6 Replies Latest reply: May 2, 2010 5:55 PM by Bill Hunt RSS

    Lazareth threads

    ilssac Community Member
    ilssac Apr 30, 2010 2:20 PM

      Is it a known issue with our highly touted Jive Forum software that new posts to ancient (I.E. one, two, more year old) threads send the orginal thread post out to e-mail subscribers instead of the latest post?

       

      An example of the most recent incident of this for me was a post today to this thread [http://forums.adobe.com/thread/209449] that was started on March 6th 2009 sent me the following email of the original post, not the reply submitted today.  I find this quite confusing as I use the e-mail as a primery filter on whether I am going to come to the site to answer a question or not. (Since I do not yet trust the reply by e-mail feature) Only to find the question long discussed and that there is nothing really for me to add to it.

       

      For several years we have succesfully used code like the following to open excel spreadsheets in the browser:

      <!--- testExcelExport.cfm --->
      <cfquery name="q1 ...

      <CFHEADER NAME="Content-Disposition" VALUE='inline; filename="test.xls"'>
      <CFCONTENT TYPE="application/msexcel">
      <table>
      <tr><td>hdg1</td><td>hdg2</td>
      <cfoutput query="q1">
      <tr><td>#col1#</td><td>#col1#</td>
      </cfoutput>
      </table>

      Now some of our users have moved up to IE7 and have Office 2007 installed and for them the above no longer works properly. Instead of opening the file inline they now get a dialog box asking if they want to open or save the file 'test'xls' which it indicates is an Excel 97-2003 worksheet.

      If they elect to save the file they can do so succesfully but when they open it they get a message that the file "is in a different format than specified by the file extension. Verify that the file is not corrupted and is from a trusted source...". Despite the warning the file opens correctly.

      If they elect to open the file they get the same message as above but now the file has the name of the cfm file which called CFContent, e.g. testExcelExport.cfm. The file can be opened however and has the correct content.

      Question 1: How can I get Excel to use the excel filename rather than cfm filename.

      Question 2: what do I needd to do so that Excel will not complain that the file is in a different format than specified by the file extension.

      I have tried the following with no success:

      saving the file using using CFFile then opening it with:
      <CFCONTENT TYPE="application/vnd.ms-excel" FILE="#full file path#" deletefile="yes">

      creating the table data with xml.

       

      P.S.  Is some type of file attachement feature gone, or did I just imagine that these forums once have that feature?
      • 1010 Views
      • Tags:
        • 1. Re: Lazareth threads
          Bill Hunt CommunityMVP
          Bill Hunt Apr 30, 2010 5:44 PM (in response to ilssac)

          The attachment feature has been disabled for some time now. However, it seems that in some fora (maybe from a MOD console?), they seem to appear and disappear. Hopefully, Adobe can get things sorted out, and reinstitute that feature.

           

          As to the e-mail notification that you mention, I cannot comment, as I do not use e-mail notifications, so have no experience with limitations, or functions there.

           

          Good luck,

           

          Hunt

          • 2. Re: Lazareth threads
            Phillip Jones Community Member
            Phillip Jones Apr 30, 2010 7:35 PM (in response to ilssac)

            Yes the email notices does from time to go haywire. the last couple of days about 5 messages each day  has been old post that haven't had had a new post in months. 

            • 3. Re: Lazareth threads
              RoboWizard CommunityMVP
              RoboWizard May 1, 2010 9:57 AM (in response to Phillip Jones)

              Hi folks

               

              Just an observation here on the "Lazareth thread" issue.

               

              I think spammers seek out really old posts to reply to. I'm not sure why. Perhaps their thought pattern is that the thread is really old, so nobody will notice if I pop my SPAM link in there. One might think that they are seeking folks to click their links, so why not post to new threads. But I think what they are hoping to achieve is a higher search ranking by having many links from Adobe to their site. And they really want those links to go unnoticed.

               

              When that happens, the thread becomes active again. If you were subscribed, you get a message. But what often happens is that we notice the spam and clean it up by deleting the reply. So it is likely that this provides an illusion of the Jive software gone haywire and suddenly spitting out an old message. When the actual events that unfolded were that SPAM hit the thread and it was removed before you had a chance to view the thread. So you see a notification, look at the thread and see nothing new. You might then conclude that the Jive has gone haywire.

               

              Cheers... Rick

              • 4. Re: Lazareth threads
                ilssac Community Member
                ilssac May 1, 2010 2:32 PM (in response to RoboWizard)

                That is not the behavior I have observed.

                 

                The threads, like the example I linked in my first post, have a new post in them.  Apparently somebody has done a search on a topic, or somehow discovered an old thread related to a question they would like to ask, and have added a comment to the thread.  But for some reason, the Jive system does not send this new message, it sends the ancient original post of the thread, at least to me.

                 

                I find that to be quite odd.

                • 5. Re: Lazareth threads
                  Bill Hunt CommunityMVP
                  Bill Hunt May 2, 2010 5:53 PM (in response to RoboWizard)

                  I normally think of "zombie threads," around Halloween, but there can be reasons that some of these are "brought back from the dead."

                   

                  Not THAT long ago, I stumbled across a "fix" for an issue in Adobe Premiere, and knew that there were several older threads on that subject, plus the issues had NOT been resolved in those threads. I posted a link to the fix in each, though the OP might well be in a retirement home by now.

                   

                  Not sure why a spammer would target older threads, other than they would then appear as "(Updated)" on most viewer's list.

                   

                  What motivates a spammer? What is their thought process? I certainly do not know.

                   

                  Hunt

                  • 6. Re: Lazareth threads
                    Bill Hunt CommunityMVP
                    Bill Hunt May 2, 2010 5:55 PM (in response to ilssac)

                    Ian,

                     

                    As I only have e-mail notification ON for PM's, I cannot help with how such threads might appear in notifications.

                     

                    Sorry,

                     

                    Hunt