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I don't understand if this is an issue on my end or the site's, but almost every time I post on the forums it takes several refreshes to see what I posted (30 to 60 seconds usually). That's a bit inconvenient, since it may lead someone to think their post hasn't been sent, making them post more and creating duplicates. I've already cleared my cache, but it didn't change much.
Also sometimes I get a blank page with a danger sign on the upper left, saying something about backtracking too much, when I try to post or edit something. What can I do about this?
Thank you in advance for your help and time.
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I've been getting the same thing any time I do an edit on a post (say for PbP) and on some but not all of the forums if I've copy-pasted/replied to a previous post.
I've also been a bit absent of late *because* of this frustration.
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Similar issue where I clicked on a new post thing from Waterslethe and the thread it took me to didn't have the post. And earlier, I posted in one of the kineticist threads in response to someone and it showed my post above theirs (including timestamp). It fixed itself after a few minutes, but heck. Something is not ok with the website.
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I've heard of the timestamps problem, hadn't experienced myself yet though.
I think that maybe they should think about updating the forum, solve the major issues while perhaps giving us some QoL, but this is quite the hot take since I know nothing about how sites like this works.
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I can provide some insights from a web developer's perspective. Of course, I am not working on this website and I don't know its code, so I have no idea if what I am about to write is true (but some of it might be, maybe someone actually working on this site can confirm my suspicions). Still, this website seems ancient and is probably full of legacy code, which means it might not make any sense in the end :D
Basically I have 2 ideas here.
1) posting is put into a queue.
A queue is a mechanism to reduce work a server needs to do at once. Imagine 1 million people wanted to post a comment at the very same moment. I can't actually tell you how many posts are posted here per minute or per second (I have no idea), but I don't think it's enough to require usage of a queue (posting a post should not really put much of a strain on the server). Still, imagine the server needs to handle 1 million requests at a time. What could happen is: the server cannot really process all the requests and it crushes. At best, you have to wait a lot of time before your request is handles and the page reloads after an unacceptably long time (say, more than 10s, tho usually it is much less). At worst something crushes and the website goes down. So in order to avoid situations like this, all the requests are put in a queue. The requests are not handled immediately, but one at a time, sequentially. The page reloads, but you still have to wait for the handling of your request, which is done in the background, on the server's side, independent of your browser. Depending on how long it takes and how many requests there are, it might take some time.
The problem here is: I don't think I've ever encountered a 'post a comment' request to be put in a queue. It should be a pretty simple, non complicated operation that doesn't require much computation from the server, so it probably should work without using queue just fine. For reference: the PDF generation on your digital downloads page PROBABLY is done in a queue. I mean, you can imagine processing a pretty big PDF (like hundreds of pages of some Lost Omens books) in order to add your order number etc. on every single page probably requires much more computation power than posting a comment. Queues are often used for complicated, time-consuming operations like image processing or complicated calculations.
2) comments are not immediately visible and are processed in batches by a regularly run script.
So you want to post a comment. But Paizo wants to prevent you from posting some stuff. Like some profanity. Or links. Or whatever. So the server needs to check your message and deal with it, if it finds anything it doesn't like. So when you post a comment, it is flagged as "unchecked". We can assume unchecked comments are not displayed but are awaiting to be checked. This can be done in a queue (see 1) or with a script that's run like... once per minute, that processes all unchecked comments. You might want to do it in batches for many reasons.
The problem here is: if the webpage needs to process the comment before it becomes visible, why cannot it be done on the spot? Hard for me to tell if there are indeed some complicated scripts that check the comment's content.
So the reason for comments not appearing immediately is probably basically this: the comment needs to be processed before becoming visible, be it in a queue or just with some repeatable script running on the server.
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[...] this website seems ancient and is probably full of legacy code [...]
I thought as much. I don't know if it's possible without interfering with all the ongoing online games, but I think this site really needs a good polish and dusting.
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Also (separate post since I can't edit the invisible post I just submitted), if I click on the time stamp for the post where its title appears in the "Recent Threads in {Thread}" box at the bottom, which would normally show me the post, instead nothing happens.
Edit #1: Even weirder, I can see THIS post but not the one I submitted just before, so I'll retype (well, paraphrase) that one:
Used to be that after several refreshes (usually within a minute, occasionally a couple of minutes) my post would appear. But now the delay seems to have become indefinitely long. Nevertheless, the titles of my posts appear in the "Recent Threads in {Thread}" box at the bottom, even though I can't see them (except for this particular post) in the Posts part of My Profile.
Edit #2: And the above edit for this post showed up almost immediately (no refresh required beyond the one the post submission does itself), but the post I submitted just before is still hidden. This particular post is #8, and the hidden one is #7. No problem seeing posts #1 - #6.
Edit #3: Even weirder, one of my two posts in another thread just appeared, dated as just a minute ago, even though it has been a good fraction of an hour since I posted it. As of this edit, my post after that one in that thread is still hidden, as is my post in a different thread (link copied from the "Recent Threads in {Thread}" box).
Edit #3a: The second post mentioned above appeared during this editing session.
Edit #4: When I copy the links from the "Recent Threads in {Thread}" box, they appear identical to the links for the actual posts, and they start working properly when (if) the hidden post decides to appear.
Edit #5: My post in the other thread finally appeared. Meanwhile, the post I submitted in this thread above this one is still hidden.
Edit #6: I should also mention that clearing Paizo cookies didn't fix this problem, even though it successfully cleared the cookie (including logging me out).
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Update on this: I have had this problem on and off, but usually my posts show up after several refreshes, usually within a minute (occasionally a couple of minutes). Tonight, however, this has switched to apparently unlimited time (and I think I created at least one double post when I thought maybe I could goose the system by posting again -- thought maybe my second post would be hidden but the first one would appear -- but it didn't work, and they're both hidden). Now why am I posting this? I think it is getting into the system, because the "Recent Threads in {Thread} box at the bottom reflects the posts I made, even though I can't see my actual posts (not even in the Posts part of my Profile).
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Even weirder: My first post in this thread finally appeared, more than an hour after I submitted it. It is below my second post in this thread, even though it still has the lower number. So assuming that things stay the same when I add this post (apart from the addition of this post), the order of posts in this thread will be 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 7 9.
Edit: Post order confirmed. Also, this post appeared without delay.
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I assume then that one or more of the time stamps is off? Every post before mine seems to be in time stamp order.
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Yes -- the time stamps are delayed and reversed, whereas the post numbers are in the order that I submitted them.
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I don't understand if this is an issue on my end or the site's, but almost every time I post on the forums it takes several refreshes to see what I posted (30 to 60 seconds usually). That's a bit inconvenient, since it may lead someone to think their post hasn't been sent, making them post more and creating duplicates. I've already cleared my cache, but it didn't change much.
Also sometimes I get a blank page with a danger sign on the upper left, saying something about backtracking too much, when I try to post or edit something. What can I do about this?
Thank you in advance for your help and time.
Just wanted to drop in and affirm that this happens to me all the time as well.
I've long since started the habit of copying my posts before hitting Submit and losing it all to that stupid backtracking message.
I can't think of a better way to drive people away from a forum than to throw a third of their posts into the bag of devouring.
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^I've been always (except sometimes for 1-liners) Select-All/Copying my posts as well before posting.