Bug: User preferences are not loaded from the database on initial login

Although the user preferences can be updated using the popup screen (and they are visible in preferences.lua), the changes are not picked up on next login. It looks like the initial settings on the prefs screen are always picked up from the config.js prefs var.
The prefs var is not updated until one of the following are used: thread.html, search.html, list.html.
So the settings shown on the initial screen are the defaults from config.js, not the current user settings.

Start at the initial preferences screen and compare the settings loaded from config.js with the values shown in preferences.lua after login. Trace when the prefs variable is populated, using thread.html, search.html, and list.html as the mentioned comparison points. Done means the initial screen shows the current database-backed user preferences on login, without needing to visit another page.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.