I've never had my "jump to first unread post" jump strangely, but I've never been able to figure out why some forums (especially Farming) show unread posts in the ATP Home page, despite there being no recent unread posts as shown by the order of the threads in the forum.

Is there anything other than sticky threads that could influence the order of threads displayed in the Forum home page? I assumed that threads were listed by the date of the most recent post in that thread..

I can go into a forum, read several posts, exit by clicking on ATP Home, and see "no" in the Home page.

Then a little while later, it may show "yes" and I'll go back into the forum. I expect that if there was a new post, it would be more recent than any in the threads I just checked. So the thread with a new post "should" be at the top of the list (after any sticky threads). Yet the top several threads will all show "no".

(I haven't yet done any searches for threads not being listed in the order that I expected.)

For a while maybe that was because I used a back arrow instead of "ATP Home" to get out of the forum. But I don't do that any more. if it was a rare occurrence, I would assume that I had a brain freeze, but it happens multiple times per day, sometimes when I'm SURE I hit Home.

Then I thought it might be some race condition, and I was clicking around too fast for the electrons to keep up. Naah, I type fast but not THAT fast!

The best theory I've heard is that someone started to post to a thread, and then exited or their connection broke before they could hit "Finished". Maybe one mechanism used by the ATP Home Page detected a new post, but it "went away" before the forum could capture it.

Rick- I created this new thread for you.
Different issue=different thread
It's just good etiquette to the OP who is likely watching the thread to get an answer to their question (and probably getting email alerts as well).

I believe the answer to your question is this:

The thread watcher and the forum "yes/no" don't communicate with each other very well. We've always and forever had this "feature" (can't really call it a bug).
Here's what happens- your watched thread has a new post, and it shows up at the top of your homepage, so you click on it and read your thread. You jump back to the homepage, and the forum that your thread was in has a "yes", indicating that there is a new thread. You click on the forum name, but no threads are new. There aren't any new threads because you looked at the only new thread via your thread watcher. The forum doesnt know that you already looked at just the thread because you didn't visit the forum main page. I know that's clear as mud

It is especially apparent in slower forums- like the farming forum. Other busy forums will likely have other threads besides the one that you are watching to visit, thus there is still "new" stuff for your to see.

I've noticed this same thing, and I think you explained it well, Trish. I've also noticed sort of the inverse of this, where a forum shows "new" comments on several threads. If I click on and read only one of those threads, when I return to the Home page, the forum shows "No," even though I know there are threads I haven't read.

That's because nothing new has been added anywhere in that entire forum since you had just visited it. Once someone does post to any of the existing threads (or a new one) after your visit, it will say 'new' again.

Woofie- in that case, the "new" is stating that there is no new activity on the forum since you looked (it's not looking to see if you actually saw everything).

Thanks, Trish.

The fact that they are different processes and also "because you didn't visit the forum main page" does make it make sense to me.

The fact that it shows up less in faster forums kept me thinking it was a defect instead of a feature!

What?! You mean the system can't read my mind?! TSK!!!

I'd sort of figured it out, but your explanation, Trish, makes it much clearer in my mind.

The computer command that we have been wishing for since the very first programmable widget is "RPM".

Read
Programmer's
Mind

Happy to help!!

I had noticed & wondered about both of these things too. Glad to know why & Trish, clear as mud was crystal clear.

Good! Sometimes I feel like explaining something like that is akin to giving verbal instructions on knot tying (no visual!)
Difficult.

I can understand that.