[Dunnroamin]

A couple of days ago I was constructing a post for the Politics forum. As is my way, I spent a lot of time correcting, checking and revising (I guess the whole thing took me about an hour), when I was satisfied with the end product I did one final press of the Preview Post button to see how the post would look and read and got a "Page expired" notice, or something similar and a box telling me the internet connection had failed, when in fact, it had not. Of course, I lost everything, a whole hour's work gone. Needles to say, I was a little "peeved". This is not the first time this has happened to me (it happened once before with a different broadband package). I have now started saving my posts into My Documents, with the idea that, should I suffer a similar loss again, I might be able to "paste" the text saved in My Docs onto the DS Message panel. Is this feasible, and does anyone have an answer as to what might have caused the loss of the original post, and is there a way I might have retrieved it?

[JulesandSand]

It's a sign - stay away from the politics forum!

I suppose you could compose your posts in Notepad or similar then copy and paste them in the DS Message box, that way you could take as long as you like.

[jsmith99]

There seem to be a number of keys you can brush your hand across to cause posts you're constructing to disappear.

If I'm drafting a long post, I use two approaches. For most, I simply "copy all" to the clipboard from time to time.

If my post includes a number of links, or is being drafted using data from several web pages, then I use Windows 7 'Sticky notes'. These enable you to include copy+paste from web pages as well as c+p urls. Having edited it to it's final state, you can copy the whole lot into the posting box, and urls will be transferred in a useable state.

[tealady]

^^ as above compose long posts in a text editor, then post when you are happy.

[psionic]

OMG an hour long posting on the politics forum

That's more effort then all the country's politicians put in on an average day. Plus they get generous expenses, subsidised food and booze, travel and 2nd houses all paid for !

[albertd]

I suspect that it was a time limit applied by the forum which had expired, not your Internet connection. An hour is rather a long time to have the composing box open. As others have said, if you want to take that long use something like Notepad and then you can save your efforts as you go along.

[CravenHaven]

It's the internet's way of telling you you're trying too hard.

[d'@ve]

Originally Posted by Dunnroamin

A couple of days ago I was constructing a post ... I lost everything, a whole hour's work gone....

does anyone have an answer as to what might have caused the loss of the original post, and is there a way I might have retrieved it?

Just to add to the other posts, when this kind of thing has happened to me I have usually managed to retrieve it by carefully using the "Back" button, which in most cases returns you to the "Edit" box and allows you to do a quick copy-paste of the contents into Notepad or similar. You can then re-engage with the thread and paste/continue.

The most important thing is "Don't Panic" and give yourself time to think about it - before doing anything else!

[spiney2]

in fact the text would still be in browser window and you could just copy and save in your default wordprocessor .......

....... the word processing is done in your browser on your computer. only "post" actually contacts the internet. by which time, for example, that particular thread might have been removed by the mods ........

....as said use browser back button. the text should still be there because its on your computer regardless of whether the post worked or internet still there ........

...... so yes u can save if necessary but dont have to worry about constant niggling copy and paste ......

...... although to be quite sure, put your browser "offline" before hiting the back button ....

Admin edit: Keep it to one post, please.

[Desolate one]

On some forums pages expire or require you to log back in as long as you don't refresh the page by hitting the refresh button using the back button as has described should work simply highlight the text and click copy button on edit menu and then refresh page or log back in and click in reply box and click paste.

There is no need to use a text editor or wordprocessor to do this copying to clipboard is enough so you can paste into reply box.

[RobinOfLoxley]

I lost many hours. And then I found Lazarus Form Recovery.

I have Firefox, but seems it is available for Chrome too.

Just right click in a Reply Field and Recover Text. Enjoy.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?pws=...+form+reocvery

[d'@ve]

Originally Posted by Desolate one

There is no need to use a text editor or wordprocessor to do this copying to clipboard is enough so you can paste into reply box.

Copying to a different program (even if you don't save it) is definitely safer though in case you get interrupted or something/someone clears the paste buffer! Best to save it too, once bitten and all that...

[whoever,hey]

Back in your browser works for me.

[spiney2]

yes. the browser back button would only not work in some special situations eg the website "skin " has just changed so in fact youre loading a different webpage ......

if youre spending 1 hour on a post then many other computer glitches could occur and copy text to somewhere on hard disk is probably good idea.

[cnbcwatcher]

Stay out of the Politics forum in the future I've posted in there a few times and it can get nasty.

[Orbitalzone]

While it probably isn't the case here, I've had many people complain they lose their work..... I ask if it happened when they tried to use a capital 'a' and surprise surprise it did.

People press CTRL and A instead of Shift and A and.... well you should know what happens next when all your text is highlighted and you click a key.... gone.

[Helbore]

Originally Posted by Desolate one

There is no need to use a text editor or wordprocessor to do this copying to clipboard is enough so you can paste into reply box.

If you are doing something as big as a post that could take up to an hour to write, I wouldn't rely on just the clipboard. That's long enough time that the computer could crash and you'd lost the clipboard contents, too.

If you are writing anything on a computer that is taking a lot of time and effort, do it in a text editor (be it Notepad or Word) and save it at regular intervals. That way, even if there is a power failure, you've only ever lost a few minutes work at most.

It reminds me of the days back before Office applications have autosave and recovery features. I'd get called by someone who'd spent the entire day working on a document, but never saved it once. Then the computer crashed and they lost 7 hours of work. Moral of the story; if you are worried about losing it, save it.

[Dunnroamin]

Originally Posted by Helbore

If you are doing something as big as a post that could take up to an hour to write, I wouldn't rely on just the clipboard. That's long enough time that the computer could crash and you'd lost the clipboard contents, too.

If you are writing anything on a computer that is taking a lot of time and effort, do it in a text editor (be it Notepad or Word) and save it at regular intervals. That way, even if there is a power failure, you've only ever lost a few minutes work at most.

It reminds me of the days back before Office applications have autosave and recovery features. I'd get called by someone who'd spent the entire day working on a document, but never saved it once. Then the computer crashed and they lost 7 hours of work. Moral of the story; if you are worried about losing it, save it.

That suggestion by you and others makes sense, thanks to you and them. D

[Chairman___Meow]

You spent an hour typing out a post?

If I were you I'd strongly consider getting a life.

[SnrDev]

Originally Posted by Orbitalzone

While it probably isn't the case here, I've had many people complain they lose their work..... I ask if it happened when they tried to use a capital 'a' and surprise surprise it did.

People press CTRL and A instead of Shift and A and.... well you should know what happens next when all your text is highlighted and you click a key.... gone.

Can sometimes be recovered by a simple Ctl+Z to undo that change. I've seen that a few times; it's not as annoying as typing Ctl+W instead of shift W. Ctl+W closes the current tab in FF, and there's no way back from that if you haven't got it in the clipboard.

[tealady]

Originally Posted by Chairman___Meow

You spent an hour typing out a post?

If I were you I'd strongly consider getting a life.

Perish the thought that someone might post a detailed explanation of their problem and a few links. Rather than a vague post that doesn't even mention the os.

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by tealady

Perish the thought that someone might post a detailed explanation of their problem and a few links. Rather than a vague post that doesn't even mention the os.

What does os stand for on the politics forum?

[Maxatoria]

Whenever i setup office i always set the auto save to the smallest possible time as people forget to save their work as they're so engrossed in the subject matter so at least when a problem happens you only have to redo a few mins work which can save having to listen to them waffling on for 5-10 mins about how computers are naff

[zx50]

Originally Posted by jsmith99

There seem to be a number of keys you can brush your hand across to cause posts you're constructing to disappear.

If I'm drafting a long post, I use two approaches. For most, I simply "copy all" to the clipboard from time to time.

If my post includes a number of links, or is being drafted using data from several web pages, then I use Windows 7 'Sticky notes'. These enable you to include copy+paste from web pages as well as c+p urls. Having edited it to it's final state, you can copy the whole lot into the posting box, and urls will be transferred in a useable state.

That would be the best thing to do, in my opinion.

[tealady]

Originally Posted by whoever,hey

What does os stand for on the politics forum?

HaHa, I missed that in the OP and thought the reference to Politics was a joke about how long it took to post! Perhaps it was one on tax avoidance!