01-28-2002).]