Thread

I’ve just revisited an old installation of mine to resurrect a random entry feature. The parameter is set to limit=“1”, and I know the entries are fine when I change it to limit=“4”.

I can only ever get to see two of these entries - the newest ones by ID. I’m sure this was to do with a troublesome version of mysql - 3.23.52 - I lost the link that pointed to this as the issue.

Can anyone confirm this?

I’m also on Build 20070627 - php version is at 4.22

I know, move hosts…

Hi, Simon. You’re a few builds behind. Any chance you can upgrade to the newest build which will put us on the same footing?

On the same build now, issue persists.

Hm- searched around and haven’t spotted it as a mysql version related issue.  Which doesn’t mean it’s not.  But- could be cache related as well.  Try this and see if it works:

{exp:query sql="SELECT title FROM exp_weblog_titles WHERE entry_id != '{current_time}' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1"}
{title}
{/exp:query}

Should eliminate any cache issues and it’s as simple as I can get it for testing whether it’s the query itself.

Also- I’m going to shift this over to ‘Tech Support’.

Not quite sure what to change, I need to specify the category, tried that and got lost! - I’m not sure about the (current_time) part… Here’s my tag:

{exp:weblog:entries weblog="{my_weblog}" orderby="random" dynamic="off" disable="pagination|member_data|trackbacks" rdf="off" category="1" limit="1"}
    <div id="main_area" class="{my_template_group}_area">
        <a href="http://{path=xxx}">{main_image}</a>
    </div>
{/exp:weblog:entries}

Thanks

No- just stick the exact code I pasted in some template.  It’s just a test to see if rand() is working.  If the query works- we’ll go from there.  Make sense?  It’s not a fix- just a test.

Hm- searched around and haven’t spotted it as a mysql version related issue.  Which doesn’t mean it’s not.  But- could be cache related as well.  Try this and see if it works:

{exp:query sql="SELECT title FROM exp_weblog_titles WHERE entry_id != '{current_time}' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1"}
{title}
{/exp:query}

Should eliminate any cache issues and it’s as simple as I can get it for testing whether it’s the query itself.

Also- I’m going to shift this over to ‘Tech Support’.

We were suspecting that there might be some random problems as well. I used the code above and I do see a different title each time. Does that mean it’s working?

Yep- it’s working as far as I can see.  Basically- I suspect you’ve got query caching/dynamic caching on.  And since the rand() query is the same actual query each time- it just serves up the cached results rather than doing a new query.  Putting he current_time bit in is a cheat- it makes for a new query every page load- thus the cached query isn’t used and you get a new query each time- generally with a new result.

I use the trick if using any kind of caching that would likely result in dupes with rand.  Think it will do the trick- or do we need to dig into your cache options?