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Aurich

Aurich

Director of Many Things
41,241
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  • #2,401
    XF doesn't really link things on a deep level, as in the quote that's in your post is just text, but it's parsed in real time, so that things like ignore work.

    But if you quote someone, and then their account is deleted the quote in your text is still just text, and not some kind of dynamic object.

    The Aloof Alot said:
    Doesn't the ignore feature simply make use of this bit above the actual quote?
    Click to expand...
    Right, it just references it when rendering the page for you.

    Note: I'm not an XF dev and making this all up based on how I know it works, so what's truly possible I couldn't say. But that's the gist of it as I understand it.
     
    DovePig

    DovePig

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  • #2,402
    Aurich said:
    XF doesn't really link things on a deep level, as in the quote that's in your post is just text, but it's parsed in real time, so that things like ignore work.

    But if you quote someone, and then their account is deleted the quote in your text is still just text, and not some kind of dynamic object.
    Click to expand...
    Ah, thanks. One more reminder not to quote obvious spambots and idiots then ;-)
     
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    DanNeely

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    16,117
    Subscriptor
  • #2,405
    Aurich said:
    Best thing I can suggest is to delete your Ars cookies. Sometimes something gets corrupted and can cause behavior like that.
    Click to expand...

    That seems to've worked. I'm wondering HTF they got mangled into a way that I can login but it doesn't last as opposed to having me permanently locked out because something is invalid.
     
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    DanNeely

    Ars Legatus Legionis
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  • #2,406
    Well it worked for a few weeks before barfing again.

    I don't know if it's in any way related to the problem, but I had about 120 cookies that looked all looked like this, just with different numbers in the name/value. The sheer number of them flunked my smell test though.

    1707635349390.png


    1707635423918.png
     
    jmarlin

    jmarlin

    Technical Director
    412
    Ars Staff
  • #2,407
    DanNeely said:
    Well it worked for a few weeks before barfing again.
    Click to expand...
    There can be a staggering number of cookies generated by the various tracking and ad networks. Once logged in, we try to delete all those extraneous cookies for subscribers such that the relevant cookies that keep you logged in have either an "xf_" prefix or "ars_" prefix. What I have seen more of lately is browsers that have certain higher privacy settings are deleting longer term cookies. I can imagine scenarios in which one or more of the necessary cookies being altered by the browser could leave your session in a sort of split brain state.

    All that is to say I would take a look at your browser preferences and see if you have some kind of heightened privacy. If so, perhaps it could be toggled off for Ars, and see what happens. There are a bunch of extensions that could do the same or similar things to long-duration cookies.
     
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    DanNeely

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    16,117
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  • #2,408
    After about a month and a half of ex
    jmarlin said:
    There can be a staggering number of cookies generated by the various tracking and ad networks. Once logged in, we try to delete all those extraneous cookies for subscribers such that the relevant cookies that keep you logged in have either an "xf_" prefix or "ars_" prefix. What I have seen more of lately is browsers that have certain higher privacy settings are deleting longer term cookies. I can imagine scenarios in which one or more of the necessary cookies being altered by the browser could leave your session in a sort of split brain state.

    All that is to say I would take a look at your browser preferences and see if you have some kind of heightened privacy. If so, perhaps it could be toggled off for Ars, and see what happens. There are a bunch of extensions that could do the same or similar things to long-duration cookies.
    Click to expand...

    After about a month and a half of experimentation; I think I've identified the login cookie eater as uBlockOrigin. (I've just renenabled it and am waiting to see if my login sessions resume dying). Second post attempt addition: Sometime in the few minutes between when I reenabled UBO and first attempted to reply here I was logged out. I consider the responsibility confirmed.

    That's somewhat frustrating since UBO is probably the most important extension for me on this site because I run cosmetic filters to declutter the article layout of things I've zero interest in having waste screen space.
     
    1

    1FX

    Ars Praefectus
    3,552
  • #2,414
    I have UBO on Firefox on Manjaro Linux. UBO with all the filters enabled that it comes with. I do however, have arstechnica.net and cachefly.net allowed specifically (in advanced mode), to counter my usual blocking. Very much not a default setup. I have cosmetic filtering enabled, but I don't have anything in the "My Filters" tab.

    My impression of uBlock Origin is that it doesn't touch cookies, so this is very curious to me.

    ETA: oh, yeah. I should also report that I haven't had to log in to Ars for many months at a time.
     
    Auguste_Fivaz

    Auguste_Fivaz

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  • #2,415
    rain shadow

    rain shadow

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  • #2,416
    The unfurl relies on metadata. If the metadata isn’t present on the target page then you just get a raw link. It’s a little odd that politico wouldn’t provide consistent metadata across sites, but it’s not exactly a crime either.

    There are a couple different unfurling metadata standards and possibly ars or xenforo only support a subset.

    Possibly ars has a whitelist or blacklist of sites they allow to be unfurled but I think that mainly applies to links to playable media.
     
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    DovePig

    DovePig

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  • #2,418
    Aurich

    Aurich

    Director of Many Things
    41,241
    Ars Staff
  • #2,421
    I looked into it, it's creating an iframe for this, which is kinda gross. Honestly I think it's better to not embed at all, so I turned it off, and it will just show a rich link now.

    If someone wants to show something specific from the link they can quote it, that feels more reasonable.
     
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    DovePig

    DovePig

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  • #2,423
    Last edited:
    DovePig

    DovePig

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  • #2,425
    DanNeely said:
    This is what I'm seeing [...]
    Click to expand...
    Ah, sorry, I misread your post. Yes, the embed preview of the quoted forum post itself shows a totally unrelated post text than it links to – apparently the very first post on the very page (61st) the actual linked post is at, because it's the first thing the code sees?

    I suggest disabling embeds for Ars Fora post links as well might help? I vaguely recall the embed link feature relies on some metadata, and it sounds potentially pretty taxing to create relevant metadata for each and every Ars Forum post in some of the longer threads (1600+ pages and counting in a certain one).
     
    Last edited:
    N

    numerobis

    Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
    50,868
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  • #2,426
    Aurich said:
    I looked into it, it's creating an iframe for this, which is kinda gross. Honestly I think it's better to not embed at all, so I turned it off, and it will just show a rich link now.

    If someone wants to show something specific from the link they can quote it, that feels more reasonable.
    Click to expand...
    That was fast! Thanks, I was horrified that my tame little link turned into a giant image.
     
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    swrobel

    Ars Centurion
    204
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  • #2,427
    Aurich said:
    Our redesign launch has been delayed by some behind the scene issues, it's basically done except for those, so once we resolve it all one of the things coming with it is system settings from light and dark on the front page.

    But for the forum I'm not sure.
    Click to expand...
    Any progress on the ol' redesign & auto dark mode?
     
    L

    Lord Evermore

    Ars Tribunus Militum
    2,569
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  • #2,430
    When I click Mark forums read in the line above the forums (not the 3 dots), a message bar drops down saying all forums marked as read, but also a popup appears with a list of all the forums which I have to dismiss. If I'm in a thread at the time, the popup has the thread title. If I'm on the home forum list page, after I dismiss the popup, the status of the forums has not changed (the unread posts indicators haven't changed) until I manually refresh the page. Using it on the 3 dots menu, it automatically refreshes, or at least changes the status of the existing list.

    1726876364767.png


    As to the positioning of that option, I mean, it's fine, not worth spending an excessive amount of time changing. How much work should a site do to prevent every person from accidentally clicking every individual option? Should every button/link be on its own sub-menu, and have a confirmation popup? Personally, when I use it on the 3 dots menu, I often hit the "toggle width" option and I just untoggle it, knowing it's my own fault, not the positioning. If it's a quick fix, yeah, change it, since it is an "action/command" rather than being a link to another page. (Seems like it could just be inserting a bunch of blank spaces using basic HTML. Does using newfangled Web layout stuff make that hard?) I'd also rather not have to answer a confirmation prompt unless I can do it via keyboard by pressing enter or spacebar. I'm not going to die if I accidentally do it. I would like it to be capitalized, Mark Forums Read, since it's a "button", not a sentence. :) Just a pet peeve.

    I don't really see big changes visually otherwise, which is good. Functionality > Visuals, and I like the look.
     
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