New Posts - number of posts displayed

[Don Petter]

The situation seems, indeed, to be that if you navigate away from the site (whether or not you actually log out), the Latest Posts are reduced to the number of posts since you were last 'active'.

You should perhaps make clear that by 'navigating away from the site' you mean closing the window containing the site. If you just open other windows and then come back to the still open or minimised window there is no ill effect.

[french frank]

Could you, please, check whether such a modifiable setting exists? (That is, if you feel the timeout is too short.)

I raised the timeout for being logged off (if you aren't permanently logged in) from 30 minutes to an hour, and that seemed to be a maximum. That clears the cookies. Not sure if there is a separate timeout if you're just inactive but have checked 'Remember Me?'. My guess is that the problem arises if you have a detestation of remaining logged in ...

Don, yes, I mean leaving/closing all the forum windows which are open.

[johnb]

FF,

As far as I can tell, in vBulletin, there is a "Time out for Cookies" Setting.

This is the time in seconds that a user must remain inactive before any unread posts are marked read. This setting also controls how long a user will remain on Who's Online after their last activity.

It might be under "vBulletin Options" in the Admin Control Panel.

The vBulletin website has the navigation as:

Settings > Options > Cookies and HTTP Header Options

If you can navigate to that setting in the Admin Control Panel you can decide what would be a reasonable "Time out for Cookies" setting. (1 hr = 3600, 2 hrs = 7200, etc, etc, etc)

[johnb]

FF,

Apologies, I didn't see your post before writing my post.

Is this the setting that you have amended?

Regarding your discussion with Don, can I repeat that the timeout seems to happen without navigating away or closing any windows - in my test it happened when I was inactive, i.e. not interacting with the forum.

[johnb]

(I get the feeling that I am beginning to be a nuisance. Perhaps I had better shut up!)

[Don Basilio]

r3ok (and similar) list the latest 10/20 (whatever number is chosen) posts, so if you look once a day you'll probably see a different selection each time. I'm not sure how you find earlier posts that you've missed.

In fact I get all the Unread topics on R3ok if I click on Show all unread topics.

[french frank]

Right, back from the basement and I can report, definitively ('appen).

We have enabled, apparently, certain inactivity-based settings which involve timeouts. There are other options but these are 'more space and processor intensive'. We do have monthly limits for the website and we currently have a fairish margin of comfort in spite of the abrupt upsurge in usage. But at the moment we don't have much idea how the forum will develop (or not). For this reason I think we'll stick to the timeouts.

Later on we may need to increase bandwidth - perfectly possible. But not for the moment. Make sense?

[Thanks, DB I wonder if you have to be logged in to do that?]

[Don Petter]

Sounds fine, ff. I'm sure the last thing we want is to get you into trouble!