# Old unread topic doesn’t show up as unread in tracked category

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/old-unread-topic-doesn-t-show-up-as-unread-in-tracked-category/75681
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [December 8, 2017, 12:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/old-unread-topic-doesn-t-show-up-as-unread-in-tracked-category/75681 "2017-12-08T12:12:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![david](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/david/32/157490_2.png) [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2017, 12:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/old-unread-topic-doesn-t-show-up-as-unread-in-tracked-category/75681/2 "2017-12-08T12:41:44Z")

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This sounds similar to what I reported before. I think the problem boils down to:

- Even though it’s implicitly tracked, topic does not show up in unread because the user has never viewed it
- Topic does not show up in new because it is beyond the threshold of whatever your “Consider topics new when” setting is

See:

> [@Watching/Tracking old Topics](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-tracking-old-topics/51606/5):
>
> Thanks for taking the time to look at this. The settings on my account are the same as the defaults for all our users - consider new when “haven’t viewed them yet”. I suspect the reason that the topics aren’t all showing up in “new” is because all the users have their “first\_seen\_at” field set to the date of the import, and therefore after the topic was initially created. So I think the problem is: Topic does not show up in “new” because it was created before the user first visited the forum …

and:

> [@Spooky tracking happenings ghost](https://meta.discourse.org/t/spooky-tracking-happenings-ghost/61255/8):
>
> This is something I found a while ago, and a thread can be found [here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/watching-tracking-old-topics/51606) (not entirely sure why it got moved from #bug to #feature). The thread is quite confusing as I originally thought the problem was caused by the initial import from phpBB. So here’s an attempt to summarise: It comes down to the fact that a topic cannot be both new and unread simultaneously: Even though it’s implicitly tracked, topic does not show up in unread because the user has never viewed it Topic does not show up in new …

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/old-unread-topic-doesn-t-show-up-as-unread-in-tracked-category/75681)._