UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums Thread Like Summary - Unread posts no longer tracked per user...

I'll start right off by saying I know I broke something (with the help of BlueHost tech support), I'm thinking it's a simple fix - after all, it was easy to break But I'm at a loss as to what to fix.

The problem:
When a user goes into a particular forum, any threads with new posts are highlighted correctly. However, when a user goes into a thread, it doesn't take them to the newest unread post. Instead, it takes them to the first post in the thread, even if they've read that post already. Next, when the user goes back to that particular forum, any other threads with unread posts are no longer highlighted.

The history:
We started getting the "max_input_vars too low" error prior to this problem. So I contacted BlueHost support, and they walked me through the simple task of using "MultiPHP INI Editor" to update "max_input_vars" from 1000 to 3000. The "too low" error went away.

Later, I noticed none of the attachments to any posts would appear or could be downloaded. I contacted BlueHost again, and their solution was to rename the .HTACCESS file to .HTACCESS1 to effectively disable it. That worked, but the "too low" error message was back. And, in looking through the HTACCESS1 file, I noticed a "max_input_time" variable in addition to "max_input_vars" which surprised me, since I didn't intentionally change the value from the default of 60 to 600. So I used "MultiPHP INI Editor" again, entered 3000 for max_input_vars, 60 for max_input_time, and saved the results. Now the attachments were working again, and the "too low" error message was gone.

But, I now have the new problem with unread post tracking. I suspect the PHP.INI and .HTACCESS files were changed to 'standard/generic' files and are missing some key entry (or entries). Unfortunately, I didn't save a copy of either one prior to making these changes.

The Environment
UBBThreads version 7.7.3, no modifications from stock install.
PHP 5.6.40
Hosted by BlueHost

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Although we did upgrade from an older forum, that was a year ago and this behavior started last week, coincident with the changes to PHP.INI and/or .HTACCESS. We also have another forum running version 7.7.1 and hosted by GoDaddy. It has not been worked on and it still behaves as we expected. I do recall noticing the change from TIME OFFSETS to TIME ZONES when we upgraded. But that shortly sorted itself out as you described. In short, this current problem is not something we just noticed.

I checked the current .HTACCESS file and it doesn't have a "Header Set" entry (or even the word "header" in it anywhere). Could that be the problem?

This BlueHost account is one we inherited from another group. It was set up over ten years ago, then handed over to another admin who touched nothing other than adding or deleting members. So if there are any changes to CloudFair or BlueHost I'm not aware of them and predate me.

As for myself - I started off as a machine-level programmer back in the 1980s, and most of my experience since then has been in the Windows world. So I'm familiar with the general concepts but I lack specific experience with PHP, MySQL and web-hosting and so I'm trying to tread gingerly.

Thanks for your help so far!