Odd saving behaviour

[Tony Brooks]

It seems that if you reply to a post that is not on the last page of a topic, when you press "save" the button flashes monetarily and then reverts to "save" with the edit panel still in view as if the message was not saved. In fact, the message is saved. I think this how we can get duplicated replies.

 

Firefox 91.0 on Linux Mint 20.2

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

[Athy]

2 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

It seems that if you reply to a post that is not on the last page of a topic, when you press "save" the button flashes monetarily

 

 

 

 

 

 

You mean it changes into a pound sign?

 

Seriously, I have replied to a post which wasn't on the final page of a topic, this morning, and I noticed no such thing.

I use a Dell home computer fitted with Windows 10.

[Tony Brooks]

29 minutes ago, Athy said:

You mean it changes into a pound sign?

 

Seriously, I have replied to a post which wasn't on the final page of a topic, this morning, and I noticed no such thing.

I use a Dell home computer fitted with Windows 10.

 

It has happened to me more than once over the last few weeks, I am not bothered by it because I know I can watch the button and when it reverts to "save"  just go to the new content button. It is intermittent.

[TheBiscuits]

That's usually caused by a flaky internet connection.  Your device doesn't receive the "callback" from the server to tell it the post has gone through, so reactivates the save button instead of going to the new post.

 

It's not only on earlier pages that it happens, it can and does happen on the last page too.

[IanD]

2 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

That's usually caused by a flaky internet connection.  Your device doesn't receive the "callback" from the server to tell it the post has gone through, so reactivates the save button instead of going to the new post.

 

It's not only on earlier pages that it happens, it can and does happen on the last page too.

Not flaky internet, I've noticed this too when replying on previous pages and my Internet is a rock-solid 75Mbps wired connection.

[Tony Brooks]

23 minutes ago, IanD said:

Not flaky internet, I've noticed this too when replying on previous pages and my Internet is a rock-solid 75Mbps wired connection.

 

Yes - unless the BT fibre  to local wire network is flaky (it has been in the past but not now) and I get this on the Ethernet on the desktop and wifi on the laptop.

 

I suspect The Biscuits is partially correct in that my end does not get confirmation that the server has saved the message, but I suspect it's either server overload or some weird knot the server gets itself into occasionally.

[IanD]

2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Yes - unless the BT fibre  to local wire network is flaky (it has been in the past but not now) and I get this on the Ethernet on the desktop and wifi on the laptop.

 

I suspect The Biscuits is partially correct in that my end does not get confirmation that the server has saved the message, but I suspect it's either server overload or some weird knot the server gets itself into occasionally.

Server is my suspicion too, might depend on what other users are doing at the time -- for example if you access a post in a really long thread there's sometimes a delay, presumably as it thrashes though all the posts, and if it's working hard doing this for one or more users it could cause the multiple posts problem for somebody else.

 

Does anyone else think this has been happening more since the big software update when the post counts in the headers disappeared?

[RichM]

It is likely to be one of two things:

- Theme issue/bug
- Dodgy internet connection as mentioned

 

Unfortunately sporadic issues that are not easy to replicate are the hardest ones to diagnose and fix but if it is an issue with the theme then it's likely to be fixed by the designer in a future update. That said, I had this issue once while I was connected to a VPN. I disconnected from the VPN and then it was OK. This supports the dodgy internet connection theory but equally, that could have been a coincidence. Has anyone experienced this issue while using the "Legacy" theme? 
 

I can assure you that the server is not being overloaded. If this were to happen, we'd receive automated alerts. The only time it runs under significant load is when backups run at 4am in the morning but it still has adequate capacity to run the site itself.

[IanD]

14 hours ago, RichM said:

It is likely to be one of two things:

- Theme issue/bug
- Dodgy internet connection as mentioned

 

Unfortunately sporadic issues that are not easy to replicate are the hardest ones to diagnose and fix but if it is an issue with the theme then it's likely to be fixed by the designer in a future update. That said, I had this issue once while I was connected to a VPN. I disconnected from the VPN and then it was OK. This supports the dodgy internet connection theory but equally, that could have been a coincidence. Has anyone experienced this issue while using the "Legacy" theme? 
 

I can assure you that the server is not being overloaded. If this were to happen, we'd receive automated alerts. The only time it runs under significant load is when backups run at 4am in the morning but it still has adequate capacity to run the site itself.

I'm using the default theme and IIRC have seen this problem even on my desktop PC connected via 100G wired Ethernet -- where I run regular speedtest checks and have never seen any significant variation.

 

From memory it's often (always?) when replying to a post that isn't on the last page of a thread, but I couldn't swear to that. Also often on very long threads, but also not 100% sure this is always the case.

 

Don't know how the code is written -- when you're not on the last page of a long thread and you hit "Save", does it only look at the current and last pages, and how does it find these -- are the pages hashed/indexed or rebuilt each time in case somebody has gone back and expanded an earlier post? Does this take long enough that the notification back to the client is delayed enough that it thinks the "Save" has failed? What's the "failed" timeout set to, and can this be exceeded if the network is congested? (which can always happen over a short time period)

 

I've written (and used) a lot of software in the past and problems like this often only show up in particular cases (e.g. long threads, big datasets) where the delay gets bigger -- one example was a screen plotting routine I wrote for simulation data which was very slow to zoom or pan for big datasets (e.g. plotting a million data points onto a 1024 pixel screen) until I pre-calculated all the data maxima and minima for each block of points.

[GUMPY]

Another example of saving problems☹️

I have had the problem of messages not being saved to the server for a while now and finally today worked out the circumstances that cause it.

If I reply to a message and another poster adds a post to the thread then the system doesn't save my message. I click on send and the saving dialogue comes up and it just sits there. Refresh the page and do it again and it all works as it should provided no one else has posted in the interim. It's as if the server is ignoring my message as it has already taken the other message.

 

Internet is unlimited 4g from "3" and I am 209yds from the mast and speed normally about 95mbs.

Android 10 using Chrome 94.0.4606.61 with the Legacy theme