Post lost before finished? Try using the Auto-Save feature

[Peter Hannah]

There seems to be something wrong with this forum. I just wrote you a long reply and when I clicked Post it took me to the login screen and I lost it all!

[Bob Denny]

Eek! I haven't had that one happen. The forum is run on a commercial hosting facility in the midwest US. And it has a features that, if you checked "remember me" when you logged in, it will keep you logged in "forever". I run the PingDom monitoring system on the forum that checks from 20 places around the world (to eliminate connectivity problems from the test). It's showing 100% up time over the last week (see below). Finally if you "lost it" while creating s message or reply, then go back and reply again later, and if you are using the same browser (it uses cookies) you will usually see a "restore previous" button at the bottom, and clicking that will restore all up to its last "autosave" (which is every minute or two)

1. Click here to go to the message to which you were replying
2. Look for the Restore post button in the bottom of the reply field and if there click it

That's as much as I can give you right now. My apologies... it's a commercial forum system so I don't know much about it internally.

Snap1.jpg

[Peter Hannah]

I couldn't see a 'restore post' button. But actually this is not the first time I've lost a post in this way. It's as though it decides you have to log in again, and taking you to the login screen you lose your post.

Anyway, all I was saying was that my flat panel brightness can't be adjusted remotely. All I can do is ask the local operator to swap neutral density filters in and out, and they don't like being asked that too often. And so I have to put up with 1600s exposures for my SII filter while needing just 2s for my Lum. Removing a filter results in the Lum exposure being so short I get shutter vignetting in the exposure.

My mount is a 10Micron GM2000. Strange that it should get mixed up by effectively being left on all night, I would have thought that happens often.

[Dick Berg]

Peter, I'm not a complaining kind of guy, so I often don't chime in enough when I should complain.

I too have many times over the years lost a lengthy post when I submitted it. Perhaps it's related the connection timing-out in some way, though I can't be sure. It happens just as you say - I get a blank screen, and trying to use the back arrow goes back to the post I was replying to and not to the reply I was creating. And though I see the little yellow notification periodically pop up in the lower corner of the screen about saving the draft, I have also never found the restore post button.

Like Eric, I've learned to live with it by copying out a long, carefully constructed message to Notepad before submitting it. When i saw his post below I thought I would mention this too.

And Bob, in all these years, I've actually never noticed the "remember me" box next to the login. How weird is that. I wonder if checking this box will prevent the time-outs, if that is really the cause of losing a post submission.

[Bob Denny]

Ok thanks for the info on your panel. On the forum, is it possible that you have some sort of cookie killer security addition on your system? If cookies get zapped in your browser, it will forget that it’s logged into the forum and force you to log in again. Could that be it?

[Eric Dose]

I have to say, I have lost a post now and then. It does seems to be less often with my current Bitdefender security suite than with my previous Norton security.

Even so, for longer post texts I've made it a practice to first copy and paste into Notepad++ before submitting to this forum. A couple of times a year, that saves me huge rewriting pain.

(edit: I'll have no objection if the forum-related posts get split into a different thread)

[Bob Denny]

Well I have lost posts as well, a few times, and like you they were when the forum "hiccups". But if you don't close the browser, and you just refresh the page to your (now empty) reply, the "Restore Auto-Saved Content" button should appear. Run the test yourself:

1. Start a reply, a few sentences. Remember auto save only happens every few minutes so give it time.
2. Refresh the browser, wiping out the post you were working on
3. Go back the exact same message to which you were replying
4. Click Reply, you should see the button on the lower left.
5. Click that and your reply should be mostly restored (at least up to the last couple of minutes)

Snap1.jpg

[Dick Berg]

Hi Bob,

By golly, what you describe does work as described. But wiping out the post by refreshing the browser is not typically the way these disappear for me. It's typical that I've written a long reply that takes maybe twenty minutes to construct. In the meantime I've be disconnected. With only guessing this has happened, this is where I save my message in Notepad. Then when I post the reply, it goes to the logon screen, I logon again, and what's shown is a blank screen with no recovery of the post when using the back arrow or other schemes. However, at that point I haven't tried your steps 3,4, and 5. So now I'm waiting for twenty minutes or so to time-out, then will do those to see if it works the same way.

Is this all mediated by "remembering logon?"

Does "Auto-save"stop annunciating when one has been silently disconnected?

EDIT: Yes sir - even after the Comm Center has disconnected me, 3, 4 and 5 will produce the "Restore Auto-Saved Content" button which in turn restores the message. Great to know!! Thanks.

However, when that first blank screen appears after re-logging in, it is pointing to a page something like this

https://forums.dc3.com/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=13041

This leads nowhere. Refreshing this page refreshes the blank page. I had to back up to just http://forums.dc3.com/ and then dive down to the message I was replying to. Then 4 and 5 worked fine.

[Bob Denny]

Is this all mediated by "remembering logon?"

I don't know. I always have it on because I am in and out of the forum sometimes dozens of times a day!

Does "Auto-save"stop annunciating when one has been silently disconnected?

It shouldn't, but it depends on cookies so if your browser is set to dump cookies or whatever that context will be lost. Normally it will work as you found.

However, when that first blank screen appears after re-logging in, it is pointing to a page something like this

https://forums.dc3.com/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=13041

This leads nowhere.

I'm not sure about that. If I refresh from an incomplete post, it comes right back to the (empty) Quick Reply form with the Restore button in the lower left. Even if you go back to the main page and drill back down to the post to which you were replying, the restore button should appear as you found. It does work pretty well. Like you, though, when I am making a really complicated one that may take me over a half hour (and I do that more often than pone might think) I''ll prepare it offline in Notepad++.

[Peter Hannah]

Bob, I'm having problems with the forum behaviour. I few months ago I mentioned that I'd lost a fairly lengthy reply to a thread, and today it happened again.

I had replied to your post above, and when I clicked Post Quick Reply I was taken to the login screen. After logging in I was presented with a blank screen. Refreshing didn't do anything so I pushed Back. Came back to this thread but my reply was gone.

I then wrote this message, clicked Post Quick Reply again, and got the screen below.

- So I've had to type it all out again! There must be a timeout after which you have to login again, but in the process your reply is lost.
I'll reply separately regarding the registry fix.

Peter.