oh no!

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I spent an hour writing my first post and I guess the website logged me out while I was typing. 😮 when I clicked on preview it said I have to be logged in to post! I’m mourning the loss of that post and the hour I can’t get back. 😆 I don’t know if I can ever type all that again. 😆

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately this sometimes happens and it happens to the best of us. I almost always copy my posts to the clipboard before hitting submit (especially longer posts that took a bit to write) because I too have been burned.

That said, welcome to the forum. I hope you can find the time to say at least part of what you said so we can get to know you. Thanks for your effort!

[Anonymous]

I agree. I also copy my posts into the clipboard before hitting submit. The likelihood of my losing a post appear to be directly correlated to how long I spent to write it.

Welcome PineTreeLover.

[Anonymous]

I’ve had that problem too. As the other two said – clipboard – or wordpad if you have a longer piece.

[Anonymous]

I have been here for 11 years. I don’t want to think about how many posts I have lost due to not saving them before trying to submit them.

I hope you can find a way to introduce yourself, more fully (as you tried to do) or more briefly.

Welcome!

[Anonymous]

That has happened to me before. Sorry about your lost time. Maybe it was divine influence? :thumbup: :angel: Regardless, welcome to the site.

[Anonymous]

Pinetreelover wrote:

Hi all,

I spent an hour writing my first post and I guess the website logged me out while I was typing. 😮 when I clicked on preview it said I have to be logged in to post! I’m mourning the loss of that post and the hour I can’t get back. 😆 I don’t know if I can ever type all that again. 😆

I’ve lost posts due to being logged off as well. It’s especially disheartening because it’s an issue that only happens when you’ve taken lots of time to write a thoughtful post. It can leave you deflated without the energy to redo everything.

I did a little digging and found the following:

The server is configured to automatically log people out after 60 minutes of inactivity and activity is only recorded when loading a page. The reason this has happened to nearly all of us is that we click on ‘New Topic’ or ‘Post Reply’ and remain on that same page typing our post for longer than the inactivity timeout of 60 minutes. We aren’t typically loading other pages while typing a lengthy post, so we’re logged out due to “inactivity.”

Possible workarounds:

1) After the second time this happened to me… okay, maybe after the third or fourth time… okay, maybe I still forget every once in a while, I got in the habit of copying my posts to the clipboard before hitting the submit or preview buttons. If I get logged out I can get my post back by pasting the contents of the clipboard.

When I get really paranoid I’ll paste the contents of the post in a separate file on my computer and save the file before submitting. :crazy: That’s how badly this little annoyance has burned me in the past.

2) Selecting the ‘Remember me’ option when logging in. This will keep you logged in, overruling the rule to log you off due to inactivity. You shouldn’t select this option on public computers because you could forget to log off and the next person to come along would be automatically logged in as you. If you go this route and staying logged in is a concern, you’ll have to be sure to explicitly log off when you’re done. The forum provides two places to log in and both give the ‘Remember me’ option:

Directly from the ‘Board index’ page:
[attachment=0]login_002.png[/attachment]

From the dedicated login page:
[attachment=1]login_001.png[/attachment]

3) If loading a page counts as activity then previewing your post every 15-30 minutes or so should theoretically reset the inactivity counter. Alternatively, periodically loading any other page on forum.staylds.com (in another tab) would reset the counter. It’s a theory, I’d have to test it, and it’s also an annoying way to address the issue.

4) Increase the inactivity timeout. Currently the timeout is set to 60 minutes. Increasing the timeout is easy enough but it comes with a few drawbacks:

a) It doesn’t resolve the problem, it only shifts when the problem occurs. For example, if the timeout is updated to 120 minutes and I take 121 minutes to write a post I’ll run into the same problem. That said, increasing the timeout will certainly reduce the frequency the problem. E.g. on average 1 out of 20 posts may take me more than an hour to write but only 1 out of 200 posts takes me longer than two hours to write.

Still, losing a post that took over two hours to write would really sting.

b) The higher the inactivity timeout, the more the setting begins to introduce the cons of the ‘Remember me’ option.

The inactivity timeout tries to strike that balance between not kicking people off in the middle of writing a post and not becoming something that keeps people that forget to log off logged in for long periods of time even after they close the browser.

– – – – – – – – – –

I know the ‘Remember me’ option works when posts take over 60 minutes to write, I tested it with this post and got an invalid form error that retained my post that I only had to resubmit. I’m pretty sure option #3 works, but I’ll test it all the same. After testing I’ll find some posting tip stickied thread to piggy-back on with how to avoid the automatic logoff problem

[Anonymous]

I click on Remember Me regularly and it still logs me out.

[Anonymous]

I am in favor of increasing the inactivity timeout to 120 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

I am in favor of increasing the inactivity timeout to 120 minutes.

WAIT!! I thought the whole purpose of this site was to “STAY LDS”, not encourage inactivity!!!! 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

I am in favor of increasing the inactivity timeout to 120 minutes.

Done.

LookingHard wrote:

WAIT!! I thought the whole purpose of this site was to “STAY LDS”, not encourage inactivity!!!!

It’s the two hour block. The church took one hour away to get you there. We had to add one to get you there.

[Anonymous]

Welcome PTL!

I hit the back button twice and I end up at my original post before I tried to post it. Then I copy to clipboard and login.

[Anonymous]

Oh my gosh!!! I just saw all your replies for the first time. I am beyond thrilled that almost all my favorite people on here replied. I just successfully submitted a long intro. Seriously, I’m smiling ear to ear because of your awesome replies. Thank you for the welcome. I read from the forum every day and I don’t know how I missed all your replies to this post.

[Author]

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