but no pattern has been found

The pattern I observe is:

- the read/unread posts start appearing in the afternoon, around 2 PM CET onwards. This is the time that readers in the US start to log on. Something to do with load?

- if I use the "shortcuts" or jumps to move around the board, it rapidly causes this bug to occur. If I use the up and sideways keys of the UI it doesn't seem to happen.

- if I remain logged in and repeatedly refresh the page to see if there are new posts, it happens. I can avoid this by going through "Who's Online" and then "Main Index" to do a refresh.

- If I am logged in, read all new posts and then move from the page to another URL, then move back to the empeg BBS (within say, 20 seconds), the problem occurs - ie. the posts I have just read are now marked as unread.

- If I log out, sometimes if I return to the page it indicates I am still logged in, even when I am connecting from the same machine.

- if I log out from work, I can connect again later from home to find I am still logged in. If I log out at home again and return to work, it is 50/50 as to whether I am still regarded as logged in or not.

To me it looks like there is a bug in how cookies are validated/invalidated; also there is something wrong with how they are interpreted against login state on the server; and then finally, the state recording of the server seems to have problems too. This is all observed on Netscape and Exploder.

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015