Basically, I’m sick and tired of losing posts because I didn’t write fast enough, or I proofread the box instead of previewing.
For example, I just wrote a lengthy post, carefully articulating points about why Thomas Harris’ series should have stopped at Silence of the Lambs, and outlining a sequel concept I would have liked to see.
And then I made the mistake of not copying it into word, so when I tried to post it, your board asked me to log in again and I realized those g**-d*** hamsters just ate the post I spent ~2 hours writing (not to mention the better part of the previous day thinking about in preparation). :mad:
I might be able to remember it all and retry tomorrow.
I honestly don’t see why this feature is necessary, and I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me. Hell, most of my longer posts look like shit because when I tried to write it the second time I wrote it I just didn’t have the energy to sift through it and properly edit and organize it all.
Please, Please, Pleeeeeaaaaaasssssse get rid of this feature, or make the time-outs occur after five hours or something.
That sort of thing is why I always compose any post more than a line or two long in Word or as a new email and then copy and paste to the post box when it’s done. Saves a lot of hair-pulling. It’s also, for me, easier to read in that composing format than in the Reply box.
Why don’t you just fix it yourself, instead of waiting for them to change the board coding?
If you were using the Firefox browser, this would not be a problem. You could just recall the page, and the page you were on will reappear, INCLUDING the text you had entered in any text box.
Wow. I’d lost a couple of long posts yesterday and didn’t realize why. I thought my line had dropped or something, but then it hadn’t and I went to search if they had gone though without returning to me, but they hadn’t and I tried to recall them and repost.
Never thought about time outs. Thought that sort of “feature” went out of style with slow modems.
I highly recommend composing lengthy or time-consuming posts in a text editor (WordPad, MS Word, whatever you’ve got) and then copying them into the post submission form. It really saves a lot of hassle and frustration.
What I do is simply to CTRL+A, CTRL+C before posting. If anything gets eaten, simply go back and CTRL+V to paste it back into the reply box, and post again.
The only times I have to relog in are when I clear my cookies.
I still sometimes lose posts to network/server load errors (and I just put everything in the copy buffer before hitting submit), but why are you having to relog every few hours?
I haven’t had a session time out in two years, except when my cookies are cleared (and then I have to scratch my head to think of my password, because I use it so rarely!)
Wow. That was kind of disappointing. Whole lot of non-responses there. Well at least people read the post and thought about it.
So, I guess I’ll start using Microsoft Word to write out my posts, then. I still don’t see why the darned thing needs to time me out whenever I leave my browser on the “reply to thread” page for more than 30 minutes (okay, I don’t know the exact amount, but I’m pretty sure it’s in the vicinity of half an hour). Just seems unnecesary to even have time-outs, and even if it is, why not something longer, like several hours or so, just to be sure the person’s gone?
Does the board only log you out if you’re sitting on the Reply to Thread page for a long time? Or does it also happen when reading threads?
If you close down the browser, reopen it, and come back to the Dope, do you have to log back in again?
Methinks there’s something dicey with your browser’s cookie settings. I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever had to log in on this computer – the board always remembers who I am.
I think he’s specifically talking about leaving a reply-to posting window open, rather than having to relog into the site in general.
I’ve never come across that problem IIRC, and sometimes I’ll open a window on page one of a thread, not finish reading the thread for an hour intermixed with other stuff, then finish the reply, and never had that sort of time out, so I’m not sure what it is he’s experiencing.
My guess as to, if such a thing exists, why would exist, is that maybe the server is opening a unique session tied to the url used to write up a reply. If it has to remember that particular session/url, it would take up system resources, and timing the session out would free up those resources. That’s just a guess, though, at what he seems to be describing. I’ve never experienced it that I can recall.
It may be that the setting is with his broswer, not the board. In the interest of science I will compose a new response after this one and let the window sit open for a half hour and see what happens.
Maybe the difference in the browser settings for browsing history/temporary internet files being either “Check for new versions every time I view the page” or “Automatically”. The latter should be less apt to clear anything.
There are those who don’t run Firefox. I know, that sounds weird to the well-connected, but some people use computers out of the box and don’t want to change things around.
Using IE, you get plenty of times where inactivity results in being relogged, and I have numerous times where a post gets “eaten” by not getting accepted by the Board when I click on Post. I’ve learned to copy before hitting post if the post I’m making is long enough to be a pain to recompose.
For what it’s worth, I use IE (yes, I know it’s inferior and yada yada. It’s adequate for me, and I tend to be stubborn about changing my computer habits. Just switching what a browser looks like, how big the buttons are, etc. is enough to annoy me) and I don’t recall ever having a timeout for a reply. I’ll test it. I opened a reply window, and I’ll try to submit a new reply in a few hours.
