Modern Vespa

I just got it before I'd even typed anything. I think it happens as it loads the topic review.

Update: I was able to post with Chrome on the Mac; issues were with Safari on iPhone.

I just did a test reply with Safari on Mac. I'll try Safari on iPhone next.

So far no luck. The message itself doesn't come from MV -- at least, that text doesn't appear anywhere in the source code. My guess is that there is a processing error (maybe in js?) that is causing the message.

But why, I am not sure.

Looking around at the logs for a clue.

I can see your entries in the logs around that time -- no obvious sign of problems. Looks like garden-variety requests that were fulfilled by the server.

Looking at the browser console for that page on my own machine, there *are* a large number of error generated by the embedded Youtube videos. Each video produces a permissions error about not having access to fullscreen (or some such). It's possible (though I don't think it's likely) that the large number of errors is triggering the message you're getting -- but then, I'm not seeing it on my own iPhone (as you did) so... yeah.

Not sure at this point. Would really like to hear if anyone else is experiencing this (on any thread).

This SO answer on the topic looks helpful: https://stackoverflow.com/a/77119170/33905

Looking at the "Topic Review" iframe for that topic, I'm guessing the issue is all the embedded YT videos. There are a LOT of them, and I can imagine that Safari is tracking the time taken to render them all, throwing up its hands and saying "F... this for a game of soldiers!"

Maybe the answer is to simply reduce the number of messages in the topic review. 40 (what looks to be the current max) seems a trifle... excessive to me.

40 happens to be the standard number of posts on each topic page, so there's a certain logic to it. But I agree, it's probably more than really necessary.

I've just cut that in half, to 20. Let's see how that behaves.

I had problems opening MV today. Unfortunately, no page could be opened, regardless of whether it was a bookmark, direct entry in the browser or a link via Google search. Both Edge and Safari on iPhone. The problem lasted about 1 hour, although I didn't try it all the time.

Either nothing happened, an error message in the browser "Safari cannot open the page" or a 504 error.

Screenshots show German summer time AM (UTC+2).

Thanks for the report. Not sure what happened (I wasn't at my desk at the time). I think the database might have gone offline, though. Investigating.

Yep. The database had a meltdown and hit the connection limit, at which point it would no longer accept connections from the server, at which point the server would no longer accept connections from CloudFront, at which point you got a 504 error.

It's rare for the database to completely fail like that, though of late it has been having bouts of low memory. Might be time to upgrade to larger database instance (one with more memory). Not sure if we can afford it.

One potential optimization here would be to have the server provide a better message when it can't connect to the database, instead of just ignoring the CloudFront request.

How about a way to hide forums from your view on the front page?

I will never, ever click into MP3 Discussion, but, for some reason, it bugs me seeing unread messages there...

Unlikely. I get your point, but it's a lot of added complexity for little gain.

I was 99% certain that would be the answer

Tampermonkey it is, then!

When you've finished reading all you want to, just mark "all read", shirley?

Oh! I never noticed that button on the front page!

Thanks!

Obscure trivia: using "Mark All Read" on the front page is actually helpful for database hygiene.

Every time you open a topic anywhere in the forum, the database remembers the latest post you've read in that thread. This is done in order to support the feature where you jump to the latest unread post. Over time, the database can accumulate hundreds or even thousands of "last post read" records for each user.

When you press "Mark All Read" on the front page, it replaces all of your individual "last post read" records in the database with a single record indicating the global post number at that moment. That serves as a floor for all "last post read" calculations going forward.

Quick question - is it possible to put a line-break in the 'scooters' field in my bio? I've experimented with <br> and such, but nothing seems to work.

Excellent point. I'll have to start doing that - maybe once a day.

Nope. That's by design. Since the scooters field is crammed into the small space of the author panel on the side of every post, it is meant to be kept as brief as possible.

Additionally, the author panel is already the long pole (literally and figuratively) that often stretches out vertical layout, such that we end up with lots of blank space after short posts.

Line breaks in the scooters field exacerbate both of those problems.

It's certainly not required, and nobody should feel obligated to do so. But there is a slight benefit. If hitting "mark all read" doesn't meet your own personal needs, then definitely don't do it on my account. But if it does, then you can have the extra satisfaction of knowing that you are cleansing the database in the process.

I know we briefly talked about it before, but it's interesting to me how different people use the forums differently.

If it helps a little, I'll try to remember to hit the "mark all read" every now and then. It won't (shouldn't) affect how I use the forums.

When I was a manager at Apple, I had the opportunity to build a whole team from scratch. The team was mostly focused on internal tools, software that was used internally by other Apple employees in order to collect data for a big machine learning project (it was FaceID, before it even had a name).

One of my new team hires -- Adam -- was a really good performer and also a really interesting guy. On the occasion of his first annual review, I asked him what was the most unexpected part of working at Apple.

He replied "I guess I am really surprised that people don't use the software I write the way I expect them to".

That got a hearty laugh from me. And I am still laughing at it today. This is the bane of a software engineer's existence -- people never actually use the software the way we thought they would. Despite our best efforts to out-think the users, they always come up with new and surprising ways to use the software in unusual ways, sometimes with catastrophic effects.

So yesterday after I finished perusing MV I clicked "Mark All Read" and went on my way.

This morning I noticed that it was much easier to find where I'd left off.

So thanks for the tip!

I'll be integrating it into my forum viewing habits.

We have a whole engineering staff here who use Excel for making things that look pretty when they are printed, but have no usefulness beyond that.

Oh, and I am so glad we didn't wind up with iFace.

Done.

I never even knew it was a real word until today, let alone how to spell it.

No "Posting Guidelines" anymore?

Woohoo, free for all.

I wonder if are statistics on how many people actually read them

I confess to not having read it, but my "Inner Monk" registered the change.

It's a universal forum rule that any post labelled 'sticky' (i.e. always at the top) will get ignored. This is expected human behaviour, where anything familiar is ignored - until it goes missing!

There seems to be a bug that un-sets the announcement bit when I edit it. I've re-set the announcement bit (twice — this happened yesterday as well) but still need to track down and fix the underlying bug.

I've found and fixed the underlying problem. And thanks for reporting this. For your efforts, I hereby bestow upon you the MV Entomologist award. Wear it with pride.

I sincerely thank you and promise to wear the award with pride. It is an indescribable honor!

However, I don't really know if I really deserve it, as you were already aware of the error. But I'm happy if I was able to help.

I hadn't actually noticed that the posting guidelines disappeared for a second time until you highlighted it. And I definitely want to encourage people to report problems, so let's call it good.

One-time display error, reloaded, then no problems.

time shown is the time of the error (in German summer time)

Looks like CSS didn't load. Not sure what that's about. Hmmm.

At least one esteemed member would like a notification of when the thumbs down launcher is ready to fire another salvo at some deserving miscreant.