# Board performance problems **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [May 27, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491 "2013-05-27T21:15:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/262 "2013-09-01T16:56:12Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > PAM does have it’s problems. > A circuit may arbitrarily revert to a previous state and “remember” data, changing the current memory state. > RCC (Rodent Checking Circuitry) is used to keep PAM in CMS (Current Memory State). That sounds like a dumb(o) statement. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/263 "2013-09-01T17:01:21Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > That sounds like a dumb(o) statement. 🙂 My degree is from M.I.T., Milton’s Institute of Taxidermy, Mr. Smarty Pants! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/264 "2013-09-02T02:14:18Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > My degree is from M.I.T., Milton’s Institute of Taxidermy, Mr. Smarty Pants! > > 🙂 That seems irrelephant to me. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/265 "2013-09-02T02:44:36Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > That seems irrelephant to me. I will never forget that! ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/266 "2013-09-02T02:50:46Z")
Did you know I once saw an irrelephant at the Tokyo Zoo? They had to call a vet. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/267 "2013-09-02T03:01:24Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Did you know I once saw an irrelephant at the Tokyo Zoo? They had to call a vet. I don’t trust those bastards. The last “Tokyo Mix” rice crackers I bought for an exorbitant price had three of the soybean ball things, and the rest flat rice crackers and the moon shaped crackers. Bastards. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/268 "2013-09-03T04:50:03Z")
An old problem has returned. I repeately tried to post in the [**Fred Pohl obit thread**](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=701173), but after clicking the preview button I could read the post, but the type box would be empty. When I clicked on Submit Reply, a notice popped up saying I hadn’t typed enough to post. After three or four attempts I returned to the entire thread, pasted the post again and clicked Submit Reply without previewing it. That worked. FWIW, iMac running 10.8.4 and Firefox 23.0.1, cookies and JavaScript on. (No Preview Post, Submit Reply problem with this post.) **Edit:** I spoke too soon. When I clicked Submit Reply, the page came up completely blank. I clicked Firefox’s Reload command, and a notice appeared telling me this is a duplicate post and I would be directed to this post. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/269 "2013-09-03T16:09:27Z")
The Board has been running better these past few days. But now the problem has returned with the main Straight Dope page taking several minutes to load. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/270 "2013-09-03T16:25:11Z")
SD knows if it plays hard-to-get it just encourages our desire. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/271 "2013-09-03T18:07:21Z")
I’ll pass these observations on to Jerry. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/272 "2013-09-03T18:56:24Z")
Could some of the problems stem from the jumpy, screamy ads that are relatively new to the board? This may have been addressed and I missed it, if so, I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/273 "2013-09-04T02:30:33Z")
Or if the Board is still plagued with performance problems, maybe a good dose of Viagra is warranted. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/274 "2013-09-05T09:09:09Z")
Zapped again, and that does seem to be what’s happening, the Board does some sort of “double take” upon logging in, counting my log-in time – 4:05pm local time in this case – as my last visit. It shows that as my last visit when in fact it is when I just logged in. My last visit should read one-something pm. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/275 "2013-09-05T15:02:51Z")
I did a little web searching of my own, and I think I at least understand the way it’s generally supposed to work, at least. It looks like vBulletin maintains two times, “Last Visited” and “Last Activity.” Last Visited is what controls what you see as read and unread–anything posted before that time is read. When you connect to the board and start reading, the board notes your connection time under Last Activity. Every time you connect, to read a thread, go to a different forum, etc, Last Activity gets updated. Once you leave, the board notes the final Last Activity time, and changes Last Visited to match. So what’s happening here is that sometimes the board makes that switch prematurely. As I understand it, there are two ways for the board to decide that you’re “gone.” The first is if you log out, that will cause the update immediately. The second is that the board has an inactivity timer–if your Last Activity is older than the timer, then you’re considered gone. So either the board is somehow losing track of time on occasion, or it’s logging people out and we don’t notice because all our browser settings are set to automatically log us in. If I start getting hit with the problem with any degree of regularity again, I’ll see about maybe turning off the auto login stuff to see if I can confirm or eliminate that possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/276 "2013-09-11T09:06:13Z")
The double hiccup continues sporadically. It listed my log-in time of 3:51pm as my Last Visited time. So all threads were marked as Read and no New Threads. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/277 "2013-09-11T14:00:01Z")
And now it’s starting to do it every time again. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/278 "2013-09-12T02:03:58Z")
Happened to me last night…activity time was updated so all the threads were marked as read. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/279 "2013-09-13T03:48:07Z")
It seems to come and go in clusters. It will happen every time a few times, then a stretch of it not happening at all. It’s been okay these past few times. Except today I noticed two or three threads marked as Read amid all the Unread ones. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/280 "2013-09-13T15:58:43Z")
I had an incident of the “disappearing post on preview”. I wrote a long post with several quotes and formatted bits. I hit preview. The preview appeared, but the text box was empty and I got a note that there wasn’t enough text in the box. I could not recover the effort I put in to the post. I had to copy from the screen and then recode all the quote boxes and formatting. Similarly, I went to edit a post because of a stupid typo, and the edit window was blank. I would have had to do the same copy/paste and then recode all the quote boxes manually thing, so I left the stupid typo. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491/281 "2013-09-14T02:53:31Z")
Zapped again. ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/board-performance-problems/659491.md?page=15)