Logged Off While Writing Post and Post is Lost

[Alan Caro]

SMC,

When writing new posts or replying, a high proportion of the times, when submitting to be posted, I find that I am signed out, and must sign in again. Often the post is preserved and, after signing in again, it's posted, but on some (= too many) occasions, the post is lost. Even when there is a notation on the lower right that the post is auto-saved it may still be lost. It's unpredictable. This is so common and so much time has been lost, that I am CTRL C'ing everything and pasting to WordPerfect. I make a backup of almost every post. I've also posted when only partly finished and then finish as an edit. As I tend to write long posts, this may be timing out, but losing an hour in time and having to reconstruct it is discouraging. Can the forums be configured to keep the poster logged in while writing?

Alan

CTRL C 10:17AM

[Paul F Franklin]

I've had this happen too, and it's irritating. Perhaps I am too long winded. I've gotten in the happen of Ctrl A, Ctrl C before hitting the post button, so if it's lost, I can just paste it back in.

[Lee Schierer]

I see this when using the mobile version, but never when using the full site version except after Windows updates.

My recommendation would be to tell SMC to remember you by checking the little box below where you log in. If SMC isn't remembering you, then delete your SMC cookies from your browser, close your browser and then restart it. Log in to SMC remembering to check the Remember me box and you should be good to go until your browser and or windows update.

[Curt Harms]

If I'm creating a post of more than a couple lines I do so in a text editor then copy/paste. It saves frustration.

[robert baccus]

If I'm creating a post of more than a couple lines I do so in a text editor then copy/paste. It saves frustration.

Me too---especially on long replies and I am an old and crappy typer.

[Keith Outten]

I believe the inactivity timer is set for 30 minutes. Increasing the time is possible if we invest in a more power full server or we can reduce the nodes available currently, but that would place a more stringent limit on the number of people who can connect at the same time. My knowledge of the server configuration is limited and my understanding of how it all works is near zero but I do know that like a truck we cannot handle an unlimited load.

Most users ever online was 7,638 on 08-21-2019, this included several search bots. If we doubled the inactivity timer I can imagine that we would run out of resources and either crash or the server would prevent any more logins. Most people including myself never logout, they just close their browser. Without the inactivity timer we would probably not be accessible during peak periods of time. I can get Aaron Koehl to explain this in more detail if anyone is interested.

Since I type very slow I usually copy my text before I hit the reply button. If I have timed out I reload the page and then paste my post again. Another option is to save periodically, you can edit your post to make changes for 24 hours.