Inadvertant double/triple posts - why it can happen

jbeletti

Well-known member
Hi all,

As some of you may have experienced, over the last few days, the number of Internal Server Errors we see from time to time, went way up. Then today, it took part of the forum to its knees.

Two database tables became corrupted to the point where they were non-functional, giving many errors to many users and flooding my email with many automated messages from the forum software.

I ended up being able to delete and rebuild the tables and all seems well.

Now to why duplicate posts can occur.

  1. With brand new users, one way is due to the way we put all new users into a moderated queue. When they make their first post, they don't see it appear online and they figure something happened to it and they re-do the post. If we (as Mods) are quick on the gun in validating all posts in the queue, then the duplicates will appear. I am the guilty one on those.
  2. The second and most prevalent way duplicate posts are made is when the user types a post and clicks Submit and get an Internal Server error. Usually, when that error occurs, just doing a browser reload/refresh fixes things. But on posting, it may add the post again. And the poor user doesn't know that the first post really saved. I have done this myself several times. Another variant of this is when the error occurs, the user clicks the browser back button, then submits again. It saved the first time, but still, they have no way of knowing just yet. So, not their fault - a fault of the software most likely.
Thanks for being so kind when you see weirdness happening. Please continue to give John (jpmorgan37) or I a gentle nudge when you see it and we'll take care of it.

Jim
 
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