Loop starts from the beginning with second while loop on author.php

Question

I am using the same template for author.php and home/blog.php.

I have a loop split into 3 parts.

<?php

if(have_posts()): the_post;
  //do a thing
endif:

$i = 0;
while(have_posts()): the_post();
  //do three things
$i++; if ($i == 3): break; endif; 
endwhile;

while(have_posts()): the_post();
  //do the rest
endwhile;

?>

This seems to be working fine on the home/blog page but on the author.php, in the 2nd while loop, I'm getting posts starting from 1, when I shouldn't be getting any.

For this particular author I have 2 posts so I should be getting something like:

<?php

if(have_posts()): the_post();
  //post1
endif:

$i = 0;
while(have_posts()): the_post();
  //post2
$i++; if ($i == 3): break; endif; 
endwhile;

while(have_posts()): the_post();
  //no posts
endwhile;

?> 

But instead I'm getting:

<?php

if(have_posts()): the_post();
  //post1
endif:

$i = 0;
while(have_posts()): the_post();
  //post2
$i++; if ($i == 3): break; endif; 
endwhile;

while(have_posts()): the_post();
  //post1 + post2
endwhile;

?>

What's up with my loops?

Answer 1

When the loop is complete, have_posts() rewinds it back by calling the rewind_posts() method of the $wp_query object, see here.

Here's another (more simple?) setup that you could try:

while( have_posts()): the_post();
   if ( 0 == $wp_query->current_post ): 
       // post 1   
   elseif ( 1 == $wp_query->current_post ): 
       // post 2      
   else:        
       // other posts   
   endif;
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();

where we use the current_post property of the global $wp_query object to keep the track of the current post.