Posts out of order - why can't we fix this?
 

The out of order posts problem is getting annoying.

Forgive me if I've missed something regarding the status of this problem, but what gives? Can this be fixed?

Ongoing issue with our database that Ryan has spent a lot of time looking into. I don't think he's given up yet, either.

It is annoying.

It does get very confusing.

It looks like a small sort issue. Nearly every case of this is two posts with identical posting times down to the minute.

but often you'll see a reply, with quotes and it is dated a minute earlier than the post it quotes...

FM

talking about?

What are you

I think it's pretty clear what the problem is. A time traveller living one minute in the future has hacked into our database and is rearranging our posts.

I just thought I was the fastest poster around here.

You have much to learn, grasshopper...

Precience is hard to explain

I think it has something to do with the clock on the server, but it is difficult to confirm it until I get a response back from Gamespy.

I tried posting at the hosted support forum to find out if anyone else had a similar problem, but that post veered off topic when the first responder told me to stop using a CGI board!

If it is not clock related, I have no idea what the problem is, and neither do vBulletin at the moment, so I hope it is clock related.

I think it's Cool

-Anxiety

We'll need to come up with a new term for when you Dola post, but it appears prior to your post. Maybe Alod, dola backwards

I knew you would say that.

The out of order posts problem is getting annoying.

Forgive me if I've missed something regarding the status of this problem, but what gives? Can this be fixed?

I believe it's a rift in the space-time continuum. Lieutenant Commander Data is working on a solution as we speak. That is all. Dismissed.

I hope the solution has something to do with Multidimensional Scaling Models.

Or String Theory.

Dola-

It certainly seems that the time assigned to the posts must be off - as in the "Moderation" thread I posted at 3:35pm (local time), but the "Last Post" shows a 3:34 post by sterlingice.

Not to be a boob or anything but it is stupid coding. They are obviously sorting by date as opposed to post #. In the DB there has to be an associated post number that is probably an auto-incr number. If they would sort by these numbers the time of the server wouldn't matter and it would only be a problem when looking at the actual times and the order would always be correct.

.02

Better way to do it would likely be to add seconds to the datestamp in the database. Wouldn't require a lick of code change (which is probably more of a pain in the ass - I know full well what a coding mess most forum code is), and would theoretically fix the problem with one little modification to the table structure.

...Assuming the sql insert is coded properly in the board code, that is.

I think the problem is different timestamps, I'm not sure how adding seconds would help. Likely that seconds are already included anyway.

Wouldn't you just need to change the row reference from date to the auto-number in the statement?

I'm out of order?!? YOU'RE out of order! This whole court is out of order!!!

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You?

On my own site I've created a little news section that is forum like and I simply give each news post or comment its own auto-inc. Each entry of news post or comment is in the same table but comments have the Parent field filled in with the news post to which it is related (the news post has a zero in the Parent field).

There is a timestamp field but it isn't used when I query to display. I list them by their auto-inc post numbers which are ALWAYS in order. And, thanks to database geniuses you can't mess with auto-incs by reseting them. (somebody can go into the DB and alter them, but that is a special case)

Again, just my .02 worth.