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How come my post count dropped?

spleenandideal

New member
Really not that important, but yesterday I was nearing my 300th post (I know, I know, that ain't much considering I've been a member since 1998....can't believe it's been that long), but today my last post was only 249. How did I lose 50 posts since then? Is it a cookie problem?

Just wanted the powers-that-be to know.
 

TheBluesMan

Moderator Emeritus
You're not the only one, Spleen...

George Hill apparently dropped about 3K posts. We don't believe that the actual posts have gone missing, only that the counter is a little out of whack.

A TFL Technician is being dispatched to look into this problem even as we speak. We'll hopefully have an answer for you in about a day.

-Dave
 
This is really a mystery to me. I don't believe that the total post counts for the board have dropped. I can only assume that the individual post counters had been off.

If anyone can point to an actual loss of a post, please let us know.
Rich
 

C.R.Sam

New member
Have noticed a few times in the past where my post count stayed stagnant for a day or two at a time. Didn't say anything cause figured there were a lot more important things.

But never before the massive decrease such as with George's count.

Sam
 
Sam-
I think it was a count error.
- The size of our database has grown as expected within the past week....if posts were lost (especially 1/3 of 'em) it would show.
- A database count of all posts for registered members matches the totals on the Main Page summary...therefore, the posts haven't been inadvertently assigned to a nonexistent Member.
- I've looked at some of the original posts from Oct 98 and there doesn't appear to be anything untoward there.

More than that, I can't say. We never before had occasion to match total of User Posts to the totals on the Sumary Page.
Rich
 

Mal H

Staff
spleenandideal's case is fortunately a big enough and evenly spaced sample to check. He has a huge gap in postings from April 2000 to Nov. 2001. Might be a DB problem with the data in that time period for him. The ratio of missing posts to the amount of time involved is roughly correct. If he can come back and verify that that gap should indeed exist, then I dunno.

However, I could find no similar gap in George's postings. Again, I dunno.
 

Mal H

Staff
It does look like the number of posts accelerated at roughly the correct rate. I just thought it was odd that spleenandideal would have a 20 month gap in postings and a reported loss of 50 posts. He can probably clear that up for us.

I think your first guess is most likely correct. The post counters had been accumulating incorrectly for various reasons and the post count is now correct.

Ah, I've got it! Let's blame this on UBB!! Case closed.
 
Mal-
I deleted the post that your above post responds to...attachment had a security flaw....nothing major.

In any case, as you've already seen, the Stats fail to show anything obvious that's amiss.
Rich
 

spleenandideal

New member
Well, to clear things up, there was a point in time in 2000/2001 where I was absent from the boards due to lack of access, job, etc, so very minimal posting was done. So that kinda blows that theory.Hmmmm.
 

C.R.Sam

New member
Agree with BluesMan and Rich in that it appears that few, if any, posts have been lost.

Just a counting thingy. Interesting that it picked on George so hard.

Would that it be the worst problem faced by the server, past and future.

Sam
 
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