Four hours of writing deleted

P

PageFluffa

Virgin
I saved a chapter that I'd been working on for hours. After clicking off the tab, I didn't realize that the version I had open in another tab was an earlier draft with literally only 13 words. It didn't even wait for me to read; because I saved the draft and clicked off, when I opened the tab again it re-saved the draft automatically, and any attempt to return to the completed draft showed the 13 words saved over it.

I'm pretty angry, not least because I have no idea if it was a bug; it certainly wasn't a misclick. The way the site is designed, I had hours of my time thrown in the garbage for no good reason. It doesn't seem like there's a backup. Is there any way to recover the writing, and if not, can we please have a backup or a confirmation or whatever to ensure this doesn't happen again?

EDIT: I saw an admin post that said there's a backup?! Is that possible to access? This is the chapter: https://chyoa.com/chapter/Natasha.1755520 Unfortunately, it was a very small window between the overwrite
 
Last edited:
In some cases, it might be possible to use the back button of the browser window that had the correct content.
Some browsers might then show you that content, and you could copy it.

I assume that the respective browser windows are already closed.

The site is backed up regularly, but given your descriptions, it is rather unlikely that your content has been backed up at the exact right time.
@Friedman could have a look at it.
 
gene.sis said:
In some cases, it might be possible to use the back button of the browser window that had the correct content.
Some browsers might then show you that content, and you could copy it.

I assume that the respective browser windows are already closed.

The site is backed up regularly, but given your descriptions, it is rather unlikely that your content has been backed up at the exact right time.
@Friedman could have a look at it.
Click to expand...

When I closed the tab, I'd just saved the completed draft. I don't understand why clicking onto another tab automatically overwrites it, or why it doesn't open the same draft on that tab as well.

If there's no way to recover the draft, I at least want this fatal design flaw to be addressed.
 
If you open the same 'edit chapter' page in 2 tabs, and write in tab 1, then of course tab 2 doesn't update, and it shouldn't. If you save tab 1, then save tab 2, then whatever you wrote in tab 1 will be lost. That's just how the web works.

There are ways for the server to guard against this. Include a hidden "page loaded at time X" field in the edit chapter form. Upon form submission, check if the chapter has been edited since that time, and if so, warn the user.

But this is only 1 of a sheer infinite number of ways in which your writing can be lost when you do it in the browser. Don't do that! Write offline. Word. Notepad. Anything. Save frequently. Then when you're done, copy-paste.
 
TheLowKing said:
If you open the same 'edit chapter' page in 2 tabs, and write in tab 1, then of course tab 2 doesn't update, and it shouldn't. If you save tab 1, then save tab 2, then whatever you wrote in tab 1 will be lost. That's just how the web works.

There are ways for the server to guard against this. Include a hidden "page loaded at time X" field in the edit chapter form. Upon form submission, check if the chapter has been edited since that time, and if so, warn the user.

But this is only 1 of a sheer infinite number of ways in which your writing can be lost when you do it in the browser. Don't do that! Write offline. Word. Notepad. Anything. Save frequently. Then when you're done, copy-paste.
Click to expand...

You're missing the key point. I didn't click save in the other tab. I saw an incomplete draft and would have clicked off without saving it, but it didn't let me.
 
Sites can't stop you from closing a tab, they can only ask for confirmation if there's unsaved data.
 
TheLowKing said:
Sites can't stop you from closing a tab, they can only ask for confirmation if there's unsaved data.
Click to expand...

No. I saved the COMPLETED DRAFT. Then I opened another tab with the incomplete draft. I should have been been able to close that tab without saving, but IT DIDN'T LET ME.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top