Update from Internet Brands

Looks like any thread posted to still sees that thread go to the end of the forum thread list. For instance, if I wasn't 'watching' this thread,

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1414587/?page=2#post_10205148

I would be hard pressed to find it as it is now on the last page of forum threads, but not at the very end.

This seems to be tru for any threads in all Forums that had new posta affter the dates went wonky...They 'disappear' to the end of all threads on that forum.

Terry, if your looking for the Feb 3 fixes thread, it's on page 60 near the bottom,if everything was fixed it wouldn't be at the end....it's maddening to think the paying members know more about what's going on then management.



This message was edited Mar 7, 2016 10:17 AM

Didn't someone mention in a previous post that they called IB (after no response to bug reports and D-mails) and was told Alison no longer worked for the company?
Whether it's true or not, it's getting a little weird around here.

Terry, the only thing that was fixed is posts within a thread are showing the correct time/date and are posting at the end instead of the front of the thread.

But, active threads on the main forum list still show a date of -0001 and can only be found on the very last page of a forum. Also, the threads on member's home page thread watcher show a date of 5200 and every one shows the exact same time. That time keeps changing and updating even though it's wrong.

We've been left floundering since Wednesday and until the posts moved back to the end of threads there was no indication that anyone from Admin even existed.

Why wasn't there a banner at the top of the page or blast emails to members to let us know we weren't on our own with this?

I understand it's a tough situation for you, but it's tough for us members as well.

I was the one who called IB directly and asked for Alison G and was told that unfortunately she no longer worked there. The receptionist took my info and report on site dysfunction and said she would give it to the techs directly and I should hear back within a week.. I did receive a return call from IB about 4 pm (my Time) on Fri 3/4 but they left no message.

Alison's LinkedIn profile still says she works at IB (though maybe she just hasn't got around to updating it yet). If she does still work for IB she certainly isn't putting any effort into communicating at DG.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisongovelitz

She is also listed here as a DG subscriber.

If this is her mess, then good riddance! More heads should roll.

I wish they would close this thread and start a new one.

I sure got beat up when I voiced the problems with the website. Seems others are joining me.

Sorry that happened to you Happgardener.

Looks like your DGD is ready to cook whatever she grows, too! Very cute.

Alison does work for IB. She moved from their offices in El Segundo, but I can assure you she definitely works for them. She and I were in contact via email on Saturday. We knew we had a couple random glitches with dates looking odd, and I was looking into it, but there wasn't a pattern to them that I could see. We rolled out a fix last week, and I'm guessing it caused the larger problem with the dates, although it didn't appear immediately.

Is this the thread you're referring to? http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1417295/

If so, I've used it as an example of a very odd occurrence with the techs. I couldn't find it in the Plant ID forum at all...can you see it anywhere? I went to your page and found your post to the Plant ID forum and tracked it down that way. Help me see what I'm missing, because as far as I can tell, the date issue has been resolved since Saturday, this specific thread issue notwithstanding.

The date issue was not resolved on Saturday. In fact I had it happen today in a thread I posted to in the Plant ID forum. When I checked back later the post date had been corrected and the thread now appears towards the top of the forum as it should. It looks like all the -0001 dates in the Plant ID forum have been fixed (and there were quite a few of them).

Terry, this issue started on Wed. evening, that it took admin until Sat to notice it is crazy. I guess admin doesnt come to DG daily or read the dmails.Members sent emails and dmails but got no response. Bc of the so called fix there are much bigger issues. Maybe you should quite trying to fix things. We were told we would be infomed of any fixes, but that isnt true.Do you see Feb 3 fixes when you go DG Site issues? There are more issues with the thread updates or not updating but it's not our jobs to fix things. I was really expecting an understandable explanation not excuses.

On my forum watcher some of the forums don't show updates but the date is current so there are new posts on the last page. Lol

No. That is not the thread. It was this one:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1417664/#post_10205231

The "date issue" has NOT been "resolved since Saturday", no matter how much you would like that to be true. This morning, it was as jacked up as it has been. This was frustrating a month ago. It has escalated well beyond that, now.

This message was edited Mar 7, 2016 4:58 PM

This message was edited Mar 7, 2016 5:01 PM

Check for the new posts on the very last pg. Eggs said to look on pg 704. You don't seem to be reading the posts but want us to repeat ourselves.

I stood up for you thinking there was some understandable explanation....boy was I wrong!

The thread in question, has migrated its way back to the first page. The activity on that post shows as "19 hours ago". That clearly isn't the case. That's when the thread was started. My reply was 10 hours ago.

NEW FORUM POSTER DATE OF LAST POST

No Tropicals & Tender Perennials keithp2012 Mar 7, 2016 7:37 PM
No Greenhouse 843rphyllis Mar 7, 2016 7:37 PM
No Organic Gardening katesflowers Mar 7, 2016 7:37 PM
No Rural Gardening CajuninKy Mar 7, 2016 7:37 PM
No Home Talk Daniel347 Mar 7, 2016 7:37 PM
________________________________________________________________

This is what part of my Forum Watcher looks like. Mar 7, 2016 7:37 PM is the time I logged in.

coleup,

Oh, now I see what you are talking about. Looks like the last several items on that "watching" list (not sure what to call it) all have the same highly suspicious date and time. Not only is it odd that they all have the same timestamp, but they all claim on the far left to have no new activity since I last checked them, yet on the right they show a timestamp only some 15min old - and I've not visited any of those forums in months.

Yep, you are right. Something is definitely amiss there. I guess I was just too happy to finally be back from the Paleolithic Era to see that. (screen shot attached)

The time also stays one minute in the future. I can wait until my pc clock changes, do F5, and the timestamps move ahead by one minute.

I've noticed this a couple of days ago and tried to explain it in my post 2 hrs ago. I give up I don't know if this can ever be fixed. This all happened when they tried to make the entire site mobile an app would have been so much easier.

I checked page 704, and several pages either side of it. I'm guessing Eggs_Zachtly has set a different number of forums per page than I do, so I also checked page 3520 (which is the last page I have), and backed up through several pages prior to it as well. It isn't there, as far as I can tell. I understand you're frustrated, but I can promise you that I read the post carefully, and tried my utmost to find the thread before I came back here to reply.

I'm wondering if that's a function of your computer's internal clock versus the server clock, which may not be in sync with each other.

Hmmm. Okay, is this still occurring? Because mine are all staggered times, as I would expect them to appear, as of 9:39pm CST.

Here's what my home page looks like:

You are "watching" 19 forums:
New? Message Board Who Last Post
Yes! PlantFiles Pictures Kell Mar 7, 2016 10:49 PM
Yes! Northeast Gardening irisMA Mar 7, 2016 10:46 PM
Yes! DG Site Updates Terry Mar 7, 2016 10:39 PM
Yes! Bird Watching Lily_love Mar 7, 2016 9:34 PM
Yes! Trees, Shrubs and Conifers Pistil Mar 7, 2016 8:40 PM
Yes! Ask-a-Dave's-Gardener mc88 Mar 7, 2016 8:09 PM
Yes! Mid-Atlantic Gardening Gitagal Mar 6, 2016 9:55 PM
No Books, Movies, and TV 1lisac Mar 6, 2016 10:09 AM
No Invasive Plants birder17 Feb 29, 2016 10:33 PM
No Cameras and Photography Jubilada Feb 17, 2016 11:27 AM
No Native and Wild Plants Chillybean Feb 10, 2016 1:31 PM
No Ohio River Valley Gardening defoecat Feb 2, 2016 8:53 AM
No Beginner Gardening mc88 Mar 7, 2016 11:03 PM
No Site Help ViburnumValley Mar 7, 2016 11:03 PM
No Plant Identification snakewatcher Mar 7, 2016 11:03 PM
No Pets MollyMc Mar 7, 2016 11:03 PM

Notice the last four lines have the same date/time, AND are listed last. That ain't right.

It's a big PITA to deal with this site on my phone. It needed to be an entity onto itself with an app or whatever..............if that is the only reason all this kerfuffle was started.............

Yes, that problem is still occurring, but only for several items at the BOTTOM of the list, so you have to check the bottom of the list to see it.

It has NOTHING to do with whether or not MY clock is in sync with the SERVER'S clock. MY clock is in sync with Denver! Those times will change, staying one minute ahead of the actual time. JHC, this has been reported, and confirmed by others, and you're STILL going to point to the problem as being on the user's end? Seriously??? I guess my phone is also to blame, since it ALSO shows the SAME anomaly!

It's now Tuesday morning. Let's see if they happen to "discover" THIS issue before Saturday...

Terry, I can confirm that it is still happening because I still see it on my home page. My current watched threads at the top of the page seem to be okay, but I now have a couple of my watched forums that have the exact same time.

Those two forums keep updating with the current date and time even though there has been no activity on them for a few days.

The two forums are Organic Gardening and Wildlife Gardening at the very bottom of my screen shot. As was already mentioned, I can keep changing the time by refreshing the screen with F5.

Also, notice it says I'm watching 17 forums, but lists only 9. That hasn't been correct for quite a while.

Please understand I'm not blaming your phone or computer - just trying to identify if the potential cause is that the server's time is not the same as your computer and/or phone.

Terry, I posted yesterday 2xs that I was having the same issue as everybody else regarding the issue discussed above. I guess you didn't see them bc if you had you wouldn't be asking if this was an individual problem.

This " upgrade" was to make DG more mobile friendly but it's nt usable on any device. We can't see the pics on plantfiles.....

After the last screw up I thought this would never happen again, but it did only worse. Now off to see if I have cross posted with anybody else,since there is no longer a notice.

Terry, here is another "updated" screen shot of the same screen in my previous post. You'll notice the only difference is the time keeps updating on the bottom two forums. Tomorrow the date will also update to show March 9 on those same two forums (unless for some reason it's fixed before then).

I have a thread on my watched threads that is doing the same thing. It is at the bottom of my list and keeps updating the time to the current time but no new posts have been made.

Cperdue, is it on your watched threads or watched forums? I think myself and the others have noticed it with forums not threads so that would be a new issue.

Here is my screen shot of the same problem. The attached pic taken a few minutes ago shows the bottom portion of my forum watching list. Note that the last 5 entries all have the identical date/time stamp. The identical timestamp, while very suspicious, is NOT the only problem with these entries though.

As others have mentioned that timestamp updates every time I refresh my screen. It always shows the exact same time as my computer clock. Also, there is clearly a logical error in that those last 5 entries show that there are NO new entries since my last visit; however, the date/time indicates the last entries occurred at the current time. If new entries had actually occurred at the present time, those entries should be at the top of the list and should have a "YES" beside them.

I meant the watched forums.

This message was edited Mar 8, 2016 11:43 AM

When all this started last week my biggest issue was with THREADS. The problems occurred with all threads with recent activity.

I can't say if I there were issues with FORUMS at first because the threads were so messed up that's as far as I bothered looking.

Now the threads seem, at least somewhat, normal, but the time/date issue I'm seeing is with my watched FORUMS. Also, just like Dream mentioned these are forums that have NO new activity.

Terry, have we convinced you yet that the 'time/date stamp thing' was not fixed on Sat.?

To me, the problem is not the date/time stamp, or the Forums not posted to showing an updated or ahead of current time time.. And fixing them piecemeal seems to allow the possibility that yet another site function is newly or still impaired as yet undiscovered.

The problem is that a fix was released last week that had noticable glitches and odd looking dates that impaired the use of all threads on this site by all users of this site and has not yet been recalled! This also begs the question of notice to community and assurances of beta and live testing to preserve some level of site functionality for all.

My Watched Forums at 2:25 pm today

Yes! Plant Identification porkpal Mar 8, 2016 1:17 PM
No Greenhouse 843rphyllis Mar 8, 2016 2:25
No Tropicals & Tender Perennials keithp2012 Mar 8, 2016 2:25 PM
No Organic Gardening katesflowers Mar 8, 2016 2:25 PM
No Rural Gardening CajuninKy Mar 8, 2016 2:25 PM

My Watched Forums at 3:01 pm today

No Greenhouse 843rphyllis Mar 8, 2016 3:01 PM
No Plant Identification rolph Mar 8, 2016 3:01 PM
No Tropicals & Tender Perennials keithp2012 Mar 8, 2016 3:01 PM
No Rural Gardening CajuninKy Mar 8, 2016 3:01 PM
No Organic Gardening katesflowers Mar 8, 2016 3:01 PM


Note that Organic and Rural Forums have switched places and Plant ID shows as having a new post at 2:25, but at 3:01 shows as no new post. I have not been to any of these forums since last year!

Here is 4:05 pm

No Greenhouse 843rphyllis Mar 8, 2016 4:05 PM
No Plant Identification Brigmon94 Mar 8, 2016 4:05 PM
No Tropicals & Tender Perennials keithp2012 Mar 8, 2016 4:05 PM
No Rural Gardening CajuninKy Mar 8, 2016 4:05 PM
No Organic Gardening katesflowers Mar 8, 2016 4:05 PM

Please understand that I'm not defending here...just trying to explain. When Alison alerted the techs on Saturday that the date/time stamps were off, she was specifically focusing on the fact they were all showing -001 as the time, which wrecked everything. When I popped back in later in the day, it appeared that posts had the correct time stamped on them. It wasn't until Monday morning that I realized there were other issues. I agree with you that we should have announced the rollout (and as of Wednesday at noon, I was under the impression we were going to have a site-wide announcement before it went live.

I worked in the help desk on and off Thursday and Friday and either I somehow missed the date/time stamp issue (unlikely but I won't rule it out), or this issue wasn't manifesting itself everywhere on the site. Alison may be able to explain the breakdown in communications on why there wasn't a site-wide alert. But I do know the lead tech and her team are working VERY hard to get these fixes done properly. I also know it doesn't look like that from the outside. But I am asking that you give us the benefit of the doubt on a personal level that we all care about getting the site working properly, that when we say it's complicated, we mean it's really complicated, and that if we fail to announce something, it has more to do with the fact that we're spread over multiple time zones, working in different pockets on the site (or in Alison's case, overseeing multiple sites). Again, that's not an excuse, but an assurance that no one working on these fixes wants to see them blow up in our faces as they did this weekend. This is also a profound apology from me, for not seeing your posts and notes on Saturday and Sunday. I don't always take weekends off, but I did for the most part this weekend, and except for a few minutes here and there, I wasn't logged in or online on any site, so I didn't see the messages.