# Discourse view of a topic jumps around

**URL:** <https://discuss.python.org/t/discourse-view-of-a-topic-jumps-around/62552>\
**Category:** Discourse Feedback\
**Created:** [September 1, 2024, 12:59pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/discourse-view-of-a-topic-jumps-around/62552 "2024-09-01T12:59:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![defjaf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/defjaf/32/12838_2.png) [@defjaf](https://discuss.python.org/u/defjaf)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2024, 12:59pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/discourse-view-of-a-topic-jumps-around/62552/1 "2024-09-01T12:59:21Z")

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Sometimes (possibly correlating with access via an iPhone or iPad browser, and/or a slower connection) after opening up a topic, the view will jump around (usually to an earlier message). Also, this somehow clears the browser history for the tab, so I can no longer use the “back” button.

I see this on other discourse sites too — I think it’s the same behaviour [documented here](https://talk.tidbits.com/t/threads-jumping-back-a-post-during-scrolling/28752/2) and is possibly related to [this more general discourse issue (but it’s definitely not just 20 posts)](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-jumps-back-20-posts-in-post-history-when-navigating-to-new-topic/242739/34).

Anyone else experiencing this? Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![ncoghlan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/ncoghlan/32/14266_2.png) [@ncoghlan](https://discuss.python.org/u/ncoghlan)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2024, 2:18pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/discourse-view-of-a-topic-jumps-around/62552/2 "2024-09-01T14:18:26Z")

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As you scroll through longer topics, Discourse actually updates the browser’s active URL to reflect the currently visible post(s).

How well that works and whether it has any weird side effects (such as breaking the back button) is presumably going to be browser dependent.

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**Author:** ![ferdnyc](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/ferdnyc/32/6325_2.png) [@ferdnyc](https://discuss.python.org/u/ferdnyc)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2024, 6:47am UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/discourse-view-of-a-topic-jumps-around/62552/3 "2024-09-03T06:47:14Z")

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> [@ncoghlan](#):
>
> As you scroll through longer topics

Any topics, really. Even on this one, scrolling down from @defjaf 's post to yours changes the URL from `https://discuss.python.org/t/discourse-view-of-a-topic-jumps-around/62552` to `https://discuss.python.org/t/discourse-view-of-a-topic-jumps-around/62552/2`. (And now, for this reply, presumably `https://discuss.python.org/t/discourse-view-of-a-topic-jumps-around/62552/3`.)

And, yeah, they are at least nice enough to keep those updates out of the navigation history… which I guess isn’t so nice, when there’s a bug that causes your browser to lose _all_ navigation history as a result.