Please see my reply to samclem directly above. I wasn’t referring to the reply entry page at all, although I didn’t make that sufficiently clear.
As a pretty dumb computer guy here, I don’t understand why the glitch happens to you, but not 1000 other people. And I don’t mean that to sound sarcastic. I don’t understand why it’s the software’s fault if it only happens to you, or perhaps 2-3 people out of thousands. Wouldn’t it be more likely a problem on your end?
As a software developer myself, it’s pretty hard to find a bug that’s not reproduceable.
Not to jump on the pile or anything, ambushed, but I’ve tried reproducing the problem in IE 6 & 7 (Beta 3 and RC1), Opera 9.01 and whatever the latest version of Firefox is–and I can’t get it to show (or not show as it is). Does this problem show on more than one type of browser for you, or does it show on more than one computer for you? And, have you emptied your browser’s cache?
Is there anything where the red triangle should be? A dot, perhaps? If you hover over that position, does a URL show up in your status bar? I’m speculating that it’s just the graphic that isn’t loading due to some unusual timeout/disconnect situation.
You could look at the page source just to make absolutely sure the correct code is there.
If you believe it is a valid bug, and are able to consistently reproduce it, you can log a bug with vBulletin.
Since we seem to be unable to resolve your issue, I’ll suggest a workaround:
- Hover over the “Reply” button under the post you wish to report (this should not be your own post, since you cannot report your own posts)
- Copy the “p=XXXXXXX” part of the url that shows up when you hover over the “Reply” button. For example, if you wanted to report Post #2 in this thread, it would be “p=7715004”
- Go to your address bar and past “http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/report.php?” followed by “p=7715004” to give you:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/report.php?p=7715004
This will allow you to report posts without the need to click on the icon.
“Leaders”? Is that the new name for moderators? I always thought that meant the most prolific posters.
I understand and agree that you’re not being sarcastic; it’s a sound and reasonable question. But during my 30 year career in software development I’ve encountered hundreds or thousands of bugs that don’t appear consistently even under the exact same apparent conditions. They are the result of more or less rare combinations of circumstances that alter the results of conditional software instructions and the like. That’s simply the inevitable result of the vast complexity of software. Nevertheless, they’re still bugs, even if they only appear sporadically or only under certain circumstances. I am 99.99% sure this problem represents a bug.
Quite so! But don’t you agree that it would be beneficial to look at the vendor’s bug reports and bug fixes? Surely the SDMB has someone that handles that, don’t you think? Some kind of sysadmin?
I have emptied my cache, but the problem still appears. I have only tried it using IE 6.0.2920.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519. When I get the chance to try it with another browser, I’ll report back.
I’m posting this simply as a test. Stand by, please.
Sorry, I have to try again. Ignore this post.
Well, at this time the problem isn’t occurring! Strange.
That’s an excellent idea! I hadn’t thought of that. :smack:
The next time the problem occurs, I’ll look at the source and report back. Thanks.
Great! Thank you!
Actually, I think that using this method, you can report your own posts. There’s nothing that checks to see if you’re the reporter, it just doesn’t give you the button for your own.
I think this just happened to me, except that I was logged out, and ambushed said he wasn’t.
I posted in an MPSIMS thread, then continued reading. I went to sent a link to just a post to a friend in the Pit, and saw no “report this post” buttons. I found that I’d been logged out, even though I had logged myself out. I’m at home, and there’s no one else here, so it might just be a random hiccup. Still, since ambushed says it happened right after posting, it might have been the same thing.
Okay, this is doubling as a test and another report, of sorts.
After I posted the previous post, I eventually found myself logged out again. So now I’m going to post and see if that seems to be what logs me out.
It’s very odd. And the “logged out unexpectedly” sticky didn’t make the cut for the technical faq. 
I made an interesting discovery a few minutes ago that is worth reporting here. I returned to the Dope this evening after a reboot and flushing of Firefox’s cache (v.1.5.0.7, for anyone sufficiently geeky to care). First thread I opened was “Missing Links” here in ATMB. There were no red triangles present (not that I wanted to report anything, but their absence when you’re used to them is noticeable. A forced refresh of the page made them appear – apparently FF had decided it had downloaded enough graphics before getting to them. And there was no “placeholder” type box present – nothing but the post number with no space at its right for the red ! triangle to sit in.
So if you get that effect and you are logged in, simply try a forced refresh and see if they appear. If not, come here and get the report coding.