Comments (constructive) on the New Forum Software

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Here you go, the dodgy Latest Replies button hyperlink( from the top of this page) takes you here

 

Whereas the good and working one from Forums (green bar) > “Latest Replies” takes you here

Note the difference in the URL

Also, any post navigation which involves going via Latest Replies, is even more like wading through treacle than it used to be.

Bill

[Ian P]

On Ian P Said:

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

On JasonB Said:

Was there a ‘call to arms’ message on the old forum that I missed?.

Ian P

Yes, what you missed

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

It may conceivably work out O.K. in the end, Bill … but the sort of thing that you are seeing is typical of what puts ‘big business’ off bespoke development of applications from “open-source software with numerous plug plug-ins available” [<i>or whatever we choose to call it</i>] … Things break unexpectedly, when people are innocently trying to tweak them … partly because it is not all coherently documented and tested as a single product.

MichaelG.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

In case anyone missed what’s just happened; I spotted Jason’s last post and went to read it.
After about 1½ minutes wait time, I was presented with the Cloudflare screen; A Timeout occurred 524.
(Yesterday’s Cloudflare error was Connection timed Out 522 )
This happened several times, although the main header page of the site was responding OK, albeit slowly; I could access Features, Workshop, Classifieds etc. but not Forum, from either green or blue bars with only a few seconds delay.

As I mentioned previously;
Also, any post navigation which involves going via Latest Replies, is even more like wading through treacle than it used to be.

The time delay between “Latest Replies” button, or via “back screen” to latest replies, and the screen refresh was over 1 minute, so I guess quite close to a time-out.

Edit, submitting the above post took at least 30 seconds for the screen refresh; pressing the edit button to add this timing took about 20 seconds.

Bill

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

It may conceivably work out O.K. in the end, Bill … but the sort of thing that you are seeing is typical of what puts ‘big business’ off bespoke development of applications from “open-source software with numerous plug plug-ins available” [<i>or whatever we choose to call it</i>] … Things break unexpectedly, when people are innocently trying to tweak them … partly because it is not all coherently documented and tested as a single product.

MichaelG.

Yes I appreciate that, but we still have the problem, that unless someone highlights these issues to the developers, they won’t know that they exist.
My own log of issues runs to something over 30 lines, but some will now have been cured, some not acted upon, and others morphed into a different problem in an effort to cure a previous one.
Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Interesting that you actually saw my post, Bill … The system appeared to be still struggling to submit it at 13:24 so I gave it up as lost.

 

MichaelG.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Latest activity immediately available, excellent, well done guys.

Still really sluggish for page views but I bet that the big holdup is the adverts

If the software allows the messageboard to instantly display, and the adverts can catch up in their own time, then page views will be fine

I think that the current display system is waiting and waiting for replies from the advert people before it starts displaying, which is a weakness

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Mmm … I have just refreshed this very page

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/topic/comments-constructive-on-the-new-forum-software/page/25/#latest

and scrolled down

… only to find a list of ‘Latest Replies’ which for some unknown reason has landed on p25 and is thus: “Viewing 25 topics – 601 through 625 (of 40,710 total)”

MichaelG.

 

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Mmm … I have just refreshed this very page

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/topic/comments-constructive-on-the-new-forum-software/page/25/#latest

and scrolled down

… only to find a list of ‘Latest Replies’ which for some unknown reason has landed on p25 and is thus: “Viewing 25 topics – 601 through 625 (of 40,710 total)”

MichaelG.

 

Funny you should mention that, I’ve just been working on exactly this issue to see what’s happening and why.
I enclose my results as a Notepad screenshot, since there are lots of web addresses in it and I can’t find any way to prevent this forum from resolving them into a shortcut/hyperlink.
The link behind the Blue Button varies according to which page you’re viewing at the time.
On a single page topic, or Forums, it seems to work correctly, more by chance than design.
On a multi-Page topic, I think it it takes you to that page number, but in the overall list of forum postings; at 25 posts per page, so possibly quite old.

Bill

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

how come latest topics opens on post one and not latest.?

[modeng2000Participant @modeng2000]

The screen layout for Latest Replies is much better, thank you.

I do find the site rather slow, possibly because of the number of people trying to get access.

John

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

how come latest topics opens on post one and not latest.?

Click the date/time that is on the right side of the screen rather than the Topic Heading as that will take you to the last reply.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

A great bit of analysis, Bill … thanks for sharing it.

Of course I don’t know how it has come to be so, but there is clearly an underlying issue of discipline and rigour being absent from the coding:

A big blue button labelled ‘Latest Replies’ should do exactly the same thing, wherever on the site you press it … Just as one labelled ‘Home’ should always take you to the designated home-page [etcetera, etcetera]

The fact that the same button can be, and has been, coded to do different things at different locations is the sort of nightmare that I mentioned ‘big business’ trying to avoid … These ridiculous situations are frighteningly simple to get into, and can be very expensive to get out-from.

MichaelG.

[Anonymous]

Hmm …. when the site was unreachable yesterday, I assumed it was down because the reported problems were being addressed.

Was that naive?

 

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I don’t know if it has been mentioned, but my browser (Chrome, on 3 devices) gives a connection insecure warning, and inspecting the url shows it uses HTTP rather than HTTPS.  Really, in 2023?

Regarding “Latest Replies”, presumably a topic should only appear here once there is an initial post and at least one reply?  Oh, but I see that some of them have 0 replies…

So it should be headed “Latest Posts”, which I think is what the old site did.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Secure padlock closed and HTTPS for me on Chrome with W10

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Secure padlock closed and HTTPS for me on Chrome with W10

Plus 1

[Peter Greene]

On Peter Greene Said:

Hmm …. when the site was unreachable yesterday, I assumed it was down because the reported problems were being addressed.

Was that naive?

 

Possibly, yes

There are many reasons why ‘something’ could have been ‘hogging resources’

… I learned a little about fork bomb whilst pondering that ^^^ but hopefully it was something innocent.

MichaelG.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Thanks for that Jason but not particularly obvious to us luddites.

[Iain DownsParticipant @iaindowns78295]

Just to say something positive about the new site – the latest posts actually looks usable now.

Well done to all how participated!

Iain

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

Https and padlock being displayed in IOS on Iphone14

 

[Clive Brown 1Participant @clivebrown1]

Regarding Forum speed, I find the Forum painfully slow when I am logged on. If logged off however, response speed is much improved. This happens with both Firefox and Edge in W11. I’ve not tried any other browsers. Anyone else experiencing this?

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

29.5 seconds from clicking the link in a notification email to Colin’s post (687829) appearing.

As it happens I have not been too bothered by forum speed as it generally seemed acceptable for the last couple of weeks, but it seems now to be much slower (today for the first time I thought I would measure it).

Ian P

P.S. I think most of my comments so far on the new forum have been pretty negative, I do however commend two significant improvements,

1, The ability to be logged in on two devices (not that its usable on my Android phone)

2, Numbering of posts, not really readable in grey on a lighter grey, or at least that is what colours MY eyes see.

EDIT
‘Submit’ this message took 35 seconds!

 

[Clive Brown 1Participant @clivebrown1]

Just opened Edge browser, but not logged on. The above 2 posts from myself and IanP are not showing there; why?

Edit; this post took about 40 secs. to submit.

[Clive Brown 1]

On Clive Brown 1 Said:

Just opened Edge browser, but not logged on. The above 2 posts from myself and IanP are not showing there; why?

Edit; this post took about 40 secs. to submit.

The Forums part of the site has been down for me, for about 40 minutes.
Other parts, News, Workshops etc worked fine, so maybe there is some more work going on under the bonnet.
I was having this earlier, with long submit/refresh times; It looks like timeout is between one and two minutes.
On the bright side, when it came up again at least one bug seemed to have been cured.

It’s nothing to do with my own PC setup, as other websites and the main site here, worked fine.

Bill

 

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