I've just been informed of a bug in the UBB Software and have emailed Zach the fix. It will be up today and I will post it in the announcements section.
Once fixed, if the board continues to act erratically, go into your Netscape folder and edit the file "cookies.txt". Remove all references to The Firing line. Then enter thru the main page at
http://www.thefiringline.com . All messages will appear as unread. But, after that, the system will update properly for you.
Rich