All threads show up as read.

[~graffiti]

Is the CSS on the site messed up? I'm not getting bolded text for unread threads plus "updated" isn't listed on threads that have been updated.

But some of the ones I've already visited are a little lighter blue than the others.

[Claudio_González1]

Bill, the problem is that every one of those niceties that you may find in individual forums is the result of much time and effort devoted by one individual, who may or may be not a moderator, and using tools that do not belong to the Jive software. The logical thing would be to take the best of all those initiatives and incorporate them to the full set of forums using the software tools. Pity that the software does not seem to be up to the task, at least in the ancient version used here.

Noel, you arte right, the bolding used nowadays almost completely replaces the flags of the Fair Forums (name coined by Jacob). My personal impression, though, is that the flags are a bit faster to use.

[Jacob Bugge]

Jim,

Here's what I see using Firefox and Stylish.

So far, I have chosen to just see how things look, hoping to promote and hopefully see good changes, rather than using the more advanced options created by some of the natives right after the fair forums fell into the abyss.

What is Stylish, and how is it used?

[~graffiti]

I'm not noticing a speed difference either.

I know noel says a few seconds difference but it doesn't even take that long for pages to load for me.

Thanks for turning it back on.

[Jacob Bugge]

To (always) look at the bright side (of life), (at least in this case) better read than dead.

[Guest]

read tracking is equally as critical as speed, imo. a fast site w/o it is near useless, especially if it's busy. a slow site, is just as useless.

[~graffiti]

I assume since "Jive" hasn't turned it back on yet that it's just plain old broken?

[John T Smith]

~graffiti wrote:

I assume since "Jive" hasn't turned it back on yet that it's just plain old broken?

I didn't make note of the discussion link (and I'm not going to spend the time trying to find it again) but in one of the other forums (or a message in this forum) I saw mention of needing to completely reindex the forum for read tracking to work again... and that it takes about 3 days for this indexing

IF a corrupt index was (partly) at fault for some of the problems, that MAY mean read tracking will be back on someday

[Jochem van Dieten]

John T Smith wrote on 11/03/29 18:22:

I didn't make note of the discussion link (and I'm not going to spend the time trying to find it again) but in one of the other forums (or a message in this forum) I saw mention of needing to completely reindex the forum for read tracking to work again... and that it takes about 3 days for this indexing

A reindex is necessary to get the search back. Supposedly that was

started on the 23th and restarted on the 24th after a configuration

error was corrected. While it has been communicated this takes 3 days

there is historical evidence this takes about 7 days if you compare

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3459336#3459336 and

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3471762#3471762

IF a corrupt index was (partly) at fault for some of the problems, that MAY mean read tracking will be back on someday

The current list of identified problems reads:

- forums overload due to spammers (11-14, 21 and 26 March)

- load balancer configuration (corrected 23 March)

- forum node going down due to bug CS-14769 (24 March) (sorry)

- memory monitor configuration (corrected 24 March)

- forums overload due to spam removal (25 March) (sorry)

- reduced resources because one node is reindexing the search (ongoing)

That obviously does not include all the problems that have not been

identified or have been identified in private communication between

Adobe and Jive.

Many of these problems are related. Since the search is not working

spammers get free reign until somebody uses "Report abuse". That is the

difference between catching them after 12 hours or after 3 days, which

is the difference between 2000 messages and 17000. Reindexing is taking

longer due to the memory monitor issue and all that time the cluster is

one node down.

The underlying issue is obviously that the forums hang by a thread,

there is absolutely no headroom for anything abnormal. If a node

disappears for some routine maintenance, the forums have a problem. If

there is abnormal activity, like a spammer posting many messages but

still within the allowable maximum posting rate, the forums slow down.

When I remove a spam run, the forums slow down.

We can all do little things to make sure the situation doesn't

deteriorate, like me reducing the rate at which I delete spam, John

disabling read-tracking and other performance options, everybody

reporting spam through the "Report abuse" link. But in the end it boils

down to Adobe making the decision to do a major overhaul of these forums

before anything substantial is going to improve. Maybe if the search

reindexing is completed, if the search starts working again, if we get

the extra cluster node back and if we can get a better handle on the

spammers the forums will get some headroom and it will be possible to

turn the read-tracking back on. Or maybe it has to wait until Adobe does

something major.

[Jacob Bugge]

Thank you for the detailed information, Jochem.

[Jim_Simon]

The underlying issue is obviously that the forums hang by a thread, there is absolutely no headroom for anything abnormal.

THAT is why I've been requesting new hardware for these forums, capable of handling double the highest load these forums have ever seen.  It's called a "safety factor", and it's relevant to much more than just building a bridge.

Maybe if...blah, blah, blah, it will be possible to turn the read-tracking back on.

Not good enough.  We want it back now please.  It was on Friday for a while, then it disappeared again.  The extra half a second faster for every fourth page load just isn't significant when you're talking about 10 to 30 second loads anyway.

The above 'new hardware' solution is what's necessary here, but that will take time.  Far too long to go without read tracking.  So please...just turn it back on already.

[Jim_Simon]

I'm baffled by the complete lack of listening to the multitude of regular posters.  Maybe if I shout...

TURN READ TRACKING ON NOW PLEASE!!!  DON'T WAIT FOR ANYTHING TO FINISH.  JUST TURN IT BACK ON.

[Claudio_González1]

JSS1138 wrote:

I'm baffled by the complete lack of listening to the multitude of regular posters.

...

Still baffled after more than two years of not listening??? Well, perhaps the lack of read tracking may be re-classified as a "feature" to get rid of this problem...

[Guest]

Perhaps I am not typical, but if I have a choice of software I go with the product that has a good user to user forum.  Answers are quicker and with little company hype compared to getting a company to answer the questions.

Adobe has a fantastic user to user forum, but since the introduction of Jive 2 years ago they have been trying (with some success) to drive away the wide knowledge base that resides with the user.

The lack of response from Adobe to address the forum user complaints, and the further degradation of the service, will no doubt cause a few more experienced forum helpers to drop out.

[mytaxsite]

TURN READ TRACKING ON NOW PLEASE!!!  DON'T WAIT FOR ANYTHING TO FINISH.  JUST TURN IT BACK ON.

Now somebody is really very angry indeed.  However, if Adobe Forums were running normally, without any faults whatsoever, then clearly there won't be anything better to do for the multitude of regular posters.  You are a bit cruel on them aren't you?

[Claudio_González1]

Jochem van Dieten wrote:

...

The underlying issue is obviously that the forums hang by a thread,

there is absolutely no headroom for anything abnormal. If a node

disappears for some routine maintenance, the forums have a problem. If

there is abnormal activity, like a spammer posting many messages but

still within the allowable maximum posting rate, the forums slow down.

When I remove a spam run, the forums slow down.

We can all do little things to make sure the situation doesn't

deteriorate, like me reducing the rate at which I delete spam, John

disabling read-tracking and other performance options, everybody

reporting spam through the "Report abuse" link. But in the end it boils

down to Adobe making the decision to do a major overhaul of these forums

before anything substantial is going to improve. Maybe if the search

reindexing is completed, if the search starts working again, if we get

the extra cluster node back and if we can get a better handle on the

spammers the forums will get some headroom and it will be possible to

turn the read-tracking back on. Or maybe it has to wait until Adobe does

something major.

It's nice to see you agreeing with what many of us have been  complainig of since the first day ot this new site's trial run...

[Harbs.]

I don't think Jochem (or anyone else) ever disagreed with any of the complaints.

It's more a matter of how the complaints were made...

Harbs

[Claudio_González1]

Harbs. wrote:

I don't think Jochem (or anyone else) ever disagreed with any of the complaints.

It's more a matter of how the complaints were made...

Harbs

I am not sure if my style of reporting things not working or things I don't like has varied very much over the years I have participated in these forums, and I am too lazy to try to check if it has. However, I seem to remember that many of my complaints were toned down on the grounds that the change of software was indeed for the better, needing only some adjustments to be made very soon. I also remember have been rebuked for repeating, many months later, a report I had forgotten I had already posted on some problem that had not been corrected.

There were many participants who became increasingly vehement when they saw no improvements, and were finally banned. However, I doubt that everyone complaining did it in an improper way, as I also doubt that many of the defects reported from the beginning have been corrected.

[Samoreen]

Hi,

I'm not aware of any forum software the perfomance of which being affected by the fact that the Read Tracking feature is ON or OFF. Never seen that except here. There's an obvious solution : drop Jive and switch to a decent forum software. Adobe, you'll spend less time installing a good software than trying to fix that unfixable crap. Even if performance was OK with Read Tracking enabled (for me, the forum is still slow even with Read Tracking disabled), you'll still have to fix the overall usability and the Search feature. As far as I can remember, searching never worked in these forums and without this feature, a forum is half as useful.

Anyway, I prefer a slow forum than a forum without Read Tracking. This just doesn't make sense.

Good luck.

[John Hawkinson]

Search works now.

[Samoreen]

Hi,

John Hawkinson wrote:

Search works now.

Just tried in the Lightroom forum. The "Search Lightroom Forum" entry still yields 0 results all the time. A global search with the same keywords works. However, the "Search xxxxx forum" is necessary because some keywords used globally give too much results.

So the Search feature is still broken for searches limited to the current forum, as before.

[Jochem van Dieten]

John Hawkinson wrote on 11/03/30 16:46:

Search works now.

It really doesn't:

- about half of the messages posted after March 11th can't be found;

- whenever you use one of the filters (date range, forum or user) no

results show up at all.

[Noel Carboni]

Well, we've had "blazing" performance for several days now without the read tracking.  We have to assume it's related.

Honestly, prior to losing read tracking I was keeping up - i.e., reading every bold thread - in the forums I visit, and contributing my comments and help to each of them.

Now, given that I actually have to work with just the subjects to figure out whether I've seen (or am interested in) a thread or not, I'm missing some threads entirely and actually finding I'm weaning off the forums somewhat, even though I'm trying to be understanding about the problems.

So it really comes back to Adobe...  Do you want your experienced people contributing, or do you just want a bunch of first time posters asking questions with occasional answers from second time posters?

The value of this resource to Adobe is being shaken significantly.

-Noel

[Jochem van Dieten]

Noel Carboni wrote:

Well, we've had "blazing" performance for several days now without the read tracking.  We have to assume it's related.

We have had OK performance for about 12 hours:

[Bob_Peters]

And the beat goes on.....

I'm beginning to realize that Adobe just doesn't dive a damn!

[Guest]

I think it is time to start a new thread as this one has been labeled "answered", and there is no answer from Adobe as to whether read tracking will be re-instated or not.