Back button weirdness.

[flourella]

I was hoping someone else would have asked about this because I'm not sure I can describe what's happening in a way that makes sense. But since yesterday something weird has been going on with Mumsnet when I use the back button to return to active.

If I'm on Mumsnet, then I leave for a bit with the active page showing, I generally refresh the page when I come back so I can see the current crop of active threads. If I pick one to read, then use the back button on my browser to return to active, I see the old list of threads from before I refreshed. So I have to refresh again, but then I see the new up-to-date list of active threads and so lose the list of active threads I was browsing, because it's moved on. I remember that active always refreshed with use of the back button after the site was upgraded, and it annoyed me and evidently some other people because it was mentioned in site stuff. This is not the same thing but has the same effect.

I am using Chrome on an Android tablet. I never sign in unless I'm posting n case that makes a difference, and I haven't tested to see if it happens now that I am signed in. Is it happening for anyone else?

I get the same issue as OP and @eyerings have described. I'm also using Chrome on my android phone. It's been happening for a few days and is REALLY annoying!

We would say that if you see a thread that you want to come back to, add it to your watch list or click the 'save thread' button, where it will appear in your lists. If any of this isn't clear, please let us know. Thank you

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

In order to do that I need to click on the thread, which rather defeats the object.

I would just like to be able to access an Active list which is current.

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet Thanks for coming back to the thread. I'm not sure why you've quoted that bit of my OP and proposed a solution; I obviously know that deliberately refreshing the page is going to... refresh the page!! I suppose I didn't even need to write that bit, I was just setting the scene(!) and it was during these instances that I first noticed the issue. But it is happening all the time while going between various threads and active, even without any pauses.

The problem is that going into a thread from a refreshed, bang up-to-date list of active threads, then backing out of that thread, takes me (and loads of others it seems) to a previous incarnation of the active threads, sometimes from just before the last time we refreshed, sometimes seemingly from hours before. I've hardly been on today but it is still happening now because I checked immediately before posting this.

*There are a few different comments about how Active is behaving and some are describing how we'd expect it to. So just to summarise:

If you refresh the page, it should show the current Active threads.
If you are in a thread, then hit the back button to return to Active, you will see the old list of threads before you refreshed.*

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet is that really how active should work, or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "before you refreshed"? Because this is the exact problem we're all talking about and it's new in the last few days, so if MNHQ have deliberately changed it, please change it back! What used to happen is:

If you were in a thread, then hit the back button to return to Active, you would see what had been (and still feels like) the current list of threads from which you selected said thread.

No refreshing involved, only clicking on a thread, then back-buttoning out of it. You used to go back to the same list, at the same point, in the same order. For the last few days that isn't what has been happening.

It is extra annoying, as a PP says, when you've noticed an interesting thread title nearby and intended to click on it next, but it's nowhere to be seen when you go back to active. Especially when your useless immediate-term memory can't remember what it was without seeing it again, so you can't search it out!

This is happening to me too. Total PITA.
On the plus side, between this glitch and the one last week with the massive ads I'm spending less time on MN

Yes - exactly as @flourella describes it. If I click on a thread, when I use the back button it's always gone back to the active list as it was immediately before clicking on the thread so I could check other threads in that list.
Now the back button takes me to a random active list, possibly hours old or even days.
It is very frustrating.

Following - this has been bugging me today too. It's exactly as eyerings has described - backing out of a thread takes me back to a previous version of Active from hours before.

Adding that its happening to me too. What is just as annoying is that any hidden threads end up being unhidden. Thats happened to me several times.

This has been happening to me for the last few days (paired with expired page notification) and is still happening this morning. Tried clearing cache a few times and no better.

Using chrome on android.

Morning, everyone!

Thanks for the further information - and apologies for the confusion. We hadn't understood from the earlier posts exactly what was going on here. We'll take another look at this now and see if we can find out what's happening. Thanks for your patience.

@eyerings Thanks for those really clear screenshots. Can we ask if you (and anyone else having this issue) could try doing the same thing in incognito mode and seeing if you still have the issue? That might help us work out what's happening here.

@HebeMumsnet I can't get it to work in incognito mode, but it is still happening otherwise.

What I've just discovered is that it's not just the active list that reverts. I did the incognito test on my tablet, then went on my phone to test while not in incognito and reply here. I logged in, clicked on a thread, backed out of it, and saw an old list of active threads and that the red notification dot had vanished. Clicked on the little person and I was no longer logged in! I then refreshed active and the red dot reappeared, showing I was back as logged in, without me re-entering my details.

The confusion seems to have established that I am indeed poor at describing things though quite a few posters understood what I was saying so I hope I've not complicated things by mentioning that.

Also having this problem. The back button doesn't take you to the previous page. It takes you to a seemingly random but much older page from your search history and then insults you by telling you the page has expired. No shit Sherlock. I know it has expired. Please give me the page that I want that I was on 30 seconds ago. Don't give me a page from 2 days ago that I haven't asked for.

@HebeMumsnet sorry, what I meant earlier by "I can't get it to work in incognito mode" was that I tested it and couldn't see any sign of active behaving abnormally, but it was still being a pain out of incognito.

Now I've realised that it's been normal while out of incognito mode for at least an hour. Have you fixed it?!

@HebeMumsnet

Don't want to tempt fate, but everything seems to be back to normal now.

Don't know what you did, but thank you!