WHY?

[TacomaSailor]

I spent a great deal of time adding to a reply that I had made to an inquiry asking for technical assistance. My answer was long and detailed.

Every five minutes I saved the reply by posting it and then edited to add material. This is necessary because I have, on many occasions, had the post reply box just disappear in the middle of my entry and I lose everything I entered.

I thought saving every five minutes would protect me (reminds me of what I had to do 30+ years ago when TSO was an new offering on IBM mainframes and the systems were not reliable)

After entering 40 lines of text (I am a fast typist) I hit enter and received the message that I can only edit my original post for 30 minutes after the initial entry.

Well - that's OK - I'll just copy the 40 lines to a new reply - but NO!@$#%

the message telling me the 30 minute time limit is exceeded also deletes all the stuff I had just entered.

WHY - Please give me the time limit message but also let me have access to what I just typed but am unable to add / save.

Most modern WEB sites autosave text entry - is that possible here?

[avb3]

I've passed this on to our administration staff. It is the first report like this I have heard of.

[laika]

What browser are you using? Most modern browsers such as Chrome and Firefox have an autosave functionality built into them.

Copy/paste into a Word file before trying to send!

[SaucySailoress]

This does sound a trifle annoing - it used to happen to me quite a bit, then I got into the habbit of hitting CtrlA and CtrlC before hitting the post button on long posts.

I believe there are two separate problems here.

Firstly - if you write a very long post, it's possible you might get the 'token expired' notice, and have to reload the thread. That's because the page has been open too long, and things have moved on in the thread!

The 'edit' function is simply to allow members to correct spellings and other silly mistakes that we ofetn don't catch first time around. If you exceed the limit but still need to make a change, it IS possible to ask the moderators to make the change for you, if you have saved your text. Do that by hitting the red triangle on the post you want correcting, and paste the text you would prefer into the comments box. If we're in a good mood, we might just help out.

As for your losing ALL the text from the post - that's unusual. You shouldn't lose the original post... Do you know which thread this was on, and I can take a look.

[colemj]

Besides the token expired problem for taking too long to reply, I have lost many posts when on a slow internet connection. I get a message saying something like "there was a problem posting your message" and then everything is gone. I have learned the hard way to save my text before posting when on slower connections.

Mark

[JPA Cate]

I've lost whole long posts, too, and the Ctrl/A, Ctrl C, method works for me when I try it; otherwise, I figure it's just an internet glitch, and let it go, or re-write the darn thing. Never as good the second time around, all the fire's gone out of it. Oh, well.

Cheers, everyone,

Ann

[Canibul]

I keep having to relearn a simple lesson. If you compose your reply in Note or some similar resident word processing or text program on your computer, you don't have to worry about external forces glitching your deepest and un-recoverable thoughts. You can fine tune and polish your wisdom until it shines like the pure thought that it undoubtedly can be, and then just copy it all and paste it into the forum box.

I guess that option doesn't work for smart phone typists, though.

[avb3]

Originally Posted by Canibul

I keep having to relearn a simple lesson. If you compose your reply in Note or some similar resident word processing or text program on your computer, you don't have to worry about external forces glitching your deepest and un-recoverable thoughts. You can fine tune and polish your wisdom until it shines like the pure thought that it undoubtedly can be, and then just copy it all and paste it into the forum box.

I guess that option doesn't work for smart phone typists, though.

Actually it does as there are numerous free note type apps out there.

I use mine religiously.

[zeehag]

i lose edits frequently as my connexions here sukkmaximally and half hour i s not long enough so it is all lost...
my answer is to no longer edit after he fact when i can help it.
bad hands helps the delay also...so it can get flustrating.
not puter intelligent..my newborn granddaughter knows more than i do at this point.

[markpierce]

If writing long messages, it would be wise to create them on a platform not using an Internet connection (but on something like Word). When finished composing, "copy and psste" on the Internet forum.

[Canibul]

Originally Posted by avb3

Actually it does as there are numerous free note type apps out there.

I use mine religiously.

I didn't know. Have never even touched a Smart Phone and I presently don't own anything with an "i" in front of it. Still using laptops.

[rw58ph]

If a long reply I do them on MS Word than cut and paste. Some of my longer repliers take days as I tend to change added delete them.

[avb3]

Originally Posted by markpierce

If writing long messages, it would be wise to create them on a platform not using an Internet connection (but on something like Word). When finished composing, "copy and psste" on the Internet forum.

Please do not use something like word or other word processor. When you copy and paste they put all sorts of extraneous markups that come across badly on the forum. Use something like text or another note type of platform.

[roverhi]

Have lost posts to this site a number of times because of time limits imposed by the site. Would be nice if there was a way to around it. Usually forget to go to a Note program to write comments.

[zeehag]

mebbe i best ask my newborn granddaughter how to use one of these things.....