Article Writing

28-Oct-14 1:07

I was composing an article by name Stage2: Installing and Working with Raspberry pi without external hardware like Keyboard and Monitor over LAN.

I had completed the article and was in conclusion section. I selected "work under progress" don't publish and save.
An error page came. When I pressed back button article was missing. When I am checking my Articles list, it is not showing. What a mess and what a frustration!

Can anybody help me to recover my article. It's too difficult to recompose about 3 days work Frown | :(

Chris Maunder28-Oct-14 2:43

28-Oct-14 2:43

I can see an auto-saved version that's basically just the article template. Did you notice any errors near the auto-save notification while you were writing the article? The submission wizard should have been constantly updating the article in the background, and if there was a crash on submit the latest auto-save should be there - unless the auto-save was failing due to connection issues.

cheers
Chris Maunder

Grasshopper.iics28-Oct-14 3:00

28-Oct-14 3:00

The Auto save was working perfectly. I have been composing it for three days. Because the process was complicated I made a video and first published that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bshfgwCAk3M&list=UUfYD7DzM0DtWllmoyOE5Tng[^]

I had completed upto section 5 and was wtiting conclusion as section 6. I never experienced such pathetic error so never bothered to make another copy as it keeps saving automatically and then we use don't publish option.

Once it curshed and I failed to find any version, I tried to check out from history and opened submission url likeL:
http://www.codeproject.com/script/Articles/SubmissionWizard.aspx?aid=833931

I then edited the last number from 800 to 980 ( can you believe it? I just manually opened each of those url).
But looks like it's gone. Looks after crash when I pressed back button at the time only every single change was reverted.

Would there be any database entry? I mean I uploaded 20 images. They would be somewhere no? I have lost hope of recovering. Looks like one of those extremely bad days!

Chris Maunder28-Oct-14 4:13

28-Oct-14 4:13

The mystery deepens. This is really weird.

When you open the submission wizard a new article is created in the database. It's an empty article. As you edit, a copy is auto-saved in a draft table. When you upload images those images are saved in a physical directory, and if you upload files over existing files then the latest copies are in a /Working directory inside the article's file's directory.

When you submit the system makes a version copy of the existing article and saves the article you submitted as the latest and greatest, and removes the auto-saved drafts. This removal of the previous draft only happens once you submit successfully.

A scenario we've seen, but which doesn't seem to apply to you, is that an article fails to load properly when you resume editing a draft and so when an auto-save occurs it wipes the previous draft. However, we put in place checks to stop this, and this has nothing to do with errors when saving.

The strangest thing, though, is that the files you uploaded should be still sitting there. It takes quite a concerted effort to remove files, yet I can't find any files in the directory for article 833931 at all. Not even the directory. That's truly bizarre.

Regardless, we're diving in again and will try and replicate your steps to see how this is even possible, at which point we'll fix the impossible bug.

cheers
Chris Maunder

Grasshopper.iics28-Oct-14 4:38

28-Oct-14 4:38

Coincidentally I could identify the actual bug and can reproduce it any number of times.

1) Just create an article. Write something. Upload an image into the image box. Insert it in article. It's auto saved. Close it, open later. It's there. Perfect.

2) Now open for editing and drag an image into the address bar ( yup, you got it right, rather than dropping the dragged image into the box for image, drop it in address bar)

3) Browser shows the image. Now hit back button. Bingo( though there is nothing bingo about it) the article with it's entire resource is gone. No trace of it.
----------------------------------------------------

Having said that, I did not drag and drop anything into address bar. I pressed the Save button. But I feel it's something pretty similar.

Chris Maunder28-Oct-14 4:49

28-Oct-14 4:49

I've identified the cause of the viewstate issue - it's session specific. That will be fixed today.

Your steps suggest we need to slap each other around the head and body a few times. We'll get that fixed too.

cheers
Chris Maunder

Grasshopper.iics28-Oct-14 4:55

28-Oct-14 4:55

Glad that the problem is detected. The bigger issue on my side is would I have to rewrite entire article once more or is there any remote possibility of finding some fossils from somewhere?

If even a part of it is recovered, I would be glad!

Update

Chris Maunder28-Oct-14 9:13

28-Oct-14 9:13

Following your steps does not produce the problem you're seeing.

Also, when testing a series of edits/saves/edits (in composing mode) I'm seeing multiple versions of my article being created.

Can you confirm that, while you're editing your article and keeping it in composing status, you're hitting the Save / Submit button? Or hit it at least once? Or was the one time you hit the button to save the one time it exploded on you?

cheers
Chris Maunder

Grasshopper.iics28-Oct-14 13:51

28-Oct-14 13:51

Hi Chris, I have started rewriting my article once more. But this time, before hitting any Save/Publish button I am copying the stuff in a Word Document.

But for a new article also I faced the same error. Look at the screen bellow. When you see the article ID and time you know for which article.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pah8fs3l7i060as/Error-Agani.jpg?dl=0[^]

How it happened:
1) I composed. It was auto saving. Then I selected agreed license check box and don't publish checkbox. After which I preferred save. It produced this result. It was not my intention to produce this result. It happened.

But this time I did not hit back button.I closed the tab. When I opened My Articles from a new Tab, the article was there as it should be with all it's contents.

So I think objects are getting destroyed once we are landing in the error page. Or is it Chrome's error?

Further this time I was using Old Editor, so this is editor independent problem. Note in Old editor the problem of of Editor opening the image when we drag it on address bar is not happening as the editor is shooting "Content not saved. Want to leave dialog".

I am really surprised why no one out of 1 million people have ever had faced this problem? Weird!

Chris Maunder28-Oct-14 14:36

28-Oct-14 14:36

Grasshopper.iics wrote:
I faced the same error

Yes - I'm not surprised. I'm still testing some bits and haven't had a chance to deploy the latest yet.

Grasshopper.iics wrote:
I am really surprised why no one out of 1 million people have ever had faced this problem?

Other's have, and we spent a fair bit of time last week trying to narrow down what the issue was. The biggest issue, of course, is replicating it. It works perfectly in Dev. Each time we get a report it's like another clue, another piece of the puzzle

cheers
Chris Maunder

Chris Maunder28-Oct-14 15:48

28-Oct-14 15:48

The ViewState issue should now be fixed.

cheers
Chris Maunder

Grasshopper.iics29-Oct-14 0:09

29-Oct-14 0:09

I tested it and now it's perfectly working. I have tried all scenarios like dragging a file ( image zip) into url and then press back button. It's working. I have pressed save after some upload and all.
Looks like that weird problem is gone.

By the mean time I rewrote the whole tutorial:
http://www.codeproject.com/script/Articles/ArticleVersion.aspx?waid=146674&aid=834177[^]

Hopefully I would be able to publish after final touch up without any more bite of bugs Smile | :)

Chris Maunder29-Oct-14 3:49