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RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Andy Warren — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:52:00 GMT

Hey, its better than Snitz - at least the version we had, what a bunch of spaghetti/sql injection waiting to happen! And to be fair, InstantForum is pretty decent software for the price, any wierdness probably not their fault.

Dont get me started on ASP.

Best part about the pending upgrade is I'll finally be able to complain about things needing to be fixed!

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 08:52:00 GMT

Actually it's Andy's fault! He wanted these forums and coded to them I was happy with plain ol' ASP. Much simpler.Hopefully this will be fixed when we upgrade.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Steven Davidson — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 07:38:00 GMT

I certainly wouldn't say it's Steve's fault Clearly these are very busy forums and something is causing a problem over time. For the upcoming revision of SqlServerCentral we will be moving to the latest version of the forum software and will try and prove that this problem is no longer there during testing, or fix it if it is.

Lowell - thanks for your suggestion. I think it would be a great fix except for a bit of extra magic that is going on internally to keep the ASP and ASP.NET sides of the site running together. This is effectively converting the POST to a GET so the ultimate destination page has no concept of the previous conversation - it is no longer a postback.

We're looking at a couple of potential fixes/workarounds that should prevent the annoyance of losing your post and we'll keep you posted!

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Lowell — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:39:00 GMT

i think this can be fixed simply by adding some code to either the button that submits the data, or the Sub Page_Load event; the page will have all the values that were submitted, so it would be something like this: i suspect that the submission page either explictly sets the current values to be blank on_load, or simply allows them to be initialized, and they have no value..... by not init-ing them on IsPostBack, the data would remain in place...similar to when you submit username/password, and the password is bad, and you leave the username in place, awaiting a change to the password...

Behind the scenes, an error like invalid viewstate is probably being raised because the session timed out (or the application was restarted...same effect);

simply find the block of code that handles the submit button and in the Try..Catch...don't allow the objects to be initialized, or maybe assign the fields back their value... it's either the submit button or page load events that are wiping the data.

in Page_Load :

If IsPostBack then

'don't init, let the values remain....or assign or ave the values and reassign them? hard to say without the code.

Else

'initing the textboxes to be blank?

End If

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:34:00 GMT

OK, just got me with the explanation and I forgot the copy/paste.Doh!OK, the word from my hot new UK developers with lots of .NET and ASP experience is that it's my fault. They think they've reproduced it a few times in a VM and are fairly confident this is it.When we went to these ASP.NET forums, we ran into some issues with memory leaks. Actually we didn't know until we had already moved for awhile, but periodically we'd get a "server unavailable" message where all ASP.NET stuff was gone, but the ASP still worked.So in my very finite web knowledge, I did what any good IIS administrator would do: I set a recycle for the application pool. I set up twice a day, worked great, and life was good.Well over the years as we've gotten complaints, I had increased that to 6 times a day and as of the server move a few weeks ago it went to every hour. The very talented Stephen D and Steve S at Red Gate (I'm Steve#3), discovered this recycle will lose the session. Which makes the application flip and it doesn't take the post.So, if you're catching the recycle, whether you've been on the post page for 2 hours or 2 minutes, you lose the text.They're looking at some Javascript to save to a cookie or something else, but we'd love any suggestions you have.Saving my text now

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Carl Uman — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 06:46:00 GMT

Thanks Steve. Still happens to me. I finally just got in the habbit of doing a copy of my text before I post

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Lowell — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:19:00 GMT

No problem Steve; just wanted you to know; i bet it has something to do with the high traffic your site gets; i love this site and spend a lot of time on it every day.

Thanks!

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:52:00 GMT

Lowell, our apologies.It's can't be a simple timeout, but must be some intermittent error. I haven't seen it for months, but it happened this week to me and I was on the form < 5 minutes.I sent a note to the dev guys to see if they can find time to trace it.Steve

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Lowell — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:46:00 GMT

i have been bitten by this bug 6 times this week; some of my posts couldn't have taken me over 3 minutes to type, others were huge detailed answers....I'm a damn decent web developer, if you need someone to trace the code and find the timeout issue, I'd volunteer; change the code to look for a cookie or something so that this doesn't happen.

Like Carl said, because of that, i didn't try to retype my answers....too much trouble.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Carl Uman — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:42:00 GMT

Was just looking to post about this problem but did a search first. It's been a year and this is still happening Seems to me that this would be a quick killer of a good forum. Why is it still happening? Personally if I loose a post (it has happened) I will not bother retyping it unless I remembered to copy and paste the text before submiting it. This is happening to me on a regular basis.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

JacekO — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 12:48:00 GMT

I don't think this is performance related. Looks like some kind of timeout on a page or cookie or stuff like this.

It is frustrating because sometimes I just don't realize how long did it take me to write the post or get distracted... and I wish there was a way to figure out how to get rid of this problem on your side instead of going thru the copy and paste in case I went over the time limit.

Do you get a log entry if someone gets 'blanked out' when replying to a post?Maybe the problem happens more often then the posts would suggest.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:56:00 GMT

It happens sometimes, but I try to watch the site throughout the day and see if there are issues. We do have performance problems at times, but they are very intermittent. The vast majority of the day, both the web and db servers trundle along at < 10%.One thing to be careful of is hitting Enter. These forums (we bought the code) can be slightly flaky with Enter v a click on the button.Also, I too, CTRL-A, CTRL-C if I have a response fo any size to post

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

K. Brian Kelley — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:06:00 GMT

I didn't take it to be offensive, just wanted to let folks know who hadn't seen the editorial and blog that Steve's in and out.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

JacekO — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 09:54:00 GMT

I hope I was not offensive with my last post. If I were, I appologize. Not blaming anyone, just want to make sure the issue is looked into. Looks like this was not an isolated incident and many forum members experienced this frustrating behavior.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

K. Brian Kelley — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 09:46:00 GMT

Some of those threads aren't titled such that you'd know a problem happened in them. After all, they were started to ask a question. As for this thread, Steve is in and out of pocket for the next few days as his editorials and blog entry has indicated due to moving.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

JacekO — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:59:00 GMT

Yep, it is not funny. And what happens sometimes I just give up and don't waste my time trying to recreate the message.

I looked at the threads you listed and what's strange is the fact there are no replies from Steve or anyone from the SQL Server Central crew. Looks like they pretend the issue does not exist.

I think at least an explanation on what is the timeout in minutes..., and because this is a third party software they have no way of changing it ....(or someting like this) so at least we know they looked into it.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Freddy-278872 — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:20:00 GMT

Happened to me yeasterday as well. Typed for a min then was on phone. Then finished it up and blam a blank screen.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

sushila — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 11:38:00 GMT

NOT funny when this happens but I just wanted to post the links to at least 3 different times in the past when this issue has been discussed..missing posts 1 missing posts 2 read last 4 posts

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

JacekO — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:31:00 GMT

This is what I always promise myself when it bums on me. But then I forget and it happens again. Plus, I have no clue, how long before the timeout kicks in and then it is too late because I can not go back. I think Brian is right that it happens on other forums, but I think the other forums let you go back a page and get back your stuff.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

K. Brian Kelley — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:51:00 GMT

Might be a session timeout issue. I haven't timed it, but I figure it would be on the 5, 10, or 15 minute mark. Maybe Steve could comment. This isn't the only board where I've been bitten by the timeout issue. There are a couple of others I've posted to (not using the same software used here) where I've also been lost posts.

RE: Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

Ray M — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 08:43:00 GMT

Happens to everyone I think.

Usually if I'm working on a long post, I'll Put the entire message into the clipboard. so if it does happen I don't lose anything.

I think it is a page timeout. But not sure.

Eliminate timeout when posting reply to a post

JacekO — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 07:39:00 GMT

I just typed a long reply to a post and unfortunatelly when I clicked on post the whole page went back to an empty post reply page. The whole thing I typed is gone. And this is not the first time it happened to me and is extremely frustrating. Is there a timeout or something like this that limits the time allowed for posting the reply? Am I doing somthing wrong? I think this is the first forum I have encountered such problems...