Cookies broken

or the forum database is.

Sometimes, I log into the forums to find new messages, only to realize that they are messages I've already read, that are marked new, in forums where I've even clicked on the "Mark this forum read" link.

Other times, I log into the forums to find no new messages, but when I start looking at dates/times, I realize that there ARE new messages, but for some strange reason they're showing up as read.

Sometimes I find a forum that has new messages, and the messages marked as new really are new, but some of the messages that are marked read are also new.

This all started happening this week. There's no way for me to determine, though, if it's a result of the database problem on Sunday, or the restructuring of the forum groupings (talk-talk-talk, tech-tech-tech, etc.), or something completely different.

This makes the whole read/unread posts feature of the forum kind of useless. And it's very frustrating for anyone (like me) that actually tries to follow most/all of the forums.

Same here, except it's always been like that for me (from end of June).

If you use IE 6.0 most of the cookies on *.secondlife.com are blocked by default because Linden Labs didn't implement the new P3P privacy policies suggested (enforced) by W3C. Linden Labs should really add these to comply with new browsers, but it is a real pain to do so.

In the mean while, what you can do is add *.secondlife.com to your trusted sites list and/or set your Privacy settings under Internet Explorer's Internet Options dialog tab to the lowest setting possible. Secondly, you must make sure that you have setup your forum preferences here to keep you logged in via cookies if you want to use that feature too.

Cookies are definitely getting through, and no, I'm not using IE

Switching to url-encoded (in profile) instead of cookies seems to work better so far. I suggest trying that

I've always had this problem, but then again, I couldn't even get into the forums when I started SL. I just look through everything anyway, just in case.

It's not actually a cookie problem. It seems to be a vB code problem.

Whenever your session times out, it apparently sets all the forums read. Unfortunately, this actually happens 20 minutes after you read your last post.

It also happens if you open your browser to the forums and for some reason (child emergency, laundry, big inning in the baseball game) let the browser sit for 20 minutes. *POOF*, all of the messages are marked read and you have to try to remember the approximate time of the last message you actually read.

I've even missed a few posts in some of my own threads because of this.

Made even more annoying because I make it a point when I'm done reading a forum to ALWAYS click on the "Mark this Forum Read" link, specifically so that when I come back I can tell which forums have new messages that I haven't read yet.

I've gotten to the point that I just remember what the name of the most recent post-er is and go by that

I've never been able to use "Mark Forum Read". It's All or Nothing.

So I do what Dio does, and look for the most recent poster.