Bugs Reporting and Suggestions

Which page recent topics takes you to, and whether or not you stay logged in is controlled by your cookies stored in your browser. If your browser is set to clear your history/files/cache when it is shut down , then all your cookies are cleared when you close your browser. If it isn't then, it will save your cookies even if you shut down your browser. If your browser is set to clear your history/files/cache after a certain length of time, it will clear out your cookies after that length of time, even if you don't shut down your browser.

Login: You are logged out of the site after 200 minutes of inactivity. If your cookies haven't been cleared, and the remember me box has been checked, when a page loads, it should automatically log you back in, even if you have navigated away from the page and then returned, or shut down your browser or your device. If your cookies have been cleared, you will find that you are logged out. Additionally your login cookie can expire, or become invalid in certain scenarios (combination of time passed and number of devices you have logged into in the interim).

Recent Topics: The cookie holds the last page that you were reading. The reason for this is that if you are reading a topic that's not on the first page and close that topic, you return to the page that you were on. You can image that it would be very annoying if you were trying to catch up on all the topics that are on the back pages to be booted all the way to the first page after reading each post. To achieve this, the last page you were on is held in your cookies until you go to another page. So if you, for example, where reading page 4, and then closed your browser tab or window, or navigated away from the site, or even shut down your browser/device but your cookies weren't cleared, and then returned to the site, and went to recent topics, you will be shown page 4 because that's the page that was stored in your cookies. If your cookies were cleared in the interim, it will take you to the first page.

The code hasn't changed recently. Code doesn't wear out like a washing machine, or change spontaneously. What does change are people's habits, browsers, settings, and devices. I suspect that folks are reading the site on several different devices, and the clear browser cookies are set differently on each. Most phone browsers are set, by default, to clear your cookies when the browser is closed or the phone is shut down. Most desktops/laptops are set by default to hold your cookies for a day or a week. However, many workplaces set the browser on your desktop so it clears its cache whenever it is shutdown. So it seems like all this is very random, but its just that you have different cookies on different devices, and they are being cleared on different schedules. So you are reading page 4 on your laptop, switch to your phone which takes you to page 1. But when you go back to your laptop, which logs you back in automatically, it brings up page 4. But then, when you go to your work desktop, which was set to clear your cookies whenever you shut down, and which you shutdown/or restarted the night before when you left work, now you are logged out entirely.

Could be a browser bug, a bad cookie, or you could be accidentally hitting the 2 when you swipe. However, the going to page 2 when you hit the back button is really FUBAR. That makes it sound like it is most likely a browser bug/bad cookie.

What browser are you using?

You can test the bad cookie theory, by clearing your cookies and seeing if it solves the problem.

Disgustipater wrote: My issue just started like a week ago, but maybe a browser update changed something.

Browser update sounds like a strong possibility if all or most of the people having this problem are using the same browser.

What browser are you using?

Sagrilarus wrote: Not meaning to call you all liars but I’m on a PC, an iPad and a Android phone on Firefox and Brave. My guess is that a dose of corruption went into your cookies at some point and it’s lingering. Close all TWBG tabs then clear your TWBG cookies, shut down and restart the browser. Look for behavior change of any sort and report back.

A second approach — bring the site up in IE or Edge or Safari (i.e., a browser you don’t use) and look for a change of behavior.

LOL. You know your IT shit. I've been trying to recreate the bug on two different laptops (mac and PC), a Dell Desktop, an iPad, and an iphone, and 5 different browsers (Safari, IE, Edge, Chrome & Firefox), and all combinations are working to spec.

The bottom line is the URL therewillbe.games/forum/recent uses your cookies to navigate. This URL will take you to wherever your cookie dictates. If the cookies are kaka, or for some reason your browser isn't accepting the new cookies as you navigate to different pages, your're going to end up on an unexpected page. There is not a lot I can do about that. I added a hard coded page one url to left side bar for what it is worth. It's the same link as the 1 button on the top of the page, just in case that is getting fat fingered. On your phone, clicking on the three little lines next to the search box at the top of the forum will open the forum menu.

Other than that, clearing your TWBG cookies may fix the problem. I'll keep digging, but this is looking like a client side issue, and there isn't a whole lot I can do about it if that is the case.