Twice I have written this post, and twice it has failed to submit.
I think I know what happened, so I will explain it. Perhaps if there’s something else that I’ve overlooked, someone will explain it to me.
I arrived, opened the window, and started writing a post. When I hit “save and continue” so I could preview it, it took me to a login screen. This suggests that at some point my login expired–something I did not anticipate and did not check. It was a simple matter to restore the login, as the browser remembered the username and password, so all I had to do was tell it to remember me and click to log in.
However, it did not take me back to the post, but on to an index of posts, none of which included the post I had just written, under the title Giving and Taking Stock. That rather lengthy piece had not made it to the index. Thus using my browser’s back button I returned to the composition page and attempted to rewrite what was a very different post under the same title. This time when I hit the save and continue button it took me to a screen I’d not seen before, asking if I was certain I wanted to post this. I was not at that point certain I’d hit the right button, but I said yes–and was promptly informed that I did not have permission to edit that post.
My guess is that my effort to save the post when I was not logged in resulted in the post being saved under some anonymous name, and then once I had logged in I did not have permission to access posts under that name; and that since the software creates its urls from the titles of the articles, another post under the same title would be taken as an effort to access an existing post. However, when I returned to the editing screen, once more my entered text was gone.
On the assumption that my guesses are correct, I have written this under a new title. If I’m clever, I’ll remember to save the text before saving the post, but if this does not work I’m not certain what the next step would be.
On another front, I hope to finish the problem of printing stock certificates later tonight; I believe I have everything I need for that.
Also, in the ongoing saga of the new car, the car is here, but I’m not certain whether we are going to keep it. The middleman has proposed some sort of complex trade by which he keeps the new car (which happens to need a lot of work) instead of taking our money for it, and gives his sports car to our son (who would love it), and we get our son’s family car. I am not comfortable with that car, as it has several problems which might be impossible to fix, but it’s not my decision to make.
Hopefully this will post this time.
–M. J. Young
August 26th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
MJ-
What browser are you using? Because the posting administration area is a wholly standard WordPress installation, just like I’ve used for quite some time on a number of websites (that’s why I went with WordPress for the updated GO: familiarity). And I’ve never had problems like you describe. So let me know what your setup is and I’ll ask around and see if other people with those specs have had similar troubles and, if so, what’s been done to fix them.
For what it’s worth, the cookie that stores your login session lasts over thirty days. So the system isn’t purposely expiring your session.
August 27th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Thanks, Aaron. I’m not one for updating software–if what I have works, I don’t like to trade it for learning something new that might not work as well. Thus I’m still on Windows 98 (and I have nothing but loathing for all the supposed upgrades, if it gets to the point that I can make 98 do what it’s supposed to do I’ll probably leap to Linux), and I’m using the Netscape 7.2 browser (I think the 8 is out, but not having had any significant trouble with 7 I’m not in a hurry to upgrade–it’s always harder to downgrade to what worked once you’ve made the change). I think that’s pretty much what you need to know on that.
The odd thing is that both sides hiccoughed. I’m logged in separately (different names, different passwords) on the discussion module as from the articles module. I can’t be certain I was logged in to this side when I arrived yesterday, but I think I must have been because I commented on Eric’s thread before attempting to post to my own, and that went through fine. Then I opened the discussion board, and it showed me which threads had new posts, all of which I opened and started reading, but when I tried to reply to one I got bumped to the login page and had to sign in.
Since they’re different modules at your end, and no one else seems to have had the problem, that suggests that there’s a problem at my end; on the other hand, I haven’t been bumped from any other sites (not even the GO archives, which always dumped me once a week until the glitch), which suggests that it’s specific to this one.
It looks like a mystery, but I’ll keep you posted on any new symptoms that arise. It is the case that all this happened on Sunday, and I was not here on Saturday, so there was something between a thirty-six and forty-four hour absence there–but as I say, I was logged in when I arrived, and kicked after I was here.
–M. J. Young
August 27th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I’ll do some research and asking around and see if anyone else has had problems with that browser/OS combination. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a machine running either, so I can’t test it myself. But I’ll see what I can figure out. I assume this hasn’t happened on other articles you’ve published?
One thing I thought of: can you make sure that it’s showing http://gamingoutpost.com and not http://www.gamingoutpost.com when you’re logged in? I have a redirect on the server to automatically remove the www if you go to that but if that’s not working for you it might be messing with your cookies and login session.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
The script seems to be working. I’m not entirely certain whether my bookmark links have the www, but all the open windows right now do.
–M. J. Young
August 28th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Sorry–do not.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Im new here at the forum, just wanted to say hello
Samantha