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Phantom phorum visits?

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wpcoe

Senior member
Why is it that when I log on to forums.anandtech.com after a few days absence that the forum software insists I visited it a few hours earlier, and hence resets all the message/forums read flags accordingly.

Case in point: Just now, at 8:57pm local time, I logged on and was greeted with:

Welcome, wpcoe.
You last visited: Today at 06:04 PM
​
I clearly was not online at 6:04pm today. But, now I get the privilege of manually scrolling through interesting threads to find the first unread message. :'(
 
That could be a factor, I guess, but in the example from the opening post, I hadn't been online for a couple days.

These random false "You last visited" times are nothing new. It's not just a one-time event, I've been experiencing this off and on for several years. At one time in the past I even changed my password, wondering if somehow mine had been hacked and someone else was logging in under my username.

It really does make forum reading far less of a smooth experience trying to find my place in threads to pick up reading where I left off.

I guess I need to keep a notepad near my computer so I can jot down the time of each forum visit, since I often just have a vague recollection that it's been "several days" or "maybe a week" or "over a month" since I've read the forums.
 
My computer is password protected, I live alone and lock the door when I leave. Highly unlikely that someone else uses it. 🙂
 
Another, current, example:

Welcome, wpcoe.
You last visited: Yesterday at 03:17 PM
​
No way in hell was I reading this forum yesterday. It has probably been over a week since I was here. But, nonetheless, the forum software has kindly marked all threads and messages prior to yesterday @ 317pm as already read.
 
What you're seeing is very odd; I've never seen anything like it myself or complaints about it. The only thing I can suggest is changing your password and moving on from there.
 
In the past, I did change my password, and the phantom login date/times continued.

I had a sudden thought today, though. Is it possible that somehow accessing the main AnandTech site (www.anandtech.com) might interact with the forum site? I know I did go to the main site yesterday, but didn't even click on any links from the main page since there were no new articles.
 
wpcoe said:
In the past, I did change my password, and the phantom login date/times continued.

I had a sudden thought today, though. Is it possible that somehow accessing the main AnandTech site (www.anandtech.com) might interact with the forum site? I know I did go to the main site yesterday, but didn't even click on any links from the main page since there were no new articles.
Click to expand...
Not possible.

Are you accessing the forum on another device or do you have an app installed like Tapatalk or another forum app on your phones/tablets?
Even if you don't physically browse yourself, when those apps provide you with update(whether you check to see the new update or not) notifications, that constitutes as a forum visit.
 
Did this ever get sorted out? I've just, in the last week or so, started experiencing something similar. When I go to the forum index page, the last-visited time is correct and the forum icons correctly indicate whether there are new messages. When I select any forum, however, the last-visited time is reset to the time I just logged in, and all messages are marked as read.

I'm using Chrome with the auto-login option.
 
Welcome to the club. 🙁

I've cut back on the frequency of my forum visits due mainly to the problem. It's a real PITA to try guessing how far back to start reading, and doubly so when you realize after several messages, that you've already read it.

The forum software does seem to reset the last-visit timestamp while I'm in the process of reading threads, but usually not until a half hour or so has lapsed. (Never timed it, but usually I can get a bit of reading done before it resets.)
 
Same issue. Sometimes something like 20 threads will be "new" with no new posts, then all the threads will clear out. I think the hamster got cancer with all the issues AT has been having.
 
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