New Message Icon doesn't act right.

[jwaggoner]

I am looking for a way to get my New Message Icon to continue to show the message as new until the posting is actually viewed. The new message icons on my board go away so fast that no one can use them

[Lynne]

What do you have set for vboptions > General Settings > Thread/Forum Read Marking Type? Maybe you want to change that setting?

Thread/Forum Read Marking Type
This option controls how threads and forums are marked as read.

1. Inactivity/Cookie Based - once a user has been inactive for a certain amount of time (the value of the session timeout option) all threads and forums are considered read. Individual threads are marked as read within a session via cookies.

This option is how all versions of vBulletin before 3.5 functioned.

2. Database (no automatic forum marking) - this option uses the database to store thread and forum read times. This allows accurate read markers to be kept indefinitely. However, in order for a forum to be marked read when all threads are read, the user must view the list of threads for that forum.

This option is more space and processor intensive than inactivity-based marking.

3. Database (automatic forum marking) - this option is the same as a previous option, but forums are automatically marked as read when the last new thread is read.

This is the most usable option for end users, but most processor intensive.

[jwaggoner]

I currently have option 3 set, but I have tried all of them with no particular change in any of them. None seem to work as I think they should.

vBulletin Support recommended that I upload all of my files from the original install again and I have done that. No change. I don't know exactly how the different icons are selected for new and not new, so I am not having any luck troubleshooting the issue.

Thanks for your response.

[Lynne]

Do you have many modifications installed? Perhaps one of them is interfering with how this should work. According to the description of the options, your users should continue to see the New Post icon for the threads until they either read it or do a Mark Forums Read.

[jwaggoner]

Originally Posted by Lynne

Do you have many modifications installed? Perhaps one of them is interfering with how this should work. According to the description of the options, your users should continue to see the New Post icon for the threads until they either read it or do a Mark Forums Read.

No I don't have any modifications installed to this point, except our membership and profile creation is done through some custom scripts and a tie into config.php and global.php. Once they log in, it is still all vBulletin.

That is one reason I asked about the cookies having anything to do with it. We do customize the cookie somewhat. I have tried all three settings, two of which sound like they are independent of cookies.