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Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:19 am
by Frank Colver
Has this happened to anyone else or is it just me?

I post a reply to one of the topics and submit it. I get the message back that it has been posted successfully. However, it doesn't appear as the next posting in the thread. In fact it doesn't appear anywhere - IT'S JUST GONE! :( There must be a black hole lurking somewhere in this forum. :o

This has happened to me frequently and it's usually on a topic that has a number of pages.

At first, when this happens, I would think that my reply might have been placed down amongst the pages somewhere, but a search of all pages, of that topic, doesn't bring it up so I just let it go. Seigh la vie.

Frank

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:42 am
by Bob Kuczewski
Hi Frank,

This has been happening for some time now, and I don't really know why. I have a hunch about the problem, and I'm working on a solution.

Here's the current workaround:

When you click submit, you SHOULD see a page that says your message has been posted. If you get that page, your message should be OK. But sometimes you won't get the confirmation, and instead you'll be back in the topic. If that happens, then you should immediately push your browser's "Go Back" button, and you should be back in the editing window with your message still intact. Then you can try to submit again. I've had times where I've had to try that many times before it would post. Sometimes I've found that pressing the "Preview" button instead of the "Submit" button will break the cycle and then "Submit" will work.

I'm sorry about this, and I am trying to figure out a solution.

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:50 am
by Frank Colver
Hmm....Have done all that, often to no avail.

Thanks, Bob

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:56 am
by Bob Kuczewski
It is extremely frustrating, and I'm sorry. I've worked on long posts and had them lost because I didn't notice that it hadn't posted. Also, each browser may be different in how it handles the buffering of previously visited pages. Another workaround is to either compose your post in another editor or to copy all your text to the clipboard before pressing "Submit". That way you've still got a copy.

As I mentioned, this has been a problem for some time, but until your post, I didn't have a name for it. I hereby officially name it "The Black Hole Bug". Thanks.

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 12:05 pm
by JoeF
The "Preview" and then "Submit" seemed to be an effective choice when the unexpected non-posting occurred.

ANOTHER tactic: Just before "Submit" take a moment and "Copy" via "Select all" in a right-click on editing field. Get the edited text into one's local clipboard. Then, if all seems not posted and lost, then the clipboard has the edited text; use that to "Paste" into another effort and perhaps use the "Preview"-and-"Submit" path.

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:36 pm
by Frank Colver
I do the preview and then submit. I've found that will often prevent problems. I have to do this when editing often times to get the edit to "take". Today I had to go back several times to get an edit to finally take.

The really strange thing is that I get the message that my post has been submitted successfully and it's nowhere to be found.

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:09 pm
by SamKellner
Black hole bug struck me on the Thanksgiving topic. Post never showed :?:

Hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving and got full of turkey :D

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:16 pm
by JoeF
Frank,
If you did receive notice that the message was sent successfully,
then consider believing that and explore hard refresh of pages; local computer browser might be feeding the old cached version of the page.
It can occur that a hard refresh locally may be challenging.

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 6:12 pm
by Rick Masters
The answer can be found here (somewhere):
https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Re: Black hole in forum?

PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 8:59 pm
by DaveSchy
Comforting!
I thought it was just me! :D