Moving topics causes remaining ones to disappear

[awolexpat]

I have been getting the behaviour in the title on the odd occasion in my forum, but it is not consistent and sometimes seems to correct itself after a while. It has just happened again.Basically i have a board that is populated only by topics that come from an rss feed, of classified ads that have been placed elsewhere on my site, for which I use RSS Feeder mod. I don't think it is an issue with that mod though. Obviously over time some of the ads are out of date so I need to move them to my Classifieds Archive board, which is a child board of the Classifieds board. I select the topics and use the normal procedure to move them, and on some occasions all of the topics in the Classifieds board disappear, while the Archive board is correctly populated with it's topics including the ones just moved.

I think it must be some sort of database error, but neither the SMF database maintenance nor repairing either the message or topics tables in phpmyadmin makes any difference. There is nothing in the error log, and i have tried logging out and in again, cleared the cache on my browser, run the other forum maintenance tasks, completely shut down my system and rebooted, but still the topics don't appear in the board. They are there in the database, and in the correct place, they just aren't appearing. One other oddity - I have Simple Portal for my front page, and I have a block showing the most recent posts, one of which is one of the classifieds that should be in the board where the topics have gone missing - when I click on it, it takes me to the topic and the breadcrumb navigation tells me that i am in the Classifieds board! However when i click on the breadcrumb it once again shows no topics! I have just checked the database table for the boards and it does indeed say that there are no topics on that board, so this is even more mystifying. I have just repaired that table as well but still nothing appears.

Just to clarify, before I moved a couple of topics there was a load of topics on the board; after I moved there were none. However the topics still exist in the database, marked with the correct board but the row for that board in the relevant table shows there being no topics. My forum is at www.awolonline.net/forum which takes you to the Simple Portal page where if you scroll down you will find the Recent Topics list, while the board with the problem is called Classifieds. As far as I remember I have only ever had this problem with that board, but then again it is rare that I have to move topics in the other boards.

If anyone has got any suggestions both how to fix the immediate problem and an explanation as to why this happens in the first place and what I can do to avoid it, I am all ears!

[margarett]

Besides SP, what other MODs do you have installed?

[Storman™]

Who's your host, I'm finding your website incredably slow to render pages.   

[Burke ♞ Knight]

Same here... I had to cancel, as it was taking too long to load.

[awolexpat]

margarett,
I have a lot of mods installed but this behaviour is so haphazard I can't see why it would be a mod conflict. I'll post a list if you want but I think I'd prefer to investigate another cause first really because it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Others,
Yes it can be very slow on occasions but because I live in Thailand I have generally put it down to the internet speeds here, and this is the first external confirmation I have had that it is slow elsewhere, and it now gives me reason to contact my host about it. However how long were you having to wait, as normally for me it is 30 seconds or less, even when I have cleared my browser cache. Also where are you located (country) for reference?

[Kindred]

well

1- this is not normal behavior...   so, some modification has changed the normal behavior to cause the problem.
2- 30 seconds? holy moly...   pages should be served in less than *2* seconds

[kat]

That Twitter box looks like it's hogging resources, to me. Particularly as it seems to just kinda sitting there, attempting to load something.

[awolexpat]

Kindred - the 30 seconds was a maximum, and you get used to that sort of page load in Thailand, you have to. As far as the behaviour goes, I am still doubtful it is a mod because I have changed very little on my forum for some time, and am more inclined to think that either one of the design tweaks I have made or some external factor is to blame (e.g.host). However if you can give me some idea of what and where to start looking as regards what bit of code might have been altered to cause this then I can eliminate the mods that can't be to blame by checking what edits they make.

K@ - I assume you are referring to the twitter box 'Thailand In Twitter'? Yes I need to do something with that as it stopped working- it is supposed to show tweets that have anything to do with Thailand but after working originally it just stopped; however I'm not sure that is the cause of the slow page load, as I have been getting that on the rest of my site as well, so I think it is a host issue.

[kat]

I guess you could disable it, to check.

Are you getting this weird behaviour with every topic that you move? Or does it seem to affect topics with a large number of posts in?

If it's the latter, I'd suspect the timeout setting, in php.ini should be raised.

max_execution_time = 60

Maybe you could ask your host to raise that, at least temporarily, to see if it helps?

[Kindred]

awolexpat,

when I say "mods", this includes any manual changes/tweaks that you may have made (and hopefully documented)

[awolexpat]

K@, As I said in my initial post, the behaviour isn't consistent; sometimes I will move a topic (or topics) with no problem, other times it exhibits this behaviour. On at least one occasion the problem seemed to cure itself, and the previous time I moved topics it didn't happen, but this week it happened again. The thing is, and I'm not sure you have grasped this from my posts, the topics I want moved do appear in their new location correctly - it is the ones that should have stayed where they are that disappear. Almost all of the topics I move have only the original post because it is a board where replies are not allowed - the entire function of it is to direct people to our fully fledged classifieds site or the specific items being advertised.

Kindred,
I would love to tell you that I have kept a detailed log of every change I have made but I haven't; however most of the changes (in fact i think it is all) I have made (other than those done either automatically or manually from downloaded mod packages) have been to either the css or code affecting the top portion of the forum with the navigation menus so that matches the rest of my site.

[kat]

Yeah, it was the fact that it wasn't consistent that made me wonder about the size of the topics involved. Obviously, topics with more posts in would take longer to move. If that process gets interrupted, that could perhaps, result in the results that you're getting.

By the same token, if you're moving posts on a shared host, which suffers from slowdowns, when things get busy, that could be affected by the timeout thing, too.

Is that anything like a grasp of the subject?

[awolexpat]

K@,
I understand what you're getting at but I would have thought that would also affect the topics being moved, which it doesn't - they appear exactly where I moved them. What i really need to understand is the process of  the board index being created, as regards the files/code that is called to populate the index; the topics are there in the database with the correct board reference but the row in the table for this particular board has no topics in it - I believe it is what ever code deals with this that I need to look at but have no idea where to start. Before I moved the topics the board was showing correctly so something in the process of moving the topics is zeroing that row in the database table. I am quite happy to dig through code to try and fix it but need a starting point as to what and where I should be looking.

[kat]

Well, as I've never heard of this happening, before, perhaps a list of the mods that you use could be beneficial, after all?

[awolexpat]

OK, you asked for it! 

1.   6 Custom buttons / tabs with Sub Menus (4)    0.5     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 04:42 PM
2.   Ad Managment    3.0.1     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 05:46 PM
3.   Add And Remove Buttons    0.4     Thursday, 22 September, 2011, 03:12 PM
4.   Aeva Media    1.4w     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 03:13 PM
5.   AJAX Recent Topics    1.1     Sunday, 11 September, 2011, 03:09 PM
6.   Align text with Smiley    1.2     Thursday, 17 November, 2011, 01:01 PM
7.   Apache Error Handler    1.2     Wednesday, 16 November, 2011, 09:43 PM
8.   Bad Behavior mod    1.5.15     Sunday, 13 January, 2013, 04:59 PM
9.   Bad Behavior mod    1.5.13   Sunday, 13 January, 2013, 04:59 PM
10.   BlogBridger    1.1.4     Monday, 27 February, 2012, 02:22 PM
11.   Board Notices    1.0.2     Friday, 19 October, 2012, 01:11 PM
12.   Bookmarks    2.3     Wednesday, 31 August, 2011, 10:23 PM
13.   Button 1 Menu Extender for 6 custom buttons mod    1.0     Thursday, 22 September, 2011, 02:43 PM
14.   Contact Page    3.0     Wednesday, 07 December, 2011, 12:05 PM
15.   Country Flags    1.1.2     Friday, 16 September, 2011, 10:25 PM
16.   Custom Copyright    1.0.2     Friday, 16 September, 2011, 10:19 PM
17.   Custom Pages and Tabs (2) SMF 2 - RC3    1.1     Saturday, 29 October, 2011, 04:49 PM
18.   Custom_Top_menu    1.4     Monday, 05 December, 2011, 10:53 AM
19.   Default Avatar    2.2     Thursday, 17 November, 2011, 01:15 PM
20.   Downloads System    1.4.1     Sunday, 04 December, 2011, 11:27 AM
21.   Email Template Editor    1.0     Friday, 20 January, 2012, 09:21 AM
22.   FAQ Mod    2.0     Friday, 10 May, 2013, 10:09 AM
23.   Footer Menu v.1    v.1     Monday, 26 September, 2011, 10:45 PM
24.   Global Message Box By Smfsimple.com    V1 Lite Version     Tuesday, 15 January, 2013, 09:02 PM
25.   Google +1    1.0     Thursday, 17 November, 2011, 01:22 PM
26.   Google Analytics Code    1.4     Monday, 03 October, 2011, 04:50 PM
27.   Ignore Board In New Posts    1.0     Tuesday, 27 September, 2011, 08:54 AM
28.   InLine Attachments    1.11     Thursday, 17 November, 2011, 01:31 PM
29.   JumpToSelectBoard By Smfsimple.com    V1     Friday, 02 September, 2011, 04:58 PM
30.   New Layout for Last Post Info    1.5     Thursday, 17 November, 2011, 02:03 PM
31.   New Manual Look    1.1     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 04:49 PM
32.   New Topic Button By Smfsimple.com    V1     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 05:04 PM
33.   Next Post Level    1.3.3     Wednesday, 31 August, 2011, 11:23 PM
34.   PM to New Members    1.2     Saturday, 03 September, 2011, 03:29 PM
35.   Post_Board_Select    1.3     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 05:05 PM
36.   Prevent Adding Signature Images And Links    2.0     Tuesday, 06 March, 2012, 03:10 PM
37.   Profile Statuses    3.1     Friday, 02 September, 2011, 12:23 PM
38.   Project Snow 1.1    1.1     Tuesday, 22 November, 2011, 09:03 AM
39.   Random News Fader    1.0     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 04:51 PM
40.   Recent Topics On "Recent Posts" Page    1.2     Friday, 16 September, 2011, 10:17 PM
41.   Recent Topics On Board Index    1.03     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 04:52 PM
42.   Reply Button in All Posts    1.1     Sunday, 04 September, 2011, 11:09 AM
43.   RSS Feed Icon    1.1     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 03:09 PM
44.   RSS Feeder    1.1.5     Saturday, 03 December, 2011, 01:14 PM
45.   SA Affiliates    3.3.5.6     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 10:44 PM
46.   SA Facebook    2.0.2     Thursday, 14 February, 2013, 07:20 PM
47.   SA Twitter    0.6 REV 30     Monday, 28 May, 2012, 03:20 PM
48.   Separate Replies and Views Column    1.9     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 09:07 PM
49.   Separated Birthdays from Events    1.1.7     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 04:57 PM
50.   Signature Option Post    1.1.1     Thursday, 28 June, 2012, 10:32 AM
51.   SimplePortal    2.3.5     Thursday, 14 June, 2012, 03:32 PM
52.   Sitemap    2.2.0     Sunday, 20 November, 2011, 09:05 PM
53.   Smart Pagination    0.8     Wednesday, 16 November, 2011, 10:22 PM
54.   SMF 1.0.20 / 1.1.12 Update    1.0   N/A
55.   SMF 1.0.21 / 1.1.13 Update    1.0   N/A
56.   SMF 1.1.14 Update    1.0   N/A
57.   SMF 2.0.1 Update    1.0     Thursday, 22 September, 2011, 08:44 AM   
58.   SMF 2.0.2 Update    1.0     Tuesday, 27 December, 2011, 10:20 AM
59.   SMF 2.0.3 Update    1.0     Friday, 21 December, 2012, 08:25 AM
60.   SMF 2.0.4 Update    1.0     Wednesday, 06 February, 2013, 07:55 AM
61.   SMF 2.0.5 Update    1.0     Saturday, 17 August, 2013, 09:51 AM
62.   Social Login    2.5     Thursday, 05 September, 2013, 10:45 AM   
63.   Socialize    1.8     Thursday, 17 November, 2011, 12:38 PM
64.   Sortable Packages (and Installed Time)    1.3     Wednesday, 09 November, 2011, 08:51 PM
65.   Stop Spammer    2.3.9     Tuesday, 25 October, 2011, 09:42 PM
66.   SubAccounts Mod    1.0.1     Thursday, 17 November, 2011, 02:20 PM
67.   Tabbed smileys    0.3.99b     Friday, 02 September, 2011, 03:37 PM
68.   Table Plus BBCodes    1.2     Tuesday, 23 July, 2013, 10:40 AM
69.   Tapatalk SMF 2.0 RC4/RC5/Final Plugin    3.0.2   Yesterday at 01:19 PM
70.   Tapatalk SMF 2.0 RC5/Final Plugin    3.8.0     Yesterday at 01:19 PM
71.   Topics Filter    3.2     Wednesday, 28 September, 2011, 02:11 PM
72.   TopicStarter Mod    1.6     Wednesday, 05 October, 2011, 09:13 AM
73.   User Control Panel By Alan S    2.2     Thursday, 22 September, 2011, 09:28 PM
74.   Users Online Today    2.0     Friday, 16 September, 2011, 10:11 PM
75.   VigLink    1.3     Tuesday, 23 July, 2013, 11:59 AM
76.   Welcome Topic Mod    2.1     Thursday, 07 July, 2011, 09:11 PM
77.   Word Count Limits    1.3b     Thursday, 18 October, 2012, 11:19 PM

[kat]

A hunch. No idea why I got this hunch, either. So, it might well be total crap.

"Separate Replies and Views Column" Can that be disabled? If it can and is, does it make any difference?

[awolexpat]

K@,
It can't be disabled, just uninstalled. However that mod has been there for over 2 years and the behaviour has only exhibited itself this year. Uninstalling (and reinstallation if it isn't the culprit) would be a pain as I remember having to manually edit code for the theme I use (Blackhead by Crip). I also don't think that mod would go anywhere near the database table which has been altered to cause this. It is just a visual change to have views and replies in different columns, not a data one.

[margarett]

If the topics are still in the DB, it should be possible to check why don't they appear anymore... Does the table "smf_topics" keep the "id_board" field in those "missing" topics?

[awolexpat]

Hi margarett,
Yes the missing topics still have the correct board_id in the topics table - I did actually mention this in my initial post but you probably missed it. The smf_boards table has a row for the board but num_topics and num_posts are 0 although I don't know how those are calculated - to me it seems as if there is a breakdown somewhere in the database (or the code that instructs the database) where the topics are not being allocated to their board. What is odd though is that the board the other topics were moved to is fine.

As I said if someone can point me in the direction of the file/code I need to look at I might be able to work it out myself but I really don't know which file would contain that code. I don't think there can be any error in any of the index templates because if there was I would be seeing this behaviour consistently, but as I don't move topics very often, and normally only involving the two boards in question, I think the code for board moderation is what I need to find. However I am just guessing.

[awolexpat]

Well, here is an oddity - today all the missing posts reappeared on the correct board without me doing anything! This is all very odd...

I am about to tempt fate though by trying to delete some duplicates that have been generated by the feed....and lo and behold everything has disappeared again.So basically any moderator action so far (moving or deleting topics) causes the whole board to disappear. No doubt in a week or two's time it will reappear again. I think what i am going to try is to create a new board and have the feed post there and see what happens, and then when the old board reappears move everything to the new board. Unless anyone has any further suggestions?