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Is it my computer or this forum?

Bill Boehme

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I have been having a heck of a time trying to post anything on this forum for the past day or so. The typical thing that happens is that while I am in the middle of typing a post, the whole thing vanishes into nothingness and there I am looking at an empty reply box. I also participate in a photography forum that uses the same software and have not encountered that problem when posting messages there. It has really frustrated me after spending a lot of time typing a message only to have it suddenly vanish and have now gone to working off line on my messages and then pasting them into the reply box. I didn't bother trying to re-do the message yesterday where this problem first cropped up.
 
i have not had any trouble, i have dial up
 
How long has it been taking you to write your messages?

If you write a really long message, VBulletin may do an automatic logout in about an hour.

Another possibility is your Internet connection, and settings for automatic disconnect. My previous dialup access drove me nuts (or more thoroughly nuts), if I didn't catch the popup in time. Firefox doesn't seem to have the auto-disconnect of IE.

Your computer itself may time out to a blank screensaver after some idle time. You should be able to set a higher timeout value in Control panel.

A still more exasperating problem around here is power failures. I finally installed an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS), to save whatever I've been doing.

Some of these can be alleviated to some extent, by writing messages in NotePad (plain ASCII), saving the file if necessary, and posting the message as a Copy in the Reply box. Set WordWrap OFF to let the forum software do the justification, and add Bells and Whistles there. I find this the best way to post long messages, with several attachments. I can edit the post to assure attachment IDs are consistent, correct grammar mistakes, etc.

I hope this helps a little bit. If the problem persists, hit the Report Post (little RED triangle) symbol to get faster attention.

Joe
 
I haven't had any problems with this site unless I start a message and get interrupted and have to come back to it several minutes later. Then it seems to take forever for it to post. I assume something has timed out during that period.
 
How long has it been taking you to write your messages?

If you write a really long message, VBulletin may do an automatic logout in about an hour.

Another possibility is your Internet connection, and settings for automatic disconnect. My previous dialup access drove me nuts (or more thoroughly nuts), if I didn't catch the popup in time. Firefox doesn't seem to have the auto-disconnect of IE.

Your computer itself may time out to a blank screensaver after some idle time. You should be able to set a higher timeout value in Control panel.

A still more exasperating problem around here is power failures. I finally installed an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS), to save whatever I've been doing.

Some of these can be alleviated to some extent, by writing messages in NotePad (plain ASCII), saving the file if necessary, and posting the message as a Copy in the Reply box. Set WordWrap OFF to let the forum software do the justification, and add Bells and Whistles there. I find this the best way to post long messages, with several attachments. I can edit the post to assure attachment IDs are consistent, correct grammar mistakes, etc.

I hope this helps a little bit. If the problem persists, hit the Report Post (little RED triangle) symbol to get faster attention.

Joe

There is no automatic log out on this site for the lengths of time that I am talking about. The message that I posted yesterday disappeared at least three times within a five minute span. It has nothing to do with the Internet connection -- the only thing that changes when the problem happens is that all or part of the text in the box where the message is entered will suddenly disappear. I have not been able to see if it happens during a keystroke, but I think that it does. I have been using Notepad since then to compose messages, but it is not a very good work around since it doesn't allow the same formatting (indent, bullets, numbering, justification, nor emoticons). I have a direct cable connection and my router logs anomalous events like loss of connection, but nothing of that sort has been recorded.
 
That is quite weird, never heard of anything like it happening before. The closest I have experienced is if I'm trying to select just one word or letter to change it--my cursor can be kind of touchy and sometimes a whole paragraph or more is highlighted. Then if I type just one letter, it all disappears.
I can usually get it back using the Undo keyboard shortcut, Control-z. It has to be right after losing that text, before trying to type anything else.

I have my doubts it has anything to do with the forum software, but I could be wrong. Steve handles that part of the forum. If it were, many people would have the same problem.
 
Thanks, Ken. Unfortunately Control-Z didn't work, but I had another thought. I just very recently got a Microsoft wireless optical desktop (keyboard and mouse) and I am wondering if it is occasionally sending out weird characters (or the receiver garbling the received characters). The batteries are strong and the working distance is only about two feet, but those electrons floating around in the air can do some odd things sometimes.
 
Bill,
Sounds like you found the problem, too much fancy technology. I usually write anything more than a few lines long off line, cause I write (and think) very slowly. Of course things change while I am thinking and writing. A new president is elected, there is another revolution in some country, a new ice age begins, things like that.
 
Bill,
Sounds like you found the problem, too much fancy technology. I usually write anything more than a few lines long off line, cause I write (and think) very slowly. Of course things change while I am thinking and writing. A new president is elected, there is another revolution in some country, a new ice age begins, things like that.

A good post, like a great novel, needs time to incubate.

An election, you say?? Didn't we just have one around four years or so ago.
 
For the record, we haven't even done any patches for months.
The only regular occurring error I get is in connection with the data base, and you will get a MYSQL error (and it isn't something we can fix, it is a Godaddy issue). I have a habit now of before I send the message <CTRL><A> high lites the test and <CTRL><C> copies it. That way if I get the error, I can start again and just past the text into it.
 
Not sure what could cause this, Check your setting to be sure they are right. Let us know if you find the problem.
 
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