Ambiguous notifications count

[#1]

And now it’s 67 …

Edit or is it 61?

[#2]

Any updates available please?

[#3]

Nothing yet I'm afraid. I've got a meeting with Khoros later so I'll discuss it on the call.

James

[#4]

If they do nothing other than count “outstanding”  notifications by type and compare those to the numbers I see, they will have evidential clues for when they might have time to inspect the code.

Still see a 101 ceiling (unless I have unread PMs) or a lower figure fir a while after making a post.

My guess is that the lower number is unread threads and the 101 is a cap on the total of unread, liked and mentions.

[#5]

@James_B 

Did your discussion achieve anything please?

I have this afternoon (much to my then annoyance) seen my notification account appeared to have been zeroised: thankfully it is back to the reported miscreant behaviour!

[#6]

Yes, it's with the engineering team now, @Townman. I'll keep you posted.

Have a great weekend.

James

[#7]

Hi @Townman,

Update from Khoros support - 

At this stage, we haven’t been able to reproduce the issue on our side. This type of behavior is typically related to cached notification counts, either on the user’s browser/session or on the back end.

We wanted to let you know that we’ve initiated a restart of the community during the EMEA Maintenance Window as a first step to address the inconsistent notification counts you reported.

Could you please ask the affected user to clear their browser cache and then test again on Monday, 2 February, to confirm whether they’re still able to reproduce the issue after the restart?

If the issue does still occur, please then ask them to visit the Notification Feed page directly using the link below, which will force a reset of the notification counter:
https://community.plus.net/t5/notificationfeed/page

If the inconsistent counts continue after this step, we may need permission to temporarily impersonate the affected user’s account so we can reproduce the behaviour and investigate the issue more deeply.

Please let me know if this resolves the issue.

Thanks

James

[#8]

Hello from an InPrivate Window, which AIUI does not have a browser cache to utilise...

Notification count was 102 ... will advice what I see afterwards, below.

[#9]

Hi @James_B 

It all depends on what one means by "resolves the issue".  Sure, visiting the notification page will "make the symptoms go away" but that will not resolve the underlaying issue.

The whole point of holding back all of this time (NOT visiting the notifications page) is to leave the evidence available.  Has Khoros ...

1. Collected the statistical information on notifications extent on my account - knowing the pending notifications by type might offer some hint as to how / why two different counts are being reported
2. Investigated the apparent 101 notification count cap - I am (was) currently reporting 102 - I have one unread PM

I very much doubt that this is a browser cache issue as I see it consistently across multiple devices using different browsers ... and indeed as above using an InPrivate window.  Following that post the notification count became 58 (+1 PM) ... which after sometime will become 102 again.

I doubt that this can be reproduced as no one knows the triggers for the scenario, however right now there is a solid example ... it would be a shame if the right data has not been collected ... before visiting the notification page and all evidence of failure is erased.

If I wanted to fix the symptoms, I could have zeroised the count weeks ago.  This is not about fixing the count, but understanding why it is not always the same ... something we have experienced for years, but never had a stable case for investigation.  If I were Khoros, I'd bee seeking answers to the following...

1. How many mechanisms query the outstanding notification count
2. Are different notification types counted differently by the different mechanisms
3. What is the difference between counting notifications when a user firsts logs in to that after a post has been made
4. What timeout event(s) occur following a post but before the log out / session time out / session keep alive event which might cause the count to revert to that seen on initial log on
5. Where does the 101 cap arise from for the total notification count EXCLUDING any associated with PMs
6. Could the experience be influenced by one's ranking

How might impersonating the user be anymore informative ... beyond possibly an ability to set up tracing ... happy to assist with that.  As things stand, the issue is readily demonstratable on my account ... though demonstrating it can only point to the need to ask and answer the above questions.

EDIT: Answer to (4) above - it is sub 19 minutes: the InPrivate window post was done after I started to draft this one (but before I posted it.  As stated above, following posting that one, the count was 58.  After finally posting this one, the count was back to 101.  The interval between the two posts is reported to be 19 minutes.  Hope that offers some hints of what might be happening to flip-flop the counts.