Posts disappearing

[Gary Childress]

I have posted a few things that took some thought and effort to write, only to have them disappear when I have to prove I am human. I write a post, click submit, then it asks me to check the box to prove I'm human. I check the box, hit OK and then come back to a blank form devoid of the content I had spent time writing.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Frustrating.

[seeds]

I have posted a few things that took some thought and effort to write, only to have them disappear when I have to prove I am human. I write a post, click submit, then it asks me to check the box to prove I'm human. I check the box, hit OK and then come back to a blank form devoid of the content I had spent time writing.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Frustrating.

Good grief, Gary, we've been down this road before just a few months ago.

Rick and team are probably trying to keep the forum free of harmful bots, so they must have needed to up the sign-in rigour, which includes a shorter automatic sign-out.

My advice is that you open the PN site in a separate tab from the one you are writing a post in, and before you submit your new post, always make sure to check that page to see if you are still logged in. If not, then re-log in there and then it will be safe to submit your post on the other page as long as you do it asap.

And to be doubly safe, always highlight and copy a new post before hitting the submit or preview buttons.

People need to complain less and be thankful that Rick provides us with this forum where we can freely display our lunacy.
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[ThinkOfOne]

I have posted a few things that took some thought and effort to write, only to have them disappear when I have to prove I am human. I write a post, click submit, then it asks me to check the box to prove I'm human. I check the box, hit OK and then come back to a blank form devoid of the content I had spent time writing.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Frustrating.

I had that happen just yesterday. By hitting the "go back" button a couple of times, I was able to get back to were I was prior to hitting "Submit". Don't know if that would work consistently, but it'd be worth a try.

FWIW, @seeds doesn't seem to understand the issue. It's definitely a coding flaw that should be corrected. A well designed/implemented system would behave correctly, rather than requiring the users to implement workarounds.

[seeds]

I have posted a few things that took some thought and effort to write, only to have them disappear when I have to prove I am human. I write a post, click submit, then it asks me to check the box to prove I'm human. I check the box, hit OK and then come back to a blank form devoid of the content I had spent time writing.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Frustrating.

I had that happen just yesterday. By hitting the "go back" button a couple of times, I was able to get back to were I was prior to hitting "Submit". Don't know if that would work consistently, but it'd be worth a try.

FWIW, @seeds doesn't seem to understand the issue. It's definitely a coding flaw that should be corrected. A well designed/implemented system would behave correctly, rather than requiring the users to implement workarounds.

Seeds understands that just a few months ago, based on all of the headaches that the menacing forum bots were causing the main PN site, Rick was debating whether or not to just eliminate the forum altogether.

And the point is that the less you sorry, ungrateful characters complain about the little problems we have to deal with in order to have this nice (ad-free) site to empty our mental bowels on, then the less likely Rick will regret not ending the forum back then.
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[Dubious]

I have posted a few things that took some thought and effort to write, only to have them disappear when I have to prove I am human. I write a post, click submit, then it asks me to check the box to prove I'm human. I check the box, hit OK and then come back to a blank form devoid of the content I had spent time writing.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Frustrating.

What is the big deal? Yes, it happened to me as well a few times, but once you know that it's likely to happen again the workaround is simple.

1 - For longer posts first write it on a word processor which is always the best idea.

2 - For shorter responses copy it to the clipboard, that way it can be easily recalled in case it disappeared when having to sign in again...an extra step which takes almost no time!

[ThinkOfOne]

I have posted a few things that took some thought and effort to write, only to have them disappear when I have to prove I am human. I write a post, click submit, then it asks me to check the box to prove I'm human. I check the box, hit OK and then come back to a blank form devoid of the content I had spent time writing.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Frustrating.

I had that happen just yesterday. By hitting the "go back" button a couple of times, I was able to get back to were I was prior to hitting "Submit". Don't know if that would work consistently, but it'd be worth a try.

FWIW, @seeds doesn't seem to understand the issue. It's definitely a coding flaw that should be corrected. A well designed/implemented system would behave correctly, rather than requiring the users to implement workarounds.

Seeds understands that just a few months ago, based on all of the headaches that the menacing forum bots were causing the main PN site, Rick was debating whether or not to just eliminate the forum altogether.

And the point is that the less you sorry, ungrateful characters complain about the little problems we have to deal with in order to have this nice (ad-free) site to empty our mental bowels on, then the less likely Rick will regret not ending the forum back then.
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Sorry, but based on your responses, it's clear that you do not really understand the problem that Gary described.

It's also clear that you're completely clueless when it comes to understanding software and what it takes to provide a well-designed/implemented system that behaves correctly. It's as if you think that the only solution to resolving this problem would be to backout the protection provided by CloudFlare. It isn't. Most likely the software developer is unaware of this unintended side-effect and would appreciate knowing about the issue.

BTW it just happened again the first time I tried to submit this post. I was once again able to recover my text by hitting the browser "go back" button twice.

[accelafine]

I think Cloudflare has learnt to detect your whining and flings out those posts before they can be seen by anyone.

[accelafine]

I had that happen just yesterday. By hitting the "go back" button a couple of times, I was able to get back to were I was prior to hitting "Submit". Don't know if that would work consistently, but it'd be worth a try.

FWIW, @seeds doesn't seem to understand the issue. It's definitely a coding flaw that should be corrected. A well designed/implemented system would behave correctly, rather than requiring the users to implement workarounds.

Seeds understands that just a few months ago, based on all of the headaches that the menacing forum bots were causing the main PN site, Rick was debating whether or not to just eliminate the forum altogether.

And the point is that the less you sorry, ungrateful characters complain about the little problems we have to deal with in order to have this nice (ad-free) site to empty our mental bowels on, then the less likely Rick will regret not ending the forum back then.
_______

Sorry, but based on your responses, it's clear that you do not really understand the problem that Gary described.

It's also clear that you're completely clueless when it comes to understanding software and what it takes to provide a well-designed/implemented system that behaves correctly. It's as if you think that the only solution to resolving this problem would be to backout the protection provided by CloudFlare. It isn't. Most likely the software developer is unaware of this unintended side-effect and would appreciate knowing about the issue.

BTW it just happened again the first time I tried to submit this post. I was once again able to recover my text by hitting the browser "go back" button twice.

Why people hate nerds...

[Gary Childress]

I think Cloudflare has learnt to detect your whining and flings out those posts before they can be seen by anyone.

Fair enough.

[MikeNovack]

MY solution.

I have experienced the same thing, when hitting send, goes to recheck that I am still a human, and returnong from that, what I typed gone. Doesn't always happen.

To prevent the loss of what I have typed, before hitting "send", do an "edit=>copy" and then hit "send". If it goes into that recheck if I am still human so comes back blank, I just paste in what I have active in copy. Works like a charm if I remember to do.

[RickLewis]

Gary - sorry about he problem. Using Cloudflare is the best solution we've found so far to the various existential digital threats the forum has been facing. It's not perfect.

[Gary Childress]

Gary - sorry about he problem. Using Cloudflare is the best solution we've found so far to the various existential digital threats the forum has been facing. It's not perfect.

Hi, Rick. That's OK. I complain too much. It hasn't been giving me the same problem lately, and if it does, it's easy enough to work around it. Thank you for keeping the forum going. And thank you for moderating the forum. You have gone above and beyond for us.

On another note, I received notice that my subscription to PN autorenewed a couple of weeks back, but when I'm on the forum, I can't see the articles, other than "complimentary" ones. Is the cookie (or whatever) that signifies who I am on the forum a separate one from the magazine subscription? Or did my auto-renew not go through? I sent an inquiry about it through email a while back, however, I haven't heard anything yet.

Thank you for all you do for us!

[RickLewis]

Hi Gary, you are welcome!

I can see that your website subscription successfully renewed and is now paid up until Issue 174.

Yes, the forum's login system is entirely separate from the subscriber login system for the rest of the Philosophy Now website. I can see from your subscription account that you have successfully logged into the website as a subscriber in the past, so you need to do that again in order to read most articles. Your username is your email address and your password is whatever you set it as before (though it is easy for you to reset your password at any time, if you have forgotten it). Any difficultly please tell me by PM and I'll do my best to help.

[Gary Childress]

Hi Gary, you are welcome!

I can see that your website subscription successfully renewed and is now paid up until Issue 174.

Yes, the forum's login system is entirely separate from the subscriber login system for the rest of the Philosophy Now website. I can see from your subscription account that you have successfully logged into the website as a subscriber in the past, so you need to do that again in order to read most articles. Your username is your email address and your password is whatever you set it as before (though it is easy for you to reset your password at any time, if you have forgotten it). Any difficultly please tell me by PM and I'll do my best to help.

Thank you, Rick!

[Scott Mayers]

I have posted a few things that took some thought and effort to write, only to have them disappear when I have to prove I am human. I write a post, click submit, then it asks me to check the box to prove I'm human. I check the box, hit OK and then come back to a blank form devoid of the content I had spent time writing.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Frustrating.

This also relates to the time interval settings for how long this site keeps open inactive users. I know that from this site's software functioning in other places that they have to have some time-limit switch that I've complained about before. But this site has never had a long wait period and something that I've complained about. So to be safe, you have to copy your preview before posting. The added security possibly uses some of that time interval up shortening the duration you can stay on the site 'inactive' period. But it is annoying to highlight content in these closed editing boxes for long content. If you use the same phpBB software on other sites that use a longer wait period, you forget the sites that do limit them like this one.