SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Hey SFFBC,

I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing a new (alarming) issue this morning....

Normal group notifications function: when we read comments in any discussion thread within a group, the notification number resets to zero.

Issue I'm seeing: When I enter a discussion thread where I have read everything and have zero notifications, the notifications reset so that every comment appears as unread. And no amount of refreshing will change the notifications. I'm seeing the issue on multiple devices and web browsers

🔴 UPDATES: 🔴

The issue does appear to be widespread, and only seems to be impacting discussion threads that are older than a couple of weeks.
UPDATE 10/4 - GR support say issue will be fixed, but there is no ETA.

TEMPORARY WORKAROUND: see comment #23 below for an (imperfect) workaround


It also appears the issue has removed the likes on book reviews that are more than a couple of weeks old! They are still there though, just the tally is broken - UPDATE: review likes appear to be fixed


🔴 UPVOTING 🔴

If you have a spare moment, log the issue with GR Support. If enough people respond it will be added to the "known issues" and (eventually) prioritised for repair

Contact GR: https://www.goodreads.com/about/conta...

Known issues: https://help.goodreads.com/s/announce...

GR HELP Q&A: - please "like" this to upvote it
https://help.goodreads.com/s/question...-

I am experiencing the same issue today. I will not be going into any threads besides this one until the problem is resolved.

Thanks! I’ll contact GR support.

gr, at it again! let's hope it's temporary

Hmm, interesting. The issue doesn't seem to occur with this brand new thread. Is that the same for everyone else?

Yes!

I'm experiencing the same problems

Ooh yeah, it's a weird one! When I read this thread, because it's new and ALL of the comments had been unread by me, the entire thread was marked read, and all is fine.

But in a thread with 1033 posts, with 16 new, now after reading those, the same thread indicates 853 new.

Seems unlikely... >_>

it's all over Goodreads

CBRetriever wrote: "it's all over Goodreads"

I see that review likes are also broken....

For example: the top review for Stephen King's The Shining, only has 7 likes...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Yeah, I noticed this too. But it doesn't happen in every thread. I think these problems happen because they want to force every one to use the app.

Kirsten wrote: "Yeah, I noticed this too. But it doesn't happen in every thread. I think these problems happen because they want to force every one to use the app."

It seems like only be impacting discussion threads (and likes for reviews) that older than the last couple of weeks.

It looks like some are impacted and other threads are not. On my desktop, the BOTM discussion for Mexican Gothic appropriately had 2 new when I just looked, but the "What Else Are You Reading" had 1153 unread, which was simply crazy.

Let's face it: since Amazon took control of GR a couple of years ago, it has been nothing but the way down for GR in terms of technical support and management. Amazon is essentially using GR as a promo machine for its own business, and doing it at the lowest cost possible for itself. The GR moderators are doing what they can but they will the first ones to say that they are only volunteers, thus have no power to fix the problems we have on GR.

At first I think Amazon did a fairly good job. My problem with it didn't become noticeable until the app became their primary focus.

Yup goodreads is glitchy today not only the notifications but also the number of review likes is messy.

Christene Paula✨ wrote: "Yup goodreads is glitchy today not only the notifications but also the number of review likes is messy."

Thanks, I've updated the first comment and title to include the reviews.

Hopefully GR agrees these issues are big enough for an emergency repair

Certainly is bloody irritating.

Kirsten wrote: "Yeah, I noticed this too. But it doesn't happen in every thread. I think these problems happen because they want to force every one to use the app."

If it didn't suck maybe we would use it all of the time!

The app is so useful I have to open goodreads in my browser in desktop mode. Because they don't even have their mobile site optimised.

I'm going by the time of last posting on the threads, opening them and then going to the last page as a work around

CBRetriever wrote: "I'm going by the time of last posting on the threads, opening them and then going to the last page as a work around"

I'm doing this too, the sort order of comments seems reliable, but i keep finding i was the last person to comment. Ha!

Also, I turned on my (bell icon) notifications for select groups and those seem to be working fine.

🔷️ GROUP DISCUSSION NOTIFICATION TIP:

If you usually use the (speech bubble icon) discussion notifications to manage your group alerts, this tip can help you temporarily get rid of all of the stuck/broken notifications. You need to keep using it, but it's only 3 clicks...




1. Select the speech bubble icon for group discussion notifications



2. Select all unread posts

3. Select mark all as read

Be careful with that unless you really do want to mark everything read! Even threads that you've never opened.

Anna wrote: "Be careful with that unless you really do want to mark everything read! Even threads that you've never opened."

that's what I've wanted to do on some forums - that's nice

Anna wrote: "Be careful with that unless you really do want to mark everything read! Even threads that you've never opened."

Yes, its really just for those who use the discussion notifications to track their groups...and don't like all of those red numbers.

I use them, and I obviously don't like what's happening, but I wouldn't want to fuck up my read stats just because GR is being a dick once again. It'll pass eventually, I'm doing other stuff meanwhile.

I have lots of threads I haven't read for several reasons, and I like knowing whether I have or not, so just wanted to mention that for those who agree :) I have never ever marked "all as read" anywhere, it goes against everything I know to be right and true :D

Anna wrote: "I use them, and I obviously don't like what's happening, but I wouldn't want to fuck up my read stats just because GR is being a dick once again. It'll pass eventually, I'm doing other stuff meanwh..."

Yeah, the groups I moderate I would never use it, but right now it's coming in handy because i have read everything, but the red numbers wont clear without it. Grrr.

For new groups I join as a member, the first thing I do is I mark everything as read because...

a) the red numbers are distracting
b) it helps me to quickly find the more active discussions threads 😸

image:

Beige wrote: "🔷️ GROUP DISCUSSION NOTIFICATION TIP:

If you usually use the (speech bubble icon) discussion notifications to manage your group alerts, this tip can help you temporarily get rid of all of the st..."

I've done this, and then the next time I go into discussions they're all unread again. I finally gave up.

Michelle wrote: "I've done this, and then the next time I go into discussions they're all unread again. I finally gave up. ..."

Yes, the workaround requires regular application. For me, the notifications issue only returns when someone posts a new comment and then I enter the thread to read it. After I have read the comment, I will use the workaround again. Yes, it's a repetitive, but it is keeping me calm while we wait for a permanent fix. Which could possibly be a while....based in this....

Has anyone encountered the bug that has been around for a while? The one where the math on your bookshelf count doesn't add up properly? Mine is off by appox 300 😹 GR doesnt have a fix for that, but you can request a manual reset, that doesn't last either. You have to keep requesting, if you care about that kind of thing...

https://help.goodreads.com/s/question...

CBRetriever wrote: "image: "

Thanks for the update!

As someone who uses mark all as read all the time, when goodreads is working properly if a thread you haven't read gets a new post the unread status still shows that you haven't read any of the posts.

That’s not how it should work 😂

Yes, indeed, but it's not happening in every thread/group. It's a lot of search work. Even the books that I've read the last weeks doesn't appear on read - list.

Saar The Book owl wrote: "Yes, indeed, but it's not happening in every thread/group. It's a lot of search work. Even the books that I've read the last weeks doesn't appear on read - list."

It’s happening in every group for me, IF the thread is older than Sept 2023. Are you seeing older threads without the notification bug??

Yes, but not many.

and it doesn't seem to affect shorter threads as much

Something just occurred to me, and I'm not sure if I hope I'm right or not :D For years, well since I joined a group on GR, I've hated how the new posts indicators work here. (I won't call them notifications, since to me those are a different thing.) I don't know if I'm correct, but based on my observations their logic seems to be "if the number of posts is different than the last time you visited, mark as unread", which means that if a mod (or a member) *deletes* a post, it'll be marked as having unread posts until the number of posts matches where you are, and you won't see the red indicator for new posts, because well it thinks you've already read them, despite listing it in the unread list. Do you follow? No? I don't blame you.

So I just thought what if they're trying to fix this to work like it should (using timestamps), but as always they're completely incompetent and have fucked everything up while at it, but I doubt it's for anything that useful. Much more likely they're trying to add blinking lights or something they think makes this turd look prettier.

Sorry, I'm just kinda (close to) done with this shit. I'll probably live to rage on :)

I mean, after typing all that, I'm laughing at myself for even entertaining the thought that they'd actually *fix* something with groups.

lol, sorry everyone, carry on! :D (I have emergency chocolate.)

Mark All As Read has never kept threads unread for me in any group. It DOES mark them as read until someone posts again in that thread and then it shows however many unreads, plus one.
So if a thread shows 250 unreads and I mark all as read (not that thread specifically, but using the Mark All As Read link when viewing everything) and then someone posts in it, it will appear for me again and show 251 unread.

the current issue is different, I think, since if I go to a thread with unreads and go to the last page it does not mark the thread as read and it used to do this (and should ).

Anna wrote: "I mean, after typing all that, I'm laughing at myself for even entertaining the thought that they'd actually *fix* something with groups..."

I was laughing along with you at the very idea :)

However, to be fair, in the past, they did *appear* to fix two issues impacting groups...
1) The search within group discussions was a dud for a while
2) The sync issue with the (bell icon) notifications - which we're on and off for a couple of years (!)

I figure this new issue must be visible to the GR employees who moderate the Librarian group, so maybe it will get fixed?

Beige wrote: "Anna wrote: "I mean, after typing all that, I'm laughing at myself for even entertaining the thought that they'd actually *fix* something with groups..."

I was laughing along with you at the very ..."

look back up this thread and you'll see the result of my informing them of the problem in message 29. They know about it and are working on it I presume.

CBRetriever wrote: "look back up this thread and you'll see the result of my informing them of the problem in message 29..."

Yes, I saw that comment, thanks again. GR support also responded via email and requested I send them some screenshots. I've been asked for this type of info in the past for issues that have yet to be repaired. We shall see.

Brandon wrote: "I am experiencing the same issue today. I will not be going into any threads besides this one until the problem is resolved."

I haven’t been very active here lately anyway, but I’ve still been quietly reading most of the threads. For now, though, I’m doing the same. It’s just too obnoxious to not be able to clearly see which posts I haven’t read yet and to not be able to go directly to those posts. I can jump to the end and figure it out myself, but that’s more time than I want to spend on the endeavor.

I understand all too well how making an innocent code change can create new and horrible bugs, but the thing that always boggles my mind when something like this shows up on Goodreads is: 1) don’t they have a development environment which is periodically refreshed with data from the live site and where extensive testing is performed before moving a code change to the live site? And 2) if a major bug slips through the cracks despite their best testing efforts, don’t they have some sort of versioning process that would allow them to roll back a change until they’ve had time to sort out the issues on their dev environment?

Admittedly the software I support for my job is on a completely different platform and nothing like Goodreads (although I’d be willing to bet it’s more complicated than GR), but those seem like basic concepts that should exist in some form for most platforms.

This is strange. I have notifications showing up about supposedly new comments. I check them out and they are from April/May.

Kaladin wrote: "This is strange. I have notifications showing up about supposedly new comments. I check them out and they are from April/May."

Yes, that's how the notification bug is impacting us all. In certain scenarios, the bug is changing older "read" comments back to "unread" and they stay that way. You have to navigate to the last page to see the most recent comments

There is an imperfect workaround listed in comment #23

I did the comment 23 workaround. It does wipe out everything but its better than what it was based on how I have been using it.

Never mind. It didn't work. Don't waste your time on it.

well, it's been 5 days since the email I received above (message 29) and no changes It's not even in the known issues post. Since this affects the usability of the whole website, you'd think it would be a prime thing to fix...

CBRetriever wrote: "well, it's been 5 days since the email I received above (message 29) and no changes It's not even in the known issues post. Since this affects the usability of the whole website, you'd think it wou..."

The known issues is only updated monthly, and only has the priority(?) issues, not every single bug (that would be huge 😹). Let's hope it's on the September list which should be up soon.

One of the GR employees responded to my post that "developers are working on a fix". But that doesn't mean it will be fast...

https://help.goodreads.com/s/question...-

It does appear to me they have quickly fixed the other issue where the number of likes on reviews were miscounted and understated. The ones I noticed on mine are fixed now. Is anyone still seeing missing review likes?