Where'd the direct link to today's topics go? [SUPERSEDED]

[movedon]

Bueno?

[david rigby]

comes up empty if there are no postings in the last 24 hours.

[movedon]

Still not working for me - when I go to the home page and roll my cursor over the "Discussion" link, the drop down menu no longer contains a link for "latest messages" or whatever it was.

[david rigby]

You can always go to http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php

then (upper right), click View New Posts

[masteff]

Yes but view new posts is only available if you're logged in. Due to various reasons (general security, internet browser settings, etc), some people do not remain logged in.

And view new posts is different from past 24 hours. If you haven't logged in for a week, view new posts will show you the whole week of posts. But the software sometimes decides you've read everything (as can happen if you leave the forum open while doing something else) making it harder to get back to an earlier-in-the-day post.

In just the time I've been messing w/ this thread, the software has decided that I've already read at least one post that I haven't (which I only know by scanning down the last post info on the forum index page).

[movedon]

Thanks guys for the replies. You're both right - there are other ways to get there. The "view new posts" way requires you to be logged in (I normally am not). There's also a way to get there by going to the forums main page and then clicking a link at the bottom right to view recent posts. Neither is that big of a deal, just not the way I usually come in.

[masteff]

There's also a way to get there by going to the forums main page and then clicking a link at the bottom right to view recent posts.

Good find! It would be easy to create a bookmark using the URL in that link: http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?a...;CODE=getactive And then you'd go there every time.

[movedon]

Whatever it was, it's fixed this morning. Thanks, Dave!

[BG5150]

You can always go to http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php

then (upper right), click View New Posts

This is not working for me today. Anyone else?

[movedon]

You can always go to http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php

then (upper right), click View New Posts

This is not working for me today. Anyone else?

Hmm, it works if I'm logged in, but not if I'm not. I don't usually do it that way, so I don't know if that's normal.

[Bird]

View New Posts

This is not working for me today. Anyone else?

It stopped working for me several days ago; I thought it was after this thread started but it's probably related. I used to never bother logging out, although I would leave the page, and I didn't have to log in when I came back but it would recognize me and recognize the new posts.

I'm going to try formally logging out and logging back in and see if that works.

[BG5150]

It's working for me know. As it so happened, I reset my browser, so maybe it was something in the cookie(s).

[BG5150]

This seems broken again.

When I click View New Posts sometimes I get an error.

The error returned was:

Sorry, but we did not find any matches to display. Try again and broaden your search criteria. If you were searching for new posts since your last visit, it's possible that there are none to show.

Logging out and back in doesn't help. But closing the browser and re-opening gets the list back.

Any ideas.

[MoJo]

This seems broken again.

When I click View New Posts sometimes I get an error.

The error returned was:

Sorry, but we did not find any matches to display. Try again and broaden your search criteria. If you were searching for new posts since your last visit, it's possible that there are none to show.

Logging out and back in doesn't help. But closing the browser and re-opening gets the list back.

Any ideas.

I'm having the same problem. It actually WON'T let me log out, and closing reopening the browser has no impact at all. This seems intermittant (some days it works, some days it doesn't) and I'm going through "message borad withdrawal!!!!"

[K2retire]

Mine is intermittent also. Curiously it is only a problem on my home computer -- not at work. That hints that it could be a browser issue.

[Bird]

I'm having the same problem. It actually WON'T let me log out, and closing reopening the browser has no impact at all. This seems intermittant (some days it works, some days it doesn't) and I'm going through "message board withdrawal!!!!"

Still having problems myself. I use Firefox 15.01.1; anyone else?

[GBurns]

I also have the same problem regardless of computer or location. It is intermittent. You can do a "go 'round" by using the "View New Posts" feature in the upper right beside "My Controls".

[BG5150]

I also have the same problem regardless of computer or location. It is intermittent. You can do a "go 'round" by using the "View New Posts" feature in the upper right beside "My Controls".

That's what I use: View New Posts and it keeps crapping out on me.

Using Firefox 16.01. Says it's up to date.

[BG5150]

I was working for a week. Now it's broke (for me) again.

[Bird]

I was working for a week. Now it's broke (for me) again.

Same here. I can't figure out any rhyme or reason - thought that by logging out and closing the browser, it made a difference, but apparently not.

[BG5150]

It works again--ONCE--when I close my browser. I don't reset it or anything, just close, reopen.

[GMK]

Don't know if it is related, but I'm getting this message at the bottom of the page:

IPS Driver Error

There appears to be an error with the database.

You can try to refresh the page by clicking here.

(edit: clicking here doesn't do anything.)

BG's cape still flaps in the wind, and I can read all the comments just fine, but the font is different.

Dave will get this fixed.

[Tom Poje]

hmmm. are you implying he had beans for lunch?

"BG's cape still flaps in the wind"

all kidding aside, I also have problems looking at the

Retirement Plan Newsletter

currently it shows 10/31

I can go under the archive and get letters through 11/5 and then if I hit refresh 11/6 will show up.

[Bird]

It works again--ONCE--when I close my browser. I don't reset it or anything, just close, reopen.

Worked for me today too. Closed the browser this morning.

Also noticed the different font.

[Kevin C]

The direct link works for me. Other than the initial period it disappeared, it's worked for me using IE 9.

I get the IPS error at times, too.

I also noticed the views counts don't seem to be working lately. There a number of threads with several replies that show 0 views.

[movedon]

As far as I can tell, the view counts have never worked.

[Kevin C]

The view counts were increasing on posts until some time in the last couple of weeks. But, I think it only counted the first time you viewed a post.

[masteff]

I noticed months if not years ago that views didn't work correctly. Most noticable when you have a thread w/ zero views but several replies.

[Chaz]

I'm not sure if this is the same or related issue as above but posts are no longer marked as read after I read them.

Also, "Mark All Posts" as read does not work for me at the bottom of the forum index. I CAN mark posts as read within each forum.

[BG5150]

It's working again now.

however, whenever I click on Go to first unread, in this thread only so far, it brings me to my post of a few days ago, not the most recent.

All the other threads I've tried it takes me to the bona fide first unread.

This is no biggie, but the initial problem is a PITA when it occurs.

[MoJo]

It's working again now.

however, whenever I click on Go to first unread, in this thread only so far, it brings me to my post of a few days ago, not the most recent.

All the other threads I've tried it takes me to the bona fide first unread.

This is no biggie, but the initial problem is a PITA when it occurs.

The link usually works only once a day for me (first thing in the morning). What I do is open the window as a tab in ie9, read what I want, and use the back page arrow to go back,. It updates with new posts when I do that. Trying to hit the "View New Posts" link just gives me the error message....

Frustrating....

[BG5150]

I thought the software update would fix the problem.

Nope.

[Tom Poje]

Dave is working on these issues....(which was why things were shut down for awhile)

[Tom Poje]

hurray. looks like Dave has worked out the kinks, at least some of them!

[MoJo]

hurray. looks like Dave has worked out the kinks, at least some of them!

Unfortunately, not. It was working for me on Wednesday, then stoppped working (again) after the fix yesterday....

[Bird]

Unfortunately, not. It was working for me on Wednesday, then stopped working (again) after the fix yesterday....

Ditto.

[Mike Preston]

The one link I rely on is the Get New Posts link. It always comes back with an empty search unless I log out and log back in. Maybe this is a new "feature". If it is, then I'd like to request yet another feature for a link that lists posts in the last 7 days.

Yes, I know about the list new posts in the My Assistant wizard and it is helpful, but not nearly as useful as what the View New Posts link used to provide.

[Mike Preston]

Things are working as before. Thank you; thank you; thank you!

[MoJo]

Things are working as before. Thank you; thank you; thank you!

*NOT*.... I can use the "view new posts" link once - and then I get an error. Using the back page "button" on my web browser (IE9) gets me back - and refreshes the topic list with new posts. Not a problem if I'm reading - but if I post something, then I have to "back page" repeatedly back to the new posts lists. Argh!

[Mike Preston]

Yes, they have stopped working, again. <sigh>

[GMK]

And didn't Mr. Pilgrim's picture used to be in color instead of B&W? What's up with that, yo?

[Tom Poje]

They didn't have color back then.

Ted Turner must have colorized the pictures previously, but I guess he didn't this year.

[BG5150]

I see no rhyme nor reason to when the "View New Posts" link works again after the first time.

At the moment, for the time being, right know, as we speak, it's working for me.

That is not to say there won't be a sunspot or an earthquake in Outer Mongolia in an hour that will make it stop working again.

[MoJo]

That is not to say there won't be a sunspot or an earthquake in Outer Mongolia in an hour that will make it stop working again.

Apparently that sunspot or earthquake occurred. It was working last Wednesday, but not today....

[Dave Baker]

Hi folks, first let me apologize for being so scarce on the message boards. I am very sorry to be so long in posting to this message thread. I am sorry the software is presenting some "issues" (as Microsoft might say).

Regarding the Views stat for each message thread, I think I fixed it a little while back. (At one time, the software was rebuilding the Views only once every blue moon, rather than incrementing the Views immediately. I later changed a software setting.) So when one views the front page for any particular forum (e.g., the 401(k) message board at http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?showforum=20), the Views stat next to each of the listed message threads should be up to the minute.

The wrinkle is that your web browser might be caching that page, such that viewing a message thread and then using your browser's "back" button/key to return to that message board's front page won't show X+1 views of that message thread. To bypass the cache while the page is on your screen, hit the Control-F5 combination of keys on your Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Regarding the display of information about new content, I am so sorry that the software makes such a mess of it while it tries to be all things to all browsers.

As mentioned earlier in this message thread, a nice straightforward way to see some recent content is to click on "Today's active topics" towards the bottom of the front page of the message boards. The same link appears on the BenefitsLink.com menu (stretching horizontally across the top of all pages except the message boards) under Discussion -> Message Boards -> Latest Messages. You might want to click on the following link (even though it looks like it's garbled) and then bookmark it once you get there, or create a shortcut on your desktop:

http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?a...;CODE=getactive

By "new content," I mean a list of all message threads that either were created during the past 24 hours or that existed 24 hours ago but have had one or more messages added to them. I apologize for the inconsistent terminology (today's active topics = latest messages).

(Note: You can see topics active over a period longer than 24 hours. First go to the page that shows active topics over the past 24 hours. Then scroll to the bottom right part of that page and look for a dropdown box labeled "Get active topics for: " -- You can select "this week" or "past 2 weeks" etc. and then click the adjacent Go button.)

The other way to get information about new content, as you know from understandable frustration, is the "View New Posts" link that appears toward the top right part of most pages (but only if you're logged in). This produces a list of message threads that were created since your last "visit" or that existed at the time of your last visit but have been modified (i.e., have had one or more reply messages added to them).

You'll notice, on the front page of the message boards (at http://benefitslink.com/boards/ ), a phrase towards the top left part of the page that says something like "Welcome back; your last visit was: Nov 23 2012, 01:47 PM". The View New Posts link is supposed to show you a list of the message threads created or modified after that time, if it's working correctly.

(Strangely, that date and time shown as your last visit is updated even if you weren't logged in when you last viewed the message boards, and even if you're not logged at the time of viewing the front page of the Message Boards. Essentially the software is recording the fact that somebody sat down on that particular machine and looked at some page on the message boards at the date and time shown as the last visit.)

If you log out of the message boards using the Log Out link, the date and time at which you log out will become the date of time of your "last visit." When you next view the message boards, the View New Posts feature would show you only the message threads that have been created or modified since that log-out time and date. So if the View New Posts feature is important to you, you wouldn't want to log out until you're sure you've looked at any of the message threads listed by View New Posts.

I think the gotcha is that the message board software tries to do something special for the user who browses the message boards each morning, leaves the browser open without logging out, and then browses the message boards again each afternoon. When the first page is viewed in the morning on Day 2, the View New Posts feature shows message threads that were created or modified since the afternoon of Day 1. When the user sits down in the afternoon on Day 2, the View New Posts feature only shows messages threads that were added or modified since the user began browsing the message board that morning; this is because 3600 or more seconds have passed since the time at which the user last viewed a page on the message boards. Essentially the software considers you to be visiting a second time if it's been more than an hour since some page was generated for you by the message board software.

What's happening to some users, I think, is the View New Posts link works "right" when you first use the message boards in the morning on Day 2 (let's say 9:08 AM). Let's also say that you view a few messages and that the last message is viewed at 9:17 AM. Time passes. If you haven't viewed another page by 10:17 AM then if you click on View New Posts it no longer works "right" because you're shown only message threads that were created or modified after 9:08 AM. This occurs because 3600 or more seconds have elapsed since the last time the software generated a page for you. Essentially the 10:17 click is the start of a new "visit," such that 9:08 AM was the time at which your last "visit" occurred, and the View New Posts function assumes that you want to see only messages since 9:08 AM. The messages from before 9:08 AM are considered old. I could set the 3600 figure to be some higher number such as 7200 (2 hours), but it probably needs to be set at something in that vicinity in order for the View New Posts function to work the way most people expect when they sit down later in the day or on the next day.

The probable reason the "back" button seems to show the "right" results on the View New Posts results page even at 10:17 AM or later is that your browser is showing you a cached version of that page -- it's displaying for you a second time the version of the page that was generated for you earlier in the morning. If, however, you click on the View New Posts link, the software queries its database and generates a new page showing results as of that second and your browser almost certainly will show those results rather than showing the cached version from earlier that morning.

(By the way, if the results of the View New Posts link aren't "right" then one thing you might want to do is go to the lower right part of that page, where you'll see the dropdown box for "Show active topics:" described above. At least that's a way to see all message threads created or modified in the past day or past week, etc., in reverse chronological order, even though the resulting list isn't specific to the last time you visited the boards.)

But I might be wrong about some of this. The documentation for this version of the software is weak, and my research on Google indicates other boards with this version of the software have had trouble with the View New Posts function.

The newest version of the software purports to have an improved version of the whole business of displaying new content (click).

It sounds like it offers some enhancements, although I'm not sure the underlying method of tracking "visits" has been changed. They've also changed "View New Posts" to "View New Content" for certain reasons.

What I'd like to do is upgrade the software to the newest version (a move from version 2.x to version 3.x), in order to see if it is better in this regard, and in order to take advantage of some anti-spam features available only in the new version. The spammers have been hitting the current message boards hard, resulting in bogus registrations that are inflating the number of registered users and that result in spam messages on the boards from time to time. I'd also feel better having the most recent version in order to be sure that all of the potential security issues have been addressed.

I can try to make the site appear as similar as possible to the current site in order to minimize disruption, but there certainly will be some new stuff to get used to. Is everybody OK with needing to do some relearning in order to get the benefits of an upgrade?

[MoJo]

Hi folks, first let me apologize for being so scarce on the message boards. I am very sorry to be so long in posting to this message thread. I am sorry the software is presenting some "issues" (as Microsoft might say).

....

First, Dave, thanks for your attention to this (and to maintaining this board in the first place!). I appreciate it.

Second, to give you some clarification.... Your "3600 seconds" description really isn't the case for me. When I open my browser and go to the message boards, teh "first time" I hit the "View New Posts" link in the upper right, it works, but if I read a message thread and then hit it again (within seconds, or maybe a minute or so) it doesn't work (and it used to). The only way I can get back to the "new messages" is to use my back button - and what I get is NOT a cached version of the page, but a refreshed version (i.e., there may actually be newer posts listed, that weren't there at first).

Using the back function on my browser (IE9) isn't a problem unless I've posted a message myself in response to someone, and then I have to go back multiple pages (with a few errors from "flood control" and whatever) to get back to the new messages (as using the "View New Posts" link just returns an error.

It also is irrelevant how long I've been away during the day - if I use "View New Posts" at anytime AFTER the initial, it won't work. Even closing my browser, logging off and back on (something I don't usually do), and various combinations of the former has no effect.

I can't say for sure, but the few times I've been away from my desk and using my "personal" (non-corporate issued) computer with FIREFOX, and I have no problems at all. I haven't done it enough to know if it will continue to work, but it has worked the few times I've had the opportunity to try it.

Again, just FYI, and thanks for an awesome place to get, and give, important information.

Michael

[Dave Baker]

Second, to give you some clarification.... Your "3600 seconds" description really isn't the case for me. When I open my browser and go to the message boards, teh "first time" I hit the "View New Posts" link in the upper right, it works, but if I read a message thread and then hit it again (within seconds, or maybe a minute or so) it doesn't work (and it used to). The only way I can get back to the "new messages" is to use my back button - and what I get is NOT a cached version of the page, but a refreshed version (i.e., there may actually be newer posts listed, that weren't there at first).

Thanks, Michael! When you say it doesn't work, do you mean that you get the (mostly obnoxious and unhelpful) page that says

Sorry, an error occurred. If you are unsure on how to use a feature, or don't know why you got this error message, try looking through the help files for more information.

The error returned was:

Sorry, but we did not find any matches to display. Try again and broaden your search criteria. If you were searching for new posts since your last visit, it's possible that there are none to show.

[Dave Baker]

I think this is an IE9 issue.... maybe you upgraded to IE9 recently, or changed its cookie/security settings, at which time the View New Posts problem arose?

http://www.dotnet-developer.de/2012/01/asp...t-explorer-ie9/

If so, I should be able to fix it at my end by adding a privacy policy to BenefitsLink.com.

Could you do something for me, Michael? Open IE9, log in to the message boards, click on View New Posts, and then use your IE9 menu to select View -> Webpage privacy policy

In the resulting window, Are you seeing any cookies from benefitslink.com marked as "blocked"?

Also (sorry to take advantage of you here), after you use View New Posts successfully to get a list, and then you follow a link or two such that when you click on View New Posts again you get the error message, could you go to your browser's address bar, copy the URL that appears there, and then paste it into a reply message on this thread?

Thanks!

[MoJo]

Sorry, but we did not find any matches to display. Try again and broaden your search criteria. If you were searching for new posts since your last visit, it's possible that there are none to show.

[/indent]

The above is the message I get - even if there are as yet unviewed messages. Previously, I could simply click the "View New Posts" link to get back to the new messages page and continue my browsing of the topics....

[MoJo]

Could you do something for me, Michael? Open IE9, log in to the message boards, click on View New Posts, and then use your IE9 menu to select View -> Webpage privacy policy

In the resulting window, Are you seeing any cookies from benefitslink.com marked as "blocked"?

Also (sorry to take advantage of you here), after you use View New Posts successfully to get a list, and then you follow a link or two such that when you click on View New Posts again you get the error message, could you go to your browser's address bar, copy the URL that appears there, and then paste it into a reply message on this thread?

Thanks!

Nothing is "Blocked" in the Webpage privacy policy.

The error I get (essentially the "no new messages, broaden your criteria...) is at:

http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?a...&lastdate=0

I haven't upgraded to IE9 or (personally) changed security settings (although corporate IT may have done something - I;ll ask them when I get a chance).

And you aren't imposing/taking advantage of me. On the contrary.... Thanks for Benefitslink.com