Anonymous Viewing Not Showing Current Information

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Sorry, I couldn’t post this in AskWoody Central which might be the better place.

Lately it would appear that anonymous guests are unable to view current posts.  Here is additional information about that ending with Woody’s explanation.

anonymous wrote:

Elly, I’ve definitely been seeing problems with posts, its like the pages gets stuck in time for hours or even a day or so, then suddenly will update with all these new posts I haven’t read, most of the time the latest posts column on the right does show the list of new comments, but the actual articles haven’t updated with them. I tried different browsers and devices, with the same results, I’ve been viewing and posting anonymously, this has been happening for 2 – 3 days. I hope this can be looked into.

Microfix wrote:

Encountered this ever since the recent host change and thought it was quiet, so moved onto other sites. If it’s a security feature by the devs, there’s something wrong with it!

anonymous wrote:

Can confirm. Site seems stuck here as well. Trick: after the url, put a /?=a random number (i.e. /?=123). Thus it will do a refresh and gets the most actual page.

~ Annemarie

woody wrote:

It looks like there’s a bug in the caching algorithm. Usually you can dislodge the bug by navigating to just about any page (say, click one of the links on the right, even an old one), then using your browser’s back button, and Ctrl+F5 refreshing the page.

Sorry about that. We have some problems still. But at least the site’s staying up most of the time….

I tried Woody’s suggestion & it didn’t work.  When I tried anonymous Annemarie’s suggestion, it worked.

One hitch is that /?=123 must be pasted onto every page one is visiting.  When I lurk on “freshness”  I have to do the paste to get current info.  Then click the last post of the topic I’m interested in, then paste it again to get current info in “that” thread.

Tiresome for anonymous viewing to do this on every topic & post.  Hope it works out soon.

Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler

6 users thanked author for this post.

Cascadian, Elly, dgreen, Microfix, MrBrian, geekdom

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I’ve experienced the same issue.

1 user thanked author for this post.

dgreen

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Yep Same here. I thought everyone abandoned Woody until I logged in

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Same here

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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It is definitely by my experience tied to being logged in or not. When not logged in, the home page is current, and I see in the “Recent Replies” column on the right that there’s fresh replies I’d like to read. But when I click a link to that post/topic, those replies are not there and I see that the “Recent Replies” column has a totally different (and I can tell  older) set of recent replies, even though they may (falsely) state that they’re from “1 minute ago”. If I go back to the home page so I can see again a recent reply I want to read, and instead click on the link for that User’s home page, and then from there click on his/her replies, the recent reply is not on their Replies page either. Refreshing pages didn’t work, nor doing an ipconfig /flushdns, nothing. Then a light bulb went off when I wondered how these users were able to succeed where I’d failed, and I realized that they must have been logged in to have their replies be associated with their name. So I logged in and everything was current again.

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Thanks @Purg2 , I followed the link you left for @geekdom to come here. I apologize for not recalling your recent topic on this long standing issue.

I came here to pose the question that geekdom suggested into my thoughts more explicitly. Does the lag in seeing new posts while not logged in stem from a logic flow related to the time delay available to edit an authored post? Or is this a coincidence of a featured delay and a bug lag, two different time related events that are separate and have no causal arrow?
—
Belatedly, I now see geekdom was the first to give this OP thanks. So I guess I’m on the second or third lap of the circuit here.

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@Cascadian, editing isn’t available to anonymous postings, so I’m inclined to think this is a featured delay or a bug lag.

Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler

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Could be, don’t know.

@Purg2 , if I have read geekdom incorrectly, among many others, or have communicated myself again unclearly; then I apologize again. When I speak of viewing content while logged off, I agree that is a condition identical to being an anonymous user. But you yourself and all the quoted users you cite, including geekdom, are not anonymous individuals. You are account holders who are not logged in at the time you are viewing, not posting.

It took me a while to decide where our misunderstanding lies, and I’m still not sure. I did write about “edit an authored post”. Anonymous posts are a different matter entirely, the relation of listing those in the sidebar, against when they are displayed as waiting moderation, and then published in the clear, is a different matter entirely. Moderation of posts is not what we have been discussing.

I read geekdom to be curious why a post that he had authored, while logged in his geekdom account, was not visible in any of these locations after logging out. A condition we agree is logically identical to being anonymous. His use of scare quotes on ‘editable’ led me to that understanding of his words. If I have misunderstood, then I am not clear how you thought this topic related to geekdom’s comment at all. I found it possible that he was discussing the same flaw often mentioned, as you have gathered many of the recent quotes here, but from a different viewpoint. And further thought that unique view could be key to resolving a trouble mentioned by many, who had not seen it the same way.

I apologize for tying the two together, when I thought you already had. My comment was meant to urge a possible troubleshoot by someone familiar with the actual code involved. I am not. But I can imagine that among the timed events that are defined within the code, it is possible to cross reference to the wrong timed event in the logic flow. Hope I have made the point more clear. Fear I have muddled it more.

Apologies to geekdom, that I reverted to masculine pronouns for simplicity. Old habit. And to you Purg2 if I am still too thick to see where I suggested annonymous posting are or should be available for edit. I will note that the problem seemed to be fixed, temporarily at least, after I had logged out yesterday. I have not tested the condition today. When an issue that has not been repaired suddenly appears fixed, I tend to think that is just a coincidence and not a solution.

1 user thanked author for this post.

geekdom

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If the edit tab appeared in the post when logged in, the post would not appear when logged out. (Conversely, if no edit tab appeared in the post, the post would show when logged out.)

As you pointed out, the problem seems to be fixed; or, from my view, greatly improved.

P.S. The forum format appears slightly different and I suspect this site has been updated.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1992 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox116.0b3 MicrosoftDefender

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Cascadian

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With the recent server upgrade it seems like anonymous viewing can now see current information.  Cache problem abated.  Thanks to Woody & the gang.

Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler

1 user thanked author for this post.

MrBrian

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