# What the heck was that ? -Board weirdness **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [March 11, 2003, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488 "2003-03-11T05:06:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/1 "2003-03-11T05:06:37Z")
I just came in to GQ, and found the first page full of messages with replys from ~4:30 AM last night (it’s ~11 pm now). Tried a search for newer stuff and was told I wasn’t logged in. Quit ie, and came back. Still not logged in, threads still outdated. So I logged in from the main message board page, and now the newer posts are back, and everything appears fine 😕 😕 😕 😕 Did anyone else see this ? What caused it ? Is this related to Ceasar’s Ghost’s troubles ? ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168238](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168238)) ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/2 "2003-03-11T05:19:58Z")
Isn’t it true that when you’re not logged in, the board defaults to GMT? Are you sure it wasn’t ~4:30 AM _this_ night? ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/3 "2003-03-11T05:24:55Z")
Very weird. I’ve been being logged out randomly, but no outdated threads stuff. Well, something that does happen is it only shows the threads from the past day when normally I have it show every thread. that might be related; maybe not. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/4 "2003-03-11T05:53:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Are you sure it wasn’t ~4:30 AM this night? That’d be about right, but the threads looked wrong. Perhaps it was just a temporal hallucination on my part, but there are now three questions here about odd board behavior tonight: ( [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168662](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168662) ) ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/5 "2003-03-11T13:54:10Z")
How much had you had to drink? OK, seriously, we’ll have someone look into it. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/6 "2003-03-11T14:46:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by C K Dexter Haven \* > **How much had you had to drink?** I’d prefer a crushing hangover, or even flashbacks, to having the SDMB go off to cloud cuckoo land again, but sadly, I feel fine this morning. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/7 "2003-03-11T21:19:11Z")
Is it possible that you were seeing some sort of cached copy of the forum? Not likely, I suppose, if you weren’t online at 4:30 AM, but some ISPs keep caches of pages as well (I’ve heard that AOL is particularly bad at this). ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/8 "2003-03-11T23:59:25Z")
“Is it possible that you were seeing some sort of cached copy of the forum?” That was the first thing I thought, and why I quit ie and cleared the cache. Still, explorer being what it is, I suppose it could have kept a secret copy somewhere for transmission to the forces of darkness, and a “undocumented feature” revealed it to me… Perhaps one of vbulletin’s caches picked up an erroneous timestamp, and it sent out the page long after it should’ve expired ? ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/9 "2003-03-12T00:06:51Z")
You know, I’m doubting it was a cached copy, from your description. You’re in Central Time, right? If so, it’s very unlikely that GQ had a page full of threads with the last post made around 4:30 AM. At that point, the board has only been online about 20 minutes since the nightly backup, and it’s a very low-traffic time for the boards. For instance, in GQ, there’s a post on the forum list page now made at 03-11-2003 04:01 AM, and the next one immediately after that is 03-11-2003 06:35 AM. It’s quite possible that there were threads that were in that gap, but they were bumped out later. But more than a few? Not likely. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-was-that-board-weirdness/160488/10 "2003-03-12T02:47:13Z")
That makes sense, but depends on how vbulletin updates its pages. Having never played with the software, I’ve no idea how it actually handles the process.