# Lost Posts



## J Riff (Feb 3, 2011)

I know this has happened to others, especially in the critiques threads. You prepare a lovely critique for someone, hit the post button and kerZAP
you are taken to a logIn page or, for whatever reason, the post doesn't go through. Hit the back button... gone!
 I've searched through the IE cache, and poked around in windows Temp folders...and tried searching the PC for keywords from the post....nada.
 Where does it go? Where-does-that-block-of-text... go? Does it still exist somewhere on the HD? Is anyone computer-geekly enough to know this?


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## Deathpool (Feb 17, 2011)

Here's what I think is happening. According to the situation your describing it seems that it never had a chance to submit the form. If the form isn't submitted and you click back than it would navigate to the page you navigated from and most likely discard it. if it requests loginl you should login instead of going back. I believe that should work. See that cookies will expire after a certain amount of time. That's called the expration date. Given that the website will automatically log out. There's also such a thing as session time out on IIS. IIS is Microsoft's web server. I don't know about Apache since I've never used it. Anyway I usually end up saying something just to be proven wrong later on. If it doesn't seem to submit clicking refresh will resend the data on the form without discarding it.


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## HoopyFrood (Feb 17, 2011)

Are you taking more than forty minutes to make this post? Because if you don't 'move' off a page for that long, then you automatically get logged out. And thus, you'd have to log in again. If you're making an especially long post, then it's always an idea to copy every now and then. Or open another tab and have the "Who's Online" list open, which automatically refreshes every two minutes and makes the sites think you're moving around.


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## No One (Feb 17, 2011)

What J-Riff has outlined is something that's happened to me as well on the odd occasion. I believe the Hoopster is right, but then her Chron's-related wisdom is long and well-earned.

As she says, J-Riff, just try and keep an eye on how long you've been writing up a particular post. Or just go for the particularly sneaky option of a second tab 

That said, I'm sure I've managed to retrieve previously "lost" posts by skipping back, copying and then re-logging in, but I'm not sure (despite saying I'm sure).


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## Ursa major (Feb 17, 2011)

If you "Go Advanced", you also have the option to preview your post. This is, as far as activity monitoring is concerned, the equivalent of moving off a page.

However, it is still good to copy (to, say, Notepad) every now and then, if only because you're working over the Internet/Web, which isn't the most resilient combination ever devised, at least in terms of the service we end users receive.


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## No One (Feb 17, 2011)

Ursa major said:


> However, it is still good to copy (to, say, Notepad) every now and then, if only because you're working over the Internet/Web, which isn't the most resilient combination ever devised, at least in terms of the service we end users receive.



The trouble is, whenever I copy something over from a word doc or notepad, I find the format can be messed up (even with the 'Format text' option while posting). I sometimes end up with extra spacing or a mix of font.

Hardly as frustrating as losing a post though and easily fixed.


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## Ursa major (Feb 17, 2011)

I haven't had that much problem with the format, but I can redo that; I can't always recall the exact words I used (which if nothing else, tends to mess up any wordplay if I happen to have used any).


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## Culhwch (Feb 17, 2011)

If I'm posting something long - a critique, for instance - I always ctl-a, ctl-c before hitting post, just in case. Haven't lost anything for a long time, though...


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## Menion (Feb 18, 2011)

I do the same as Culhwch, Ctrl c then if it doesn't work just Ctrl V, nad hey presto  there ya go.


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## Deathpool (Feb 18, 2011)

HoopyFrood said:


> Are you taking more than forty minutes to make this post? Because if you don't 'move' off a page for that long, then you automatically get logged out. And thus, you'd have to log in again. If you're making an especially long post, then it's always an idea to copy every now and then. Or open another tab and have the "Who's Online" list open, which automatically refreshes every two minutes and makes the sites think you're moving around.


 
That's pretty much what I met axcept in a more technical way. I did forget to add that the cookies expire after a certain amout of time if there's no activity. Cookies are text files that are to identify the user as they move webpage to webpage. Again I'm normally prove wrong so my conclusion is likely full of holes.


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## J Riff (Feb 19, 2011)

Well thanks everyone. The forty minute limit happens here, I leave the PC on the site, often for hours while I do this or that. Trouble logging in sometimes- always clears up when the cache(cookies) is emptied.
 I still wonder what happens to the text tho'... computers are weird that way, it's hard to believe anything is ever really deleted


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## Deathpool (Feb 19, 2011)

J Riff said:


> Well thanks everyone. The forty minute limit happens here, I leave the PC on the site, often for hours while I do this or that. Trouble logging in sometimes- always clears up when the cache(cookies) is emptied.
> I still wonder what happens to the text tho'... computers are weird that way, it's hard to believe anything is ever really deleted


 
I believe I can explain that. First of let's start with the diference between a harddrive and RAM. RAM stands for random access memory. When a program starts it's transfered from the harddrive to RAM. When RAM loses power it loses all of it's data. When a file is saved the file is transfered to the harddrive where it's stored. The harddrive doesn't lose data when it loses power unlike RAM. Why does this apply here? When the web browser loads it's taken from the harddrive and placed in the RAM.  When a website loads the webserver sends the file through the a port from the computer that's hosting the website and webbrowser loads the website. In other words the webbrowser is simply a network viewer. Yes the internet is file sharing. The internet is the world's largest network. Now when you post the form normallly saves the form data in a database. The database is sitting on the host computer. In case of the echo command there is a way to cause text to appear and even structure it with HTML. The way I understand the PHP compiler is what's keeping the elements on the webpage. The compiler is ran by webserver so technically the webserver is what's keeping the data inserted by echo on the webpage. echo won't keep the data on webpage after the user has exited. That requires echo combined with another command. I hope this was informative, but it I'm very likely wrong on a number points. Yes the form entry is lost if the form doesn't submit.


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## J Riff (Feb 20, 2011)

That makes sense here... the text is never actually on the HD. Thanks for that Deathpool.


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## Deathpool (Feb 20, 2011)

J Riff said:


> That makes sense here... the text is never actually on the HD. Thanks for that Deathpool.


 
You're welcome.


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