PF5 Problems & Errors: Report & Discuss

[Klystron]

Admins,

Recent odd PF behaviour. Noticed my Alert preferences were changing w/o my input. Alert text now vanishing leaving only list of numerical tags. Logged out and cleared Firefox cache, etc.

When attempting to log back in I momentarily 'became' a new member with email jameswirth24 (?). I tried to post a troubleshooting post but the system asked me to log in. Now I am logged in correctly as Klystron.

Months ago before PF5 upgrade I 'became' another member under similar circumstances but immediately logged off. Admin (Mike?) asked me to post next time this happened but this time the system seemed to realize I was not the new member when I tried to post. Transitory glitch?

Alerts working now but cannot adjust Preferences for alerts. Example: reading one alert marks all read. Thanks.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I'm dealing with a host of issues at the moment. Please stay patient.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I'm dealing with a host of issues

Pun intended?

 

[fresh_42]

Pun intended?

Probably, and his name is AJAX, I assume. I won't become friends with him.

 

[Klystron]

Pun intended?

Darn, I am slow today. Host of issues => host software.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

There was some issue with certain files bring sent from the CDN. Really odd because the CDN techs couldn't reproduce. I am now sending the files from the sever and the problems end.

 

[symbolipoint]

Problem seen in sign-in for about a day or so. Not currently seeing the problem right now. sometimes attempting to sign in gives me some of PF pages not showing me as signed in while others do show me as signed in. When I do see the problem, signing in attempt gives me a new PAGE on which to enter username & password; when I do not see the problem, signing in attempt gives me the DIALOG sign-in BOX on top of current page window. As just said, not seeing the problem at this moment.

 

[Bystander]

Please stay patient.

Social/recreational media implies absolutely NO rush; was kinda scratching my head for a bit.

 

[Klystron]

I'm dealing with a host of issues at the moment. Please stay patient.

Social/recreational media implies absolutely NO rush; was kinda scratching my head for a bit.

PF attracts a cadre* of computer science types. The appeal for patience was likely to foreclose those sensitive helpful members attempting to aid Administration by reporting and reiterating perceived glitches. I imagine retired data center directors and FORTRAN coders are among the worst offenders most helpful members.

*Pun intended if you know some Common Lisp.

 

[dextercioby]

I have discovered a very nice new feature in a user's profile. "Post Areas", which is a statistics of number of posts (I assume valid, i.e. not deleted from visible/deleted threads) per user per subforum. I cannot trace all 12934 counted posts + the ones uncounted for, but a healthy 12000 ones, while for MFB i could read 25000 posts distributed to which subforum they were made in, out of more than 32000 visible and accounted for.
Greg, do you have some extra details you may wish to add?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Greg, do you have some extra details you may wish to add?

Only that only the top 15 posted forums are listed.

 

[dextercioby]

Only that only the top 15 posted forums are listed.

Thanks a lot. Exactly the type of details were missing from the picture. :)

 

[fresh_42]

I have discovered a very nice new feature in a user's profile. "Post Areas", which is a statistics of number of posts (I assume valid, i.e. not deleted from visible/deleted threads) per user per subforum.

I shouldn't have seen this. Now the wave function has collapsed and I know that I will have to constrain my jokes in GD

 

[BvU]

After all this time still confused about the alerts. I still have a backlog from a holiday period, but I'd like to mark the "Your recent report has been resolved:" alerts as read to get them off the list. No way to do that ? All I can find is "Mark ALL as read" -- but I don't want that: I'd have to "Mark as unread" the vast majority again, one by one, by hand

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I still have a backlog from a holiday period, but I'd like to mark the "Your recent report has been resolved:" alerts as read to get them off the list. No way to do that ?

Viewed alerts will remain on the list page for 48h. Viewed alerts will remain in the popup for 6h.

 

[BvU]

Gets worse: The list goes back to July 29 only -- where are the unread ones from before that date ?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Gets worse: The list goes back to July 29 only -- where are the unread ones from before that date ?

Unread alerts expire after 30 days.

 

[BvU]

'Expire' meaning they disappear from the list -- but the counter still counts them as unread !

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

'Expire' meaning they disappear from the list -- but the counter still counts them as unread !

hmmm, but you're on PF almost every day? How are alerts going unread for over a month? btw, read, simply means generated by the popup or list. Obviously the system can't know what alert you've physically "looked" at.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

but you're on PF almost every day? How are alerts going unread for over a month?

Quoting BvU,

I still have a backlog from a holiday period

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Quoting BvU,

The best way to keep track of unread threads long term is to use watched threads.
https://www.physicsforums.com/watched/threads

 

[BvU]

What about 'Hot threads' ? I look and the latest post is dated August 1 (2019, I concede )

Some (chrome, W10) buffer issue ?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

What about 'Hot threads' ? I look and the latest post is dated August 1 (2019, I concede )

The widget is populated from the most active threads from the past 120 days from the forum you're in.

 

[BvU]

Another one:
Why are most items capitalized, 'media' not ?
Spelling is Subscript, not Sub Script
Idem Superscript
In contrast: In line is two words for language buffs; computerists use inline

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Another one:
Why are most items capitalized, 'media' not ?
Spelling is Subscript, not Sub Script
Idem Superscript
In contrast: In line is two words for language buffs; computerists use inline

Fixed the scripts

 

[Klystron]

Incorrect 'Like' appears on the first post in this thread https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/atoms-and-black-holes.978654/

I was logged off PF when this thread was started, my laptop shut off for routine maintenance. Did not read thread until this afternoon 8 Oct 2019 PDT when I noticed a 'Like' which I removed. I might have attributed the Like to clumsy touch screen navigation on my part since the thread makes no sense, except that I was logged out over night. Curious.

 

[andrewkirk]

I just now experienced really weird behaviour when editing a post I had already posted, that contained in-line latex code, and somebody posted to that thread while I was editing.
The screen flashed and the whole page updated, the result being that all in-line latex had been irreversibly converted to the maths characters they represent, and the inline latex delimiters had disappeared.

That happened to https://www.physicsforums.com/posts/6247358/bookmark. I've fixed it now, but it took a while to work out what was going on. I ended up having to repair the post using an off-line latex editor, then quickly paste the text back in and save before another post from somebody else could come in and wreck it.

I suppose this had not been noticed previously because it requires three things to come together:

1. Editing a previous post
2. The post contains in-line latex
3. Somebody else posts to the thread while doing the above.

Even to reproduce the issue, you'd need to do 1 and 2 and then ask a friend to post to the thread while you are doing that. Or do the test in a thread where there is a constant flurry of activity.

It would be nice if it could be fixed. If not, perhaps a warning could be put up, that editing one's posts is risky if they contain latex.

This happened in Edge browser on Windows 10.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

@Charles Link is above the issue we were exploring awhile back?

 

[Wrichik Basu]

I have faced this too, but didn't get a chance to write here. I had written a thread with lot of LaTeX. After posting, I found some errors in the OP and edited it. When I saved, the page updated, with all latex being converted to the maths characters they represent. It was a long post, and unfortunately I didn't have a copy of the LaTeX code. Finally I requested a deletion of the thread. This was about a month ago.

 

[Charles Link]

@Charles Link is above the issue we were exploring awhile back?

Yes, I experienced this same thing quite a number of times. I haven't had the problem for a couple months now, but I haven't posted much in the last two months. And it was rather problematic when it did happen=a long post with a lot of Latex would take a long time to convert it back to Latex, only to find the Latex disappear again before all the corrections were made. Like @andrewkirk I had to edit one post by starting a new thread and getting it completely correct before posting. Trying to make one simple correction to a post could cause the complete Latex to crash again.