Users across multiple Discourse forums, including Meta and hosted sites, reported a bug where “unread” and “new” topic counters fail to clear in the Categories view after reading or dismissing posts — though the top navigation bar updates correctly. The issue, first noticed around May 12, persisted across browsers (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, Vivaldi) and devices, affecting both community and hosted forums. Slowhand and Beckfield documented the behavior with screenshots, noting that refreshing the page temporarily resolves the discrepancy. Lilly initially couldn’t reproduce it but later confirmed it on Meta and other sites post:15. JammyDodger merged duplicate reports into this thread to consolidate efforts. The team investigated via private messages post:20, and the issue was ultimately resolved by kris.kotlarek, confirmed by Beckfield. The fix was deployed without requiring user-side actions like cache clearing or safe mode.
For the last two days (since Friday morning at least), our “unread” and “new” are not clearing in the Category version of the forum.
Since I noticed this on Friday, I paid more attention to it today. When I enter the forum for the first time of the day, the “unread” and “new” are listed at the top, while there are none in the individual categories.
After reading all the new/unread posts, the top menus clear, but the categories still show them.
This is happening here on Beta for me as well, I came in this morning and clicked through all the unread/new and when I went to “Categories”, I saw this (not the only one, but they’re spread out):
I tried safe mode, and there was a couple of new posts in my forum, but the same thing happened. I clicked on the new posts and when I went back to Categories, they were gone from the top of the page, but still showed as “unread” in the individual categories.
hah. no. i always trust the user’s experience. if it’s an issue for you and your forum, it’s an issue to be investigated. if it’s still happening in safe mode that rules out some things…
i thought i had reproduced this on your site but when i refreshed the browser the latest counts match. when you reload the forum page, do your counts correct?
i just logged in and it’s showing accurately to me as (2) unread and 1 each under Outlands and Fun and Games categories. are you and your users still having this issue?
i simply cannot reproduce this on your site or any Discourse site, or on any browser i am using. the counters always appear to be accurate to me. very odd
I’m not sure if this is specific to our site or more general. If anybody else has noticed it, please let me know; if it’s specific to our site, I will contact the team as this is a hosted site with some specific components.
When I get to our homepage
and
Following the “unread” link in the second screenshot shows one topic and I read it. Go two steps back and the “unread” counter in the first screenshot will be updated but the “unread” counter in the second screenshot does not get updated / disappear. I’ll have to refresh the page.
Thanks in advance.
Note:
In the past it used to work as expected; issue started (from memory) two or three weeks ago.
In the past, when I read new topics, or “Dismiss New,” then return to the forum home page, the new topic counts reflect the changed totals.
This behavior changed recently. The forum is no longer updating the new topic counts when I view or dismiss new topics.
At first, I thought this was a Firefox issue, as it seemed to begin shortly after a Firefox update came out. But I’m seeing it in a Chromium-based browser (Vivaldi) and MS Edge (on Windows 10) as well, so I suspect it is a Discourse issue. I also see it on this forum (meta.discourse.org), in addition to Plex.
Steps to reproduce:
Start with this. Note the totals at the top, and in each section (screenshot from Plex forum):
Click on one of the new topics to view it (or click “Dismiss New”).
Click on the Plex logo at the top left to return to the forum Home page.
Note that the counts on each category are unchanged, even though you have either read or dismissed some or all of the new topics. The count at the top seems to keep up.
Refreshing the browser fixes the issue, but this was never necessary before.
I have merged them all into this original one. I think this has been quite tricky to pin down so far, but at least having all the reports in one place should make it easier to track.
