Frustrating behavior: clicking a notification replaces an open page in browser, can't retrieve it?

[David N.]

This is a frustrating behavior. 

1. I visit a page from my forum (page A) and keep it open in a tab, hoping to come back to it when I get a minute. 
2. I receive a notification banner that there's a new reply to another topic. 
3. I click the banner. 
4. The page I had kept open (page A) is replaced with that other topic (page B). 
5. I click the "Back" button on my browser: it takes me back to the list of topics. There's no way to find page A again. 

 

[Marc Stridgen]

I'm not sure the issue you are reporting here is an issue with the software, unfortunately. If the back button on your browser isn't taking you back to where you were previously, that would be a browser issue.

[David N.]

1 hour ago, Marc Stridgen said:

If the back button on your browser isn't taking you back to where you were previously, that would be a browser issue.

I'm pretty sure it's an issue with how the Invision software is coded: My back button works as expected and takes me back 1 step in my history for that tab, however when I click a notification banner to visit a page, the current page is wiped out of the history to be replaced with the new one. This happens only with the Invision software, and it happens with all browsers. 

In any case I really wish that clicking a notification would open a new tab and not replace one of the currently opened forum pages, that would make more sense. 

[opentype]

40 minutes ago, David N. said:

In any case I really wish that clicking a notification would open a new tab and not replace one of the currently opened forum pages, that would make more sense. 

Users already have the choice to open links with our without new tabs/windows using their browser functions. (I press the Command key on my Mac for example for a new tab). Forcing a new tab through HTML removes that choice, so it only makes things worse. 

[David N.]

4 hours ago, opentype said:

Users already have the choice to open links with our without new tabs/windows using their browser functions. (I press the Command key on my Mac for example for a new tab). Forcing a new tab through HTML removes that choice, so it only makes things worse. 

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing? It doesn't matter whether or not I press the Command key here when clicking a notification banner on my desktop Mac, for Invision Community, it always rewrites one of my website's already opened tab and never opens a new tab. 

I'm talking about clicking this: 

Here's a simple example: 

I have only one tab opened with page A on my website. 

I click a notification banner about a new reply to another topic.

The new topic overwrites the tab that had page A opened. There's no way to go back: the back button in Chrome is disabled (as if I was never on another page before). The tab does not register the overwriting as a new page in the history, it's the same page, only its content was overwritten. I can't go back to page A. 

[Marc Stridgen]

I have tagged this for the attention of our developers to have a read of. I cant see how we can control this, however Im not one of the developers myself, so its not to say someone else might

[David N.]

1 minute ago, Marc Stridgen said:

I have tagged this for the attention of our developers to have a read of. I cant see how we can control this, however Im not one of the developers myself, so its not to say someone else might

Thank you Marc. Different websites behave differently when clicking a notification banner like this. Some websites (Reddit for example) have even changed the behavior for their notifications in the past. 

[David N.]

I was able to make an animate screen capture of the behavior if that helps. I'd rather not share publicly but I can send it by email. 

[Marc Stridgen]

Feel free to PM it to me

[David N.]

Done. Thanks! 

[Marc Stridgen]

Thank you. I have attached that here, hidden, so my colleagues can see the issue in action. To be honest, personally I cant see how we could affect that, however of course Im not one of the developers

[David N.]

Thanks. I just had this happen to me again: I was typing a private message to someone, got a notification, clicked it, and my browser window was updated to the new page. Thankfully the private message is saved in the text area and I was able to retrieve it when I went back. 

Edited May 11, 2023 by David N.

[David N.]

Interesting. Now I can no longer reproduce the issue if only one tab of my website is open in my forum. 

The issue remains if I have more than one tab open though. 

[Marc Stridgen]

Do you have any extentions running on the browser. Given what you have said there, its sounding more and more browser related. Of course we cant tell it to do different things if there are different numbers of tabs open

[David N.]

The only extension I have is 1password.

[David N.]

Well scratch that, I can reproduce the issue with only one tab open. So there's another variable which makes it work sometimes and not other times. 

37 minutes ago, Marc Stridgen said:

Do you have any extentions running on the browser.

I can reproduce the issue with no extensions. 

37 minutes ago, Marc Stridgen said:

Given what you have said there, its sounding more and more browser related. Of course we cant tell it to do different things if there are different numbers of tabs open

Bugs aren't always predictable, there may be a variable that we're not accounting for here, such as if I had already visited that notification or not for example, I'm not sure. 

I'm using an up to date version of Chrome (Version 113.0.5672.92 (Official Build) (arm64)) on macOS 12.3.1. All extensions disabled. 

[David N.]

I just lost content because of this issue: I was writing an article in a tab, got a notification of a new reply to a topic, clicked the notification and it opened the topic in the tab where I was writing the article. I was able to go back but everything I had been writing since the last save was gone. 

I really wish that clicking a notification wouldn't replace the existing content in one of the existing tabs. 

[Marc Stridgen]

I have tagged devs to see if they can give any advice, but in all honesty, this is not going to be something in the software that is causing the issue here

[David N.]

For example when I've typed something in Facebook and I accidentally try to close the tab, I get an alert stating I'm about to lose any unsaved content, and asking me to confirm. Maybe something like that could be a solution. 

[Daniel F]

The editor stores the content frequently and adds it automatically back to the editor when you load the same editor instance.

Are you no seeing this here and on your community? 

[Sonya*]

2 hours ago, Daniel F said:

Are you no seeing this here and on your community? 

This works in forums. But not in Pages for me. 

[David N.]

3 hours ago, Daniel F said:

Are you no seeing this here and on your community? 

Yes in the forum but not in Pages, as Sonya pointed out. 

[Daniel F]

Weird, I have just tested it with 2 editor fields and it's working there too for me.

Is it happening in your Articles DB @David N. ? Can I try to reproduce it on your community?

[Sonya*]

@Daniel F indeed, my fault. It works only if you do not save.

If you save the article and then start to edit, you will lose all the changes if you do not save them (pressing Save button). So, yes, the editor keeps the new unsaved content. But there is no warning if you're editing. You can add tons of content to the already saved article. Then “accidentally” click somewhere else, all the changes and edits are lost.

[David N.]

5 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

You can add tons of content to the already saved article. Then “accidentally” click somewhere else, all the changes and edits are lost.

Yes, that's exactly what I just experienced. Thanks for your description. 

16 minutes ago, Daniel F said:

Is it happening in your Articles DB @David N. ? Can I try to reproduce it on your community?

Yes, in my articles DB. As I'm editing an article, I keep saving it and further editing. If I click a notification while I'm editing, then going back shows me the editor with the last version I had saved, but all the editing I had done since is lost.