Question Major Problem Saving OR Editing Posts

Sozzled, the reason we cannot create a test site on my present hosting account is because it would put us over the limit of database tables allowed.

This has already happened on a few occasions and they shut down the site until we got it under the limit. I am considering upgrading to a pro account but not immediately.

I must say that the tone of your response feels very judgmental to me. Do you always demand that Kunena users create test sites when experiencing problems? I've never seen this before.

I am progressing in what feels like a reasonable manner in troubleshooting the issue at hand and it would feel better if you accepted that this is the case. I'm not opposed to creating a test site and will do so as soon a I'm able.

We do not demand anything at all, however, if you read all the advice we have posted in the forum and the Wiki you will see that we've repeated the message that having a test site is probably the most appropriate step that everyone - particularly those people who seem to experience problem after problem - should take to assess whether their issues are related to Kunena, to Joomla, to PHP, MySQL, webhosting software or the very platform on which their site is hosted. In the absence of a means to eliminate these other possibilities I think that it's reasonable to make the counter-claim that the source of these unaccountable kinds of issues should not be laid at the feet of the Kunena development team. I could be wrong. It is entirely possible that Kunena[ is ill-suited to your purposes. It's entirely possible that there is an inherently bad design in the software that means your problems are genuinely the fault of Kunena. However, we have not been able to prove or disprove any of these suggestions. No-one else has reported exactly the same faults that you are having, either. In light of l
our inability to eliminate the possibility that your issues are external to Kunena or attributable to your hosted platform, I don't know what other avenues of help we can explore at this time.

I have offered to you the option of taking a copy of your website and setting it up in a differently hosted environment. This will take me some time to do this for you. Would it not be reasonable to ask for payment for my time to do this?

There's nothing heavy-handed in my response here. I, personally, do not own this problem but I've done everything humanly possible to beg, plead, cajole and exhort you and others to lend a hand and we've been unsuccessful. That's also a fact - not a particularly enjoyable one to put before you, but it's a fact nonetheless.

Speaking only for myself here, as a person who has built quite a few websites in my time, I have several test sites. I believe firmly in the principle of testing in isolation from a live production environment if this is possible. It's a bit like the first law of carpentry: "measure twice and cut once." After you've made the cut there's not much chance of saying to yourself, "We'll, maybe I could try to cut the timber again." Similar principle in webcraft: prove the concept and then implement the approach.

We haven't proven or disproven that an external factor is causing this problem on your live site and I really don't know where to go from here.

This topic - this problem of yours - began three months ago. It takes about an hour to build a test site and, in doing so, we will establish quite quickly whether the fault lies with your implementation of Kunena, Joomla, PHP, MySQL, webhosting software or hosted platform. I think that's a reasonable step to take. We could try to patch up the "carpentry" or we could find out if the "timber", "nails" or "glue" are rotten or defective. What of you think?

Sozzled, I think it will be good for me to clarify a few points.

First, I'm very appreciative of your help and do not have any expectations of you or your team solving my site problems. I know you are doing your best and I value all your recommendations even if I'm unable at the present to apply all of them.

Second, I do not have broad issues with Kunena. My only issue is this empty box error which, despite being frustrating, is only coming up about 20% of the time.

Third, I'm open to the test site that you've been speaking about as long as it can be done in a reasonable, cost effective manner. The test site cannot be done on my present hosting account but can be done on another server. It seems that using my most recent jpa archive makes the most sense for this. We can discuss this on skype to see how we can proceed.

Last night, I tried to post on my forum and got the empty preview almost immediately after typing the first sentence. This was unusual to me so I started backing up and changing the text around. I did this because pasting in some different random text immediately returned the preview to normal with all text appearing there.

Strangely, I discovered that by removing an apostrophe in my first or second word, the preview window returned to normal. I changed "I'm" to "I am" and this did it. However, it also seems that using contractions later in the text were not a problem at all.

My last discovery was that even in some instances where the preview looked normal, trying to save the post produced the empty message box error. This was disconcerting but at least it is more information to help get closer to the cause.

Hope this helps!

Another quick observation. When typing a post here with the Preview window open, I'm noticing that the preview window updates very quickly.

On my site, it updates more slowly and then when it hits a trigger point, it goes blank but it is not the quantity of text that is the trigger. It is the kind of text that seems to trigger it.

Sincerely,
Howard

When there are problems using an apostrophe, these sometimes can be traced back to PHP. There is a PHP function known as "magic_quotes()" and, depending on the setting, this can sometimes be an issue. Normally the setting for magic_quotes() is something determined by the webhost. It may help to know what setting is used on your site but, even if we know this, it's not always possible to ask your webhost to change it (especially if your site is on a shared hosted platform). The fact that the fault is triggered by specific text values still leaves me fairly convinced that the problem lies with your webhost. I say this because we have not seen reports of this particular condition from other members of the community; we cannot replicate the issue here and you are aware that I was unable to replicate the condition at my test sites either.

While I am fairly sure that, if I took your Akeeba Backup image of your website and installed it on my own server, I would not see the issue, I don't know what else to recommend at this time. Cost effectiveness (in arriving at a solution)? This problem has been going on for 3 months and I understand how frustrating this must be for you. I have had issues with other webhosting providers, too, and changing to a different webhost is not something that can be achieved in the blink of an eye. But, for the sake of ensuring that one's business interests are looked after, changing to a more reliable, better-featured hosting environment is something that should not be ruled out.

If I hosted your site (a test version of it, anyway) and if we fixed the problem, wouldn't that be reassuring to know? The question, therefore, is how long would this take to do (my estimate is about an hour or a little more) but I cannot guarantee that this will be the only solution.

Sozzled, based on your post, I think it makes sense to check with my hosting company (Bluehost) on the magic quotes item AND, to discuss creating a test site on another server. We can discuss this in a skype chat if that is okay with you.