h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry if I'm being dense and missed this being announced elsewhere, but

post-Petunia when I make a posting the next screen is often coming up as a list of conversation threads, not (as used to be the case) the view of the thread posted to showing the most recent posting. Is this something I can control? I prefer to see what my posting looks like.

Pimms

That sounds freaky. I either get a BBCi/network error or the post in its thread (perhaps after a couple of minutes delay). I've never had a list of threads. I don't suppose there is any chance you've been hitting the wrong button on the posting screen is there? Does the post exist when you go back to the thread? Sometimes when I get an error the post *has* still been posted.

maybe they're forcing you to preview!

I haven't experienced this myself though and haven't come across it before.

Does it always happen or just occasionally?

What set-up are you using? (browser, skin etc)

Mel

The postings all seem to go through ok (I've also occcasionally been given error messages in the past few days and find the message is still posted ok).

I'm not aware of doing anything different - still just clicking on the Post Message box

No it isn't a preview - it just happened with my last posting, the screen updated after clicking on Post message to a list 'This is the Conversation Forum for The Don't Panic Help Centre' with this thread at the top just posted to. Incidentally when I page back I *don't* get the thread list, but the usual view of the thread with the most recent postings.

I'm using Brunel and IE v5.5

Pimms

Well IE is the browser the BBC officially support. I use brunel but I'm on IE 6.0. So you might be a bit out of date but I don't believe the browser is responsible for this behaviour. It is the BBC servers which re-direct the URL after the POST method. The P-number for the post doesn't exist to be anywhere in the FORM until the post operation has taken place.

I suppose it could be some new synchronisation problem. Eg if the post number isn't available from the servers in time, the URL which is left shows the thread list. What sort of a delay is there on posting when this misdirection takes place?

It seems about the same as a normal posting

It seems about the same as a normal posting - eight seconds from clicking on the button for the first posting of this post

So it isn't happening to anyone else? And no one has knowledge of what might be responsible or whether it is adjustable?

I still haven't come across anyone else seeing this problem. Another odd thing is that it is intermittant even for you.

If it were consistent I might think something really odd like a mismatch of data transfer formats was occurring so that the ? needed to specify the thread and post off the forum were being received as a % escape code and not being recognised. The setting would then have to be your problem. However, with it being intermittent it is more likely to be server/database/connection related. With no-one else seeing it at all it does seem more like it is your settings or connection.

I wonder if it is at all possible for a character to get corrupted during transmission, but it still wouldn't make sense for it to always be after the forum has been correctly specified.

I do know that my browser (IE) or the BBC have been case sensitive at times but insensitive or even self-correcting of case at other times - all without me changing any settings at all. I haven't had that happen for ages but soon after I joined h2g2 it was happening quite a lot. Something like <./>Search</.> wouldn't work but <./>search</.> would (or s/S the other way round or with online or dontpanic etc). But after I'd successfully got to the page with one case the other case would miraculously start working. After that I then wouldn't be able to get that particular one to go wrong again. So the problem may still exist for me and it is just that I've been to every possible page now.

Did I say it was intermittent? It is hard to recall whether it is or not, but seems to be constant today. One odd fact is that I spotted that it said 'Last posted 2 minutes ago' on my most recent posting - not 'Just now' - as if there is a discrepancy between the clocks somewhere... checking with this post for same effect...

Hmmm. The list of threads again says 'LATEST POST 2 Minutes ago', but when I click on the '2 minutes ago' to see latest post it shows, apart from your (SEF) post 41 minutes ago, that my post was 'Just Now'

Something rotten somewhere. Give me back my two minutes!

Screwy! The last post (in my initial 'list of threads' view) says 'Just Now'

Consistency is another thing I crave (oh and of course)

The clock thing *has* been documented by other people - I think pretty much everyone sees that! It must be a server synchronisation problem however much the staff have denied this in the past.

The only way I can imagine timings being related to your link problem is the way I mentioned first, ie the new post number is somehow not available when the link is prepared. Then it would be a server issue but it should have been seen by someone else. Can you take a good look at (or copy of) the URL you get redirected to after posting when it goes wrong?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/AddThread?inreplyto=4282114 from this URL I post a reply and am taken to...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F28171?thread=333587&post=4282147#p4282147 (immediately too)

Of course this won't help much as, as soon as I refresh screen or try the link, it takes me to where I'd normally be - viewing the latest thread in the conversation. Ho hum

whoops, when I say 'thread' I mean 'post' in the last post

Actually I do think it helps a bit. The refresh screen going to the right place proves that your browser and the server *do* agree on what the URL is. So the first page served up to you being wrong seems like it can't be anything other than the server going wrong.

I wonder if there is some sort of race condition going on between the creating of the link and the serving of the page. Depending on how much traffic actually goes between your browser and the BBC and between the BBC servers, either your browser is demanding the page before it has the full link or, more likely, one BBC server is demanding a page of another before it has prepared the full link. I think this is one for Jim Lynn or someone else who knows what packets are buzzing around.

Well I've attempted to get Jim's attention over here (having checked the thread wasn't already showing on his list). About the only boringly obvious thing I can suggest is to check that your browser is not set to cache pages. Caching causes a lot of problems for a lot of people but I really don't see how it could jump you back to a forum from a thread and post.