Why oh WHY do posts in typing progress disappear??

[Lambowner]

Been posting on this site for a few years, and just again had yet another post disappear MID-TYPE! So aggravating!

[kaleokahu]

Hi, everyone:

I'm not sure this is a solution, but FWIW:

This has happened to me as well, more with Windows 7 than XP (I use Firefox in both). I have learned that if I just click on the particular "Reply" one more time, the text I've been working on pops right back up, even if you were sent all the way up to the top of the page.

Hope this helps.

Aloha,
Kaleo

[Engineering]

As a general response, this definitely sounds like something strange happening with the keyboard, though without knowing more it's difficult to guess what. When this happens in the near future, keep an eye out for use of any keys other than letters, numbers, and symbols- particularly Enter, Backspace, and Tab (possibly from slipping off of Caps-Lock ?), though others may apply.

[GH1618]

It likely has to do with a refresh caused by another post being added while a new post is being typed. I see this now and then, but haven't considered it a big problem. It is more of a problem when entering a long post, because the window of vulnerability is open longer.

[Engineering]

To the best of my knowledge, the site never refreshes a page on its own. If someone posts while you're looking at a thread, the new post should not appear until you manually refresh / revisit / otherwise come back to the page.

[LindaWhit]

Not always. Depending on how long your window is open, sometimes the newer posts do NOT show. They're collapsed next time you go back to the thread.

That has happened at times on the longer threads, such as the Top Chef recaps I start on the Food Media board. People will be responding so quickly and you can scroll through and read what's there, but responses to those new posts are often collapsed when you click through again when *other* new posts show up.

[GH1618]

It may not be related to refresh, but when I try to post, and lose it, it is always the case that another new post to the same thread was made at about the same time. It just happened again.

[Midlife]

I've had this happen to me as well. The conclusion I've come to is that I'm inadvertently hitting a key or clicking a link without realizing it. I've disabled the keypad (on my laptop) and that seems to reduce the problem by avoiding inadvertent clicks from that source. I've got to agree with Engineering on this.

[The Chowhound Team]

We haven't seen previous reports of this behavior happening spontaneously. Can you give more information on when and how it happens?

[Lambowner]

Nothing more, I'll just be typing along and it freezes like it's saving or sending, then reverts back to the original post without my comments. It has now occurred on two different computers. I have taken to copying my longer text periodically in case it disappears, I can just paste it back in. Wish I knew what I was doing when it happens, perhaps inadvertently hitting a wrong key? Thanks.

[Jacquilynne]

Any chance you're tabbing out of the text box, and then hitting backspace? Depending on the focus, backspace will cause my browser to reload the previous page, so if I'm typing along and accidentally click or tab away from the text box and then hit backspace, I'll end up going back a page and losing whatever I was typing. It doesn't happen to me all that often here on Chowhound but I do it about once a week on the internet in general.

[fourunder]

The backspace problem you detail happens to me only on chowhound....

[Lambowner]

Oh good lord, it just happened again in answering this post from Jacquilynne...as I was saying, if I do hit a wrong key, I haven't been able to go back to the text I was writing, because the forward and backward keys don't allow it.

[nsxtasy]

So are you answering Jacquilynne's question with a yes?

[Lambowner]

No idea what is causing it.

[fourunder]

My experience sometimes happens when I depress the backspace key to long without releasing....but most often when I inadvertently bang the mouse on its side, i.e., Right Click.

[LindaWhit]

Lambowner - what is the operating system you're using? I have WinXP Home edition on my 5-6yo desktop and have never had this problem, but have Windows 7 on my new laptop, and there's a problem with a cursor "hover and it will auto-change" set-up. So if your cursor is hovering over a linkable item (such as the picture in the Photo Gallery on this thread OR a popular recipe or someone's name), once you've stopped typing, the system will assume you want to click-through to whatever the cursor is hovering over. I've had to make sure that the cursor on this laptop is *not* near anything linkable. So far, I haven't found a way to turn this hover-and-change OFF. Maybe that's what you've been experiencing?

[MplsM ary]

It happens to me on my XP laptop. I prefer the use of a mouse and when typing sometimes I inadvertently brush the touchpad and wham - bye bye well thought out post and hello silly yea, me too! post.

[Lambowner]

It has happened on two computers one with W7 and one with XP. However, it ONLY happens on chowhound.com, not any other forums I post on.

[rworange]

Ok, now I'm ticked off. I have had this happen to me alot on IE8. I just got blown out of a short post three times. In the past I assumed I was hitting some control characters by accident.

A small percentage of the time I can attribute it to that damn share tab on the left.

One question I have for people with this problem. Do you change the zoom level on your PC. I'm always at 125% zoom. That makes Chowhound an unfriendly site for lots of reasons because it seems it it more sensative. Get even close to a link and it opens up without clicking on it.

But, yeah, it only happens on Chowhound.

[lynnlato]

AAAAGH!!! This happens to me too!!! It just happened to me as I was typing this response and while I was typing a response a few minutes ago on another thread about sauerkraut! It happened on my old computer and on my new computer that I got a few months ago. And yes, it only happens on CH. AAAGH!!!