XF 1.5 Missing Recent Activity

[alex2k5]

Is there a permissions issue here, or some data not passing along?

Want to verify that as an Admin, that is not being hidden from me due to permissions. And if it is, how to fix.

What it is, no clue. They appear on almost all member's recent activity page via their profile, the main recent activity page, etc.

 

[Chris D]

If you right click on the empty item, and click Inspect Element, you will see each item has its own ID, like this:

item_1731808

You should be able to look that up in the xf_news_feed table, e.g.

SELECT content_type, content_id, action FROM xf_news_feed WHERE news_feed_id = 1731808

This will tell you which content type, content and action is causing the empty entry. It could be some functionality that's not fully implemented in an add-on or it could be a template that's missing for some reason.

 

[alex2k5]

content_type content_id action

thread 1062269 update

So, that kinda looks core, not add on. (forgive me, only been on a live XF for 5 days)

 

[Chris D]

It's a core content_type, certainly. That action, though - this isn't an action we generate news feed entries for. We only create news feed entries when threads are inserted ("insert" action), we don't have an "update" action. So this is likely coming from an add-on.

Incidentally, that would literally be the thread with thread_id 1062269 so you can find that on your own forum by going to http://<yoursiteurl>/index.php?threads/1062269 - I'm not sure if that will give you any clues?

 

[alex2k5]

Ok, mystery continues.

That thread was started by a mod of mine. Went, looked, no mod actions logged, no edits logged.

Asked mod directly what he did related to that thread at around 1230 pm eastern, and he said he hadn't been on the site since 10 pm yesterday.

A reply was made by someone else to that thread at that time. But the activity was showing up blank for me with my mod's avatar. I'm not following that replier, the thread, or that forum.

 

[Chris D]

Hmm, I'm actually seeing something in our code now which could begin to explain this, but I wouldn't actually ever expect the code to be reachable in that form, so this could still be related to an add-on.

The following conditions have to be true for this to happen:

• It be an existing thread
• The "first message datawriter" to have been set or accessed
• The "save first message datawriter" method to be called

The first two conditions are at odds with each other. If it's an existing thread, the first message DW shouldn't be used - this is used, as you can probably guess, only when the thread is being created and we need to insert the initial post.

Is this something you can now reproduce reliably? From what you've said if it's going to happen, it will just happen when someone replies to the thread.

 

[alex2k5]

We went live with a vBulletin 3.x migration mid day Thursday. Wasn't really paying attention to "Your News Feed" and checking profile "Recent Activity" tabs of my friends until today.

It's happening sporadically now. Apparently it was happening a lot from last Thursday - Friday. I haven't checked to 100% confirm, but I'd assume it's showing as threads are interacted with for the first time since the import.

If a thread someone I am following started was interacted with now, it shows as activity by that user to me, regardless of whether they did anything, and the data that shows to me when that happens is blank.



This shows the mystery, as he's clearly listed as not online since 2015, yet his recent activity shows things happened Friday. That is mixed into my "Your News Feed" sporadically now, and randomly when I check profiles like this.

 

[Chris D]

I've found a reproduction case, at least:



You may want to tidy up the couple of test posts I've created

But as you can see here, I have been able to reproduce it. I went back through a few of the items and I noticed a pattern. Most of them (but not all) seemed to happen when a thread starter replied to their own thread. Anecdotally most of the threads seemed to have a thread prefix but I'm not sure if that is related. I didn't want to make too many test threads and posts.

What I recommend doing now is some further testing to confirm the reproduction case I found is reliable. If it is, then I recommend disabling add-ons one by one until the issue goes away. Once it does, that add-on is likely to blame.

 

[alex2k5]

Thanks. Wow a XF developer on my site, cool .

Related to your theory, there was at least one case where the blank alert showed to me, as an action from someone I follow, when someone ELSE responded to his thread. He hadn't been online in 10 hours.

 

[Chris D]

Yeah I saw some others I couldn't explain also, but I'm thinking the root cause is probably the same.

If we focus on the thread starter replies one, hopefully it will be consistent enough to get to the bottom of it.

 

[alex2k5]

I followed you, and now your items show to me like this. So yeah, it is ongoing. Will run the add on disable round now.

 

[Chris D]

Interesting - those four empty ones seem to correspond to the four alerts I just received saying my posts had been deleted in the thread I created. Interestingly I'm pretty sure I only posted 3 messages in that thread so that doesn't quite add up either.

 

[alex2k5]

And I just undeleted your first post, making it live again, and got these in my feed.

First 3 - immediately upon re-opening. Last one, in relation to a response by a member happily injecting himself into our spam tests.

 

[alex2k5]

Ok, ran tests to see if related to prefixes. Not. Posting with, without, required or not required at forum level, still results in ghost activity.

Will move on to add-ons now.

 

[alex2k5]

Got it. Disabling https://xenforo.com/community/resources/th-thumbnails.4834/ immediately stopped it, at least with the back and forth with my test acct.

Sorry to bother you guys, really do appreciate the help. I'll submit this to them now.