Loosing of posts on forum due to cookie expiration

tot-to · n00b Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 21

Hi,

I've wrote a long post on Gentoo forum and proceed with the "Submit" button, but instead of posting it I've got a log-in form. I've entered my credentials again and was redirected back to the "Post a new topic" page, but it was clear.

It is very disappointing, when you need to do a double work with no reason.

It is possible to reproduce this behaviour by logging out in another browser tab/window.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Log in to Gentoo forum
2) Open "Post a new topic" page, write some text.
3) Open Gentoo forum in another tab, proceed with "Log out [username]" link
4) Return to the first tab and proceed with "Submit" button.
5) Enter your username and password

Workaround:
Using your favorite text editor and copy-pasting it to the form. At least you will not loose your text.

miket

I feel your pain; that's happened to me more than once. Fixing this would mean a change in the forum software. Depending on how it is implemented, the fix could be easy or hard.

The thing is that the session expired while you were composing the message. If the forum keeps a session for all users, logged in or not, the easy fix would be to save the the message text and ID in the new session so that it would pop up again once you reauthenticated. If they don't keep sessions this way, a fix would be harder but still doable. You ought to take this up at bugs.gentoo.org. Be sure to look if this had been reported before; if not, file a bug report for the problem. That's where you'd put in your reproduction steps.

szatox · Advocate Joined: 27 Aug 2013 Posts: 3477

I have noticed that behaviour depends on internet connection.
When I'm using some modem, session tends to get randomly lost. With other connections (modem from different provider, LAN etc) session has survive even a pretty long inactivity. Long enough to write a wall of text while reading more threads in different tabs without refreshing.

As this might make a difference, I'm using autologin.

tot-to · n00b Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 21

I wasn't sure if it's ok to write on bugs.gentoo.org about it. It's not about Gentoo itself.
But perhaps, I should try.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 9:30 pm Post subject:

tot-to,

Its always OK to post a bug. The devs will assess it.
If you don't post, it may go unnoticed. Do check that no bug already exists. If there is already a bug, add to it only if you have something new to contribute.

"Me too" comments don't help fix the problem.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

tot-to · n00b Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 21

Thank you for the explanation of bug posting, but I think I'm quite used to it.
https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?email2=tot-to&emailreporter2=1&emailtype2=substring&list_id=2760280&order=changeddate%20DESC,priority,bug_severity

I've always been posting bugs on what is related to my Gentoo installation only.
Now I see, that there is even a distinct component for the forum there.

desultory · Bodhisattva Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 9410

I will refrain from commenting on the bug report itself for the time being, as I am not actively investigating it at the moment. However, I will note a few factors, under the current configuration, which play into the behavior noted here thusfar:

Sessions last for 90 minutes following any activity on the forums, whether running a search, viewing a forum or topic, reading private messages or previewing a post prior to submitting it, or actually posting something.
Sessions are restricted to a given swath of IP addresses relative to the most recently used address, so disconnecting from one service then reconnecting with another will almost certainly call for the user to authenticate again and merely reconnecting to the same service still at least runs that risk. This naturally applies to any service where the client IP is not fixed for the duration of the login session on the forums, though in most cases that variation should be within the allowed limits.
As far as session expiry goes, autologin should not play into it, though it can make certain effects less noticeable in certain circumstances.

For example: if your session timed out, and something that you do in another tab or window logs you back in, then you preview the post you were working on before attempting to submit it. So far as composing that post would be concerned, it would be very much akin to your not having been logged out at all.

Is the behavior that you are reporting counter to any of those statements?

Moved from Other Things Gentoo to Gentoo Forums Feedback.

krinn · Watchman Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 7470

While if you do a simple history back, you will comes back to the posting step, and fail, it is possible to do an history back by browsing the history list and pickup the one prior the posting step, and get back to the step where you were editing the post ; and finding back the missing text (but i suppose it might depend on the browser if the text is still here or not)

steveL · Posted: Fri May 01, 2015 1:12 pm Post subject:

Yeah, back works, but what desultory said is much simpler, ime. (It's happened to me a few times, after I've gone back to work.)

You get the error message, but also told you just need to press Submit again.

Technically, since there is a new session at the server end due to your last press of Submit (with a timed-out session.)

And as stated, you have a preview and can still edit the post again.

desultory · Bodhisattva Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 9410

Having had two weeks to meditate on it, tot-to, could you please confirm that the behavior that you are encountering is in keeping with the behavior I described previously?