Marking forum read, leads to an invalid link error

cliffordcooley

New Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2010
I clicked mark forum read and received this error.

Invalid Forum specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

It's a link I click every day. I'm not sure why I'm getting an error tonight.
 
Received the same error again tonight. Whats strange is how the link will probably work again in an hour or two.
 
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Hey cliff, I not sure what's going on with this site. Seems that a lot of tiny changes are being made. I've yet to get any straight forward answers from any of the admins. Have you tried emailing the site owner or PMing him?
 
I haven't tried anything further than this thread. If no one cares how buggy the forum is, who am I to complain. I'm simply notifying my issues.
 
I haven't tried anything further than this thread. If no one cares how buggy the forum is, who am I to complain. I'm simply notifying my issues.

Hello, we do care about forum bugs. Minor changes have been made recently, but should not effect the Mark Forums Read feature. Recently, plans have been in the works for a flight to Seattle to visit Redmond mid-month, and also to attend the launch party for Microsoft Windows Surface Pro in Manhattan in a few days.

We are expecting to implement a major upgrade (the largest in years) of our forum software soon, that will change the way the site operates in a number of effective ways. Some of the latest changes we have made recently involve security-related updates to prevent spam.

As for mark forums read, we have seen this before. Please report: Are you trying to mark all forums read or simply a single forum?

If you are unable to mark all forums read using the link on the homepage, please use the drop-down link from the menu system under "Forum Actions". You want to make sure it continues to maintain a valid security hash for marking the forums read, as we use database forum marking for this purpose (i.e. the threads you read are tracked by the database and not by a cookie system or other mechanism).

Some changes were made, and I even logged into your account to see if this information is missing.

forumdisplay.php as a standalone page is not part of our website that people are expected to access whatsoever. There are parameters assigned to this URL to make this function work that require additional security.

However, if all forums have been marked read and no new posts have been made, it is possible that you may encounter this issue. If you are simply clicking the link over and over, for example, while all of the data has been marked read, you are accomplishing nothing, as there is no data to mark read. This may be one reason why you are experiencing the issue.

You may also want to try clearing your browser cache, including cookies to this site, to ensure that no required information has become outdated or malformed through the use of other forum sites. We are using the latest code available, and initiated a clean-up mechanism that should further improve page rendering.

The browser you are using may also have something to do with it. Have you tried it outside Opera? Usually when problems like this take place, our members are nice enough to report it as a bug using the "Contact Us" feature, instead of accusing us of not caring how buggy the forum is. I am on the pre-release team and in the special thanks credits for the vBulletin software in general, and have made hundreds of modifications to this site to improve feature availability. Thousands of dollars worth of fees are spent for global CDN distribution of scripts and files to multiple server farms all over the world. You can access this entire website, through our API, ad-free on Facebook, or use a mobile app on nearly any platform to use this website.

We are dealing with a database that is over 2GB in size, so not every issue can be addressed right away. Still, I have answered your call for help, while you are using a browser that has about 1% of the Internet using it. You can check this on StatCounter, W3Counter, NetApplications, and Clicky. It is possible more people are still using Netscape. If you want help diagnosing the problem, you need to report it as a bug.

After 6 years of doing this, that comment is really something else. Try using a mainstream browser and seeing if you encounter a similar issue. We are not hiring developers to re-write this site, we are trying to participate in the way this site will appear in its next incarnation directly with the developers who have made the software possible to hundreds of thousands of websites. We have identified critical issues in the past, with user participation, but not with insults.

So try a real browser and tell us if you still encounter the problem. Opera may not have the capability of rendering security hashes based on JavaScript implanted on the bottom of a page when it already pre-renders the top of the page. This was a common issue with older, less used browsers. Thanks
 
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I figured a negative comment would spark a return message. Maybe I should do as you said and use contact us, that way I would know you are been emailed. Seriously if that works better than posting in the feedback forum, why am I wasting my time with the feedback forum.

We are expecting to implement a major upgrade (the largest in years) of our forum software soon, that will change the way the site operates in a number of effective ways. Some of the latest changes we have made recently involve security-related updates to prevent spam.
In that case don't worry about any of the issues, I can wait until the big update. Do you have a generalized date as to when you are trying to make this move?

As for mark forums read, we have seen this before. Please report: Are you trying to mark all forums read or simply a single forum?
It's the whole forum I am wanting to mark as read.

Usually when problems like this take place, our members are nice enough to report it as a bug using the "Contact Us" feature, instead of accusing us of not caring how buggy the forum is.
Opps, sorry. I didn't realize there was actually a difference. I wonder how many others have this same trouble distinguishing what they should report as a bug or forum upgrade.

So try a real browser and tell us if you still encounter the problem. Opera may not have the capability of rendering security hashes based on JavaScript implanted on the bottom of a page when it already pre-renders the top of the page. This was a common issue with older, obsolete browsers.
It's a new issue and only with this one forum, so my browser must be the problem.

Edit:
I needed a little time to check the other link.
If you are unable to mark all forums read using the link on the homepage, please use the drop-down link from the menu system under "Forum Actions".
I just checked this link, it acts the same way as the other link I was using. I'm currently unable to mark forum read as I type this.
 
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Please try any other browser and tell me if you see the security hash ID in the URL and if it works. I have tried it on your account, and quite oddly, it works. We don't have a time table for vBulletin 5 but we are close. During this time, it could be a bit chaotic, as we have to adjust the code to fit the needs of the site (letting people upload their computer stats, the profile mods we put into effect to let you play a video or MP3 if you so choose, Google Translator on non-English language detection, CDN compatibility, et. al). These may seem like small updates, but they required a lot of custom code that will not be compatible with the new version. It could take us awhile to bring the software about face. We also use canonical URLs and we need to make sure they don't break when we do this upgrade. vBulletin 5 is currently in late beta, but there are hundreds of corrections being made after every beta release. I cannot say for certain when, but if it is not within the next several months we will be disappointed.

Here is another idea: As a workaround, if it absolutely does not work, try double clicking on each forum icon from the main page. This will mark each forum read. If even this does not work, something is definitely wrong with browser compatibility for Opera. I do not have time now, but later, I will install Opera and see what is going on here. I am sorry for the upset, but I am under a lot of stress due to the above mentioned health concerns.
 
Please try any other browser and tell me if you see the security hash ID in the URL and if it works.
OK, I'm gonna need a few days to monitor the link from elsewhere. I'll check with Firefox 18.0.1 and IE 9.0(64-bit). I have them both setup, I just rarely use them.

Here is another idea: As a workaround, if it absolutely does not work, try double clicking on each forum icon from the main page. This will mark each forum read. If even this does not work, something is definitely wrong with browser compatibility for Opera.
I'll have to check that later as I currently have a hash code and can mark forums read. It's the first time today I've received one.

I am sorry for the upset, but I am under a lot of stress due to the above mentioned health concerns.
I'm sorry to hear about your condition. :(
I'd never wish bad health or physical conditions on anyone.

This is me sending you a virtual "Get Well Soon Card". I'm lazy or I would actually go find you an image somewhere.
 
Opera just released an update. The update check just notified me when I opened Opera.

My current version is 12.13, thought I should mention this update for future reference.
 
I am up at night worried about this issue. A long time ago we made a pledge to make the site as compatible to people as possible. I still take this pledge very seriously and will need to look into your issue quite a bit when I have some free time over the weekend going into Monday. The thing is, it is such an odd occurrence, that I can remember only one user experiencing a similar issue and that was SuperSarge, before he came down with a medical condition. We actually fixed this for him and it was a bug in the code itself. However, because we fixed it, I am certain that it should not be malfunctioning now. In fact, I have tested it now on Firefox. Nonetheless, brooding about it all night on no sleep will be of no value to either of us. While I am rest assured that the vast majority of members and visitors can use this feature without incident, I now consider this a top priority to resolve this issue, even if it is an Opera only issue. Also, it is important to note that no determination has been made that it is not an Opera only issue, but so far you are the only one to have come forward with the issue, so this shall be the basis going forward. But, somehow, it will be fixed. It is possible third party code injection is stripping the needed qualifying identifiers in certain remote circumstances. In plain English, some add-on to the site may be messing it up. Tomorrow, we are going to run full database maintenance off-band and recompile all database information and see if this does anything. It could just be a bug with your session or something... it is one of those issues that is not easily isolated. Nonetheless, a solution shall be found. On the off-hand, double clicking the forum icons on the main page should still mark each forum read one at a time if all else fails for now. Totally weird that you are having this problem. :(
 
First time logging in today, here is a follow up on IE and Firefox. It seems the issue moved to IE and Firefox for me as well. IE and Firefox did not have the hash code to "Mark Thread Read".

And a follow up for IE, Opera, and Firefox. Double clicking the icon on the main forum page works for all. Since there were several different sub-forums posted in, I was able to check each browser, after after marking a single sub-forum as read from each of the browsers. The effects of marking a sub-forum read showed in all the browsers.

Edit:
Ten minutes later, I get a hash code in IE, Opera, and Firefox to Mark forums read.
 
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This is happening with Firefox also. I've not had the problem before so it's quite a recent thing for me, perhaps during the last couple of weeks. It doesn't happen all the time and there doesn't seem to be any pattern to it.
 
Check now and the problem *should be* resolved. At worst, you may have to mark them read multiple times due to a large number of threads going unread over a long period of time.
 
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Best way to check:

Mark Forums Read
Check "What's New" and nothing should appear except a link to check for posts in the last 24 hours.
 
Recieved this error while trying to Mark Forums Read.

"Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 117178368) (tried to allocate 79 bytes) in /home/w7/public_html/dbtech/vboptimise/includes/operators/xcache.php on line 38"
 
And again two hours later
"Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 114294784) (tried to allocate 79 bytes) in /home/w7/public_html/dbtech/vboptimise/includes/operators/xcache.php on line 38"
 
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