Question on new posts......

We have the latest 9.5xxx installed by Bruce himself, the master forum and host person.
It's working fine as far as I'm concerned, HOWEVER, not to all folks, and it does bring up a couple of questions that are probably simple..........
Below is a PM I got from a forum user.
Now I have the opposite issue - mine may go 2 hours and never changes and shows the same "new posts" for a very long time, then at times, it quits showing them as new after only a couple of minutes, but this fellow is echoing some of the same concerns as a few others have............
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Private Message : Forum question.
Sent by : 67Roguexxxxxx
Sent : Today at 8:26am

Bill, 
 
One thing I've noticed since we went to the new server, is kinda
driving me nuts.
 
While logged on, I typically select "New Posts" to display all of those
that I haven't read. What is happening is, I may have 10 unread posts
listed... get up and go get a cup of coffee... come back to my PC, hit
"refresh"... and now there are NO unread posts. 
 
Any ideas?

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I've had this happen, I've had it where it didn't change for long times.
What controls this, and is there a fix for this fellow?
Is it the "refresh" ?

This is nothing to do with memory but is how sessions work with websites.

Websites uses the HTTP protocol which means unlike other protocols like FTP where a connection is made to the server, HTTP is stateless which means as soon as the web page has loaded the connection to the server to dropped.

To get around this limitation websites uses sessions. When a user goes to a website a session is created for them to track them and store data. This session will last for 20 minutes after the users last activity.

If you go away from your computer for 20 minutes, like Bill's user to have a cup of coffee the web server doesn't know if the user is now off looking at other websites, has turned their computer of, or just gone for a cup of coffee. What the web server will do is hold the users session for 20 minutes and then drop it.

Bruce can you explain why on my computer I see times when I sign in, hit "new messages", look at 1, then hit new messages again and it says there are no new messages since xxxx and that xxx is just like 30 seconds ago? In my case, I was not out for coffee, I literally logged in, looked at 1 new post, went to have it relist the new posts, and the time last checked was reset to the current time, not since my last visit last night.
In this fellows case, I know it wasn't taking him 20 minutes, more like 3 or 4.
In my case, I never even stood up! It's like it's refreshing the sessions with each mouse click.
Other times, in my case, it shows me the same "new messages" for an hour or more, never does reset my session. So I could read messages for an hour, hit "new messages" link, and it would keep showing me the same list from an hour ago, no refresh or reset............
Is there a LOCAL setting??
About 2/3 of the time for ME, it works perfectly, on some computers better than others, that is why I ask about local settings, even browsers..............

This is with the latest version 9.56