The problem seems to be that the forum software is struggling to determine whether members are using a mobile device with a small screen, like a 'phone running Android or iOS, or they are using a laptop, tablet or desktop PC that's running with a larger screen.
To be fair, this is a problem that isn't unique to VBulletin, or many web sites. It seems that some sites (sadly including this one now) use a flawed technique for determining whether or not to use the mobile format or the desktop format. The problem isn't an easy one to fix, as some mobile devices have high resolution screens, even though they are small, so the two techniques that used to be used to identify a mobile device, and so use the mobile style, can be unreliable.
The problem is compounded by Android really being a Google version of Linux, but with some non-open source Google proprietary code, so it's possible that any device running Linux could be confused for one running Android. Add in that the screen resolution of some mobile devices can exceed that of some desktop, or laptop, machines, and even the normally reported data that is always sent back to the servers of any website (that give the OS, browser, screen resolution etc, of the users device) gets pretty difficult to interpret.
This is far from being just a problem for forums, it's a challenge that loads of websites struggle with getting right. Some just cheat a bit, and do as the BBC News site does, and format the site so that it has wide white bands down either side when viewed on a large screen device, just to better fit the portrait format of mobile phones. Some take the more logical step of using a different URL for the mobile version (often with /m/ in the URL) so that users can choose as to whether to access the mobile version or the desktop/laptop/large screen tablet version. Most problems seem to be when websites try to automatically detect a mobile device, and just serve up different site format based on that guesstimate as to what the device really needs in order to have an acceptable look and usability.
Last edited by VP959; 5th May 2018 at 21:10.