Where are draft posts saved and how are they accessed?

Hi @ronbentley1,

  The following is ONLY my empirical observations ...  Bill or Codecage or others with inside knowledge, please accept my apologies and feel free to correct my errors.

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So far as I know, there is no way of 'general' way of recovering drafts, but it is often possible to recover the last draft you were recently working on, assuming you haven't hit "ADD REPLY" and filed it. And confusingly, it may say '0 Revisions' ... which is rather discouraging ...

So in case you haven't noticed:

Imagine you are part way through writing an answer, and either you have hit "Save Draft" or it has automatically saved. You then leave the page ... or maybe the system 'disconnects' you ... then on your return to the page, you find your message has disappeared .... 😭 

Try clicking "Revisions" ... even though it may say "0" revisions ... with luck, up to three drafts will appear BELOW the Revisions Page ... and hopefully the top one will hold (most or) all of your hard work.

At this time a "Restore" option (Sorry, I can't remember the exact word/phrase ) will appear alongside the Preview/Revisions options .. clicking this will copy the top draft back into the editing window above .... and you can continue. (You can probably also restore one of the other visible drafts, if the last one was corrupted .. I don't recall trying, so if you need to do this, proceed carefully.)

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As someone who can spend hours writing a single reply,  I have had the problem that the "ADD REPLY" either hangs or returns without filing the message ... usually requiring a new Log In  ... This revisions/restore process usually still works. 

The bad news is:

• It is possible for the system can quietly into a state where the edit window works, but the draft saving has stopped ... all edits after it enters the state will be lost, and hitting ADD REPLY will lose them (permanently I assume). If you have spent a while creating a message, I recommend you do a local copy and save it locally before hitting ADD REPLY.
  • It is always a good strategy to "Preview" before hitting ADD REPLY, and if the Preview is complete, the Save Draft system will probably be able to do a complete restore.
• There is no equivalent saving mechanism with the Private Messaging side of the forum ... if it 'crashes' for whatever reason in mid message creation, or on hitting send, it all disappears ... 🤬 😡 

Best wishes, Dave

@davee 

thanks davee, thorough in your observations as always. I have had not dissimilar experiences here and I thought it was me just being stupid and inept! Clearly I am not alone here.

@bill  - any observations or other guidance please?

Regards

Ron B

Posted by: @ronbentley1

Hi all,

a quick question please, relating to creating new posts. 

Sometimes it is helpful to save a work-in-progress post as a draft, to return to it at a later date and prior to publication.

The editor options suggest this is possible - "Save Draft" option at the bottom of the text editor box.

I have tried this out and, yes, a post seems to be put aside somewhere.  But how do you retrieve these drafts?  

A little guidance would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

Ron B

Hi Ron, simples 🙂

When you log in again, simply click reply to the original thread you were saving your draft towards (I believe this happens automatically also), and then click on the preview button, and below that you should see at least 1 to 3 revisions of your draft!

Cheers

@frogandtoad 

hmm, that makes sense, but after I save a draft, logout and login again, I cant locate a draft to 'review'!  Where are they?  Who knows?

Regards

Ron B

@ronbentley1

Posted by: @ronbentley1

@frogandtoad 

hmm, that makes sense, but after I save a draft, logout and login again, I cant locate a draft to 'review'!  Where are they?  Who knows?

Regards

Ron B

 

Just reply to the same thread, and hit preview... you should have up to 3 drafts when you scroll down.

Cheers

@frogandtoad 

that is my issue, I cant find the thread to reply to once I have saved it as a draft.

I think I will do some more exploratory testing!

Ron B

@frogandtoad 

I have just created a dummy topic and saved it as a draft. I even added a meta tag so I might be able to retrieve/locate it that way. I did not logout either.

No, its just gone!!!  Where to I do not know.

@bill - and advice or suggestions please?

Ron B

@ronbentley1

Posted by: @ronbentley1

@frogandtoad 

that is my issue, I cant find the thread to reply to once I have saved it as a draft.

I think I will do some more exploratory testing!

Ron B

Hi Ron, not sure what you mean by that?

Do you mean that you can no longer locate the thread you replied to, or even it's topic name that you responded to?

Cheers

@frogandtoad 

No, its not a thread I'm replying to, its a new post I wish to work on, saving it as a draft between revisions and before publication.

Once saved I cannot locate it.

Ron B

@ronbentley1

Posted by: @ronbentley1

@frogandtoad 

No, its not a thread I'm replying to, its a new post I wish to work on, saving it as a draft between revisions and before publication.

Once saved I cannot locate it.

Ron B

Dunno why... every new post is a thread that you should be able to respond to with your previous saved thread as a new version of it.

It works for me, not sure why not for you... maybe @Bill can enlighten us?

Cheers

Hi Ron @ronbentley1,

  Only a wild guess based on your evidence (I haven't looked at this particular aspect of the issue) but maybe it only "creates" a new thread when the first message is posted ... thus 'saving' a draft which has no assigned thread leaves it drifting in no-where land that gets garbage collected when you 'exit' from the browser window.

Safest way may be to keep a local copy ... clouds are too ephermeral! 😉 

Best wishes my friend, Dave

@davee 

Thanks davee, I have come to that exact conclusion and I shall now use an external editor to create my topics and post these when they have been fully completed and quality reviewed

Regards

Ron B