Thomas Emme Posted April 10 Posted April 10 Many of my forum users have had issues where the reply-text-box has no text input area, only the opportunity to add an attachment. This has happened to me also. Doesn't seem to matter if the person wanting to reply to a topic is using a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop, or which browser he/she is using (I've had reports of various Chrome iterations, Opera, and Android mobile browsers being affected.) Clearing the system cache from ACP works temporarily. As does having the user clear browsing data/cookies through whichever browser they're using. But it seems like the issue soon re-appears in as little as a few minutes or as much as several days later. Some of my users are now replying with attached images (of oh so many things, since they can't type a reply or new post) to let me know the issue is still there. I'm really beating my head on the wall over this one... I do use two custom themes, both from IPSFocus, with system and themes all updated to the latest available versions. I believe the documentation to access my site is available, but if for some reason it's not, I can get it updated as required during the following evening ( I work out of town M-F daytime.) -signed: Monte L. for Tom E.
Thomas Emme Posted June 6 Author Posted June 6 (edited) On 4/10/2024 at 3:21 AM, Marc Stridgen said: Are you using any external caching on your server at all? Goodness, here I thought nobody had seen my original post until Tom sent me a link to your reply. My apologies for the delayed response. No external caching is or ever was setup, only local file system caching. We were clearing that once a month, but are moving to once a week to see if that has any positive effect. To be frank, this annoying bug has all but killed our Invision Community site and forum. Users are tired of doing the "cookie dance" every time they want to post, so have simply stopped trying. The device used doesn't matter, phone, tablet, laptop or desktop are all affected. Brand is not a discriminatory, as Apple, Android, Mac and windows all have the issue. I've been our site's amateur manager and forum manager since 2001, and have never seen anything like this. Any help or suggestions, I'm willing to try. Hopefully before all our visitors dry up. Monte L. for Tom E. Edited June 6 by Thomas Emme
Jim M Posted June 6 Posted June 6 28 minutes ago, Thomas Emme said: only local file system caching By this, I assume you mean our own internal software resource caching or is this caching from your server rather than our software? 29 minutes ago, Thomas Emme said: We were clearing that once a month, but are moving to once a week to see if that has any positive effect. You shouldn't need to clear the cache manually so that is indicative of something happening on your server. Either the automated processes are able to clear it when it should due to a permissions issue or the background tasks are simply not running. You will want to check permissions on your file system to ensure that they allow reading/writing from PHP. You will also want to check how you have configured background tasks in ACP -> System -> Advanced Configuration. If that is running via cron and it is not running for whatever reason, you will want to switch to Automatic till you get that resolved.
Thomas Emme Posted June 7 Author Posted June 7 (edited) Thank you, Jim. Responses in order: 1) Yes, Invision software resource caching. No external cache system (Cloud Flare, etc) is set up on our domain through the shared hosting service we use. Our host, however, is keen to have us do that. Considering our site is comparatively small in footprint, visitor total and bandwidth used, I see no reason to use such a service. 2) Do you know the specific file permissions that are required? I don't feel permissions are the issue simply because the site has worked well with Invision for several years now with no change in providor or server location. That said, I'm still open to check and change things as required. 3) I'm on the road right now and Invision doesn't like me using my mobile device for poking around the innards of the ACP. If I'm able to turn off the Cron job to verify it's parameters are current and correct I will. Else I'll poke Tom (my partner in this endeavor, and retired) to do the reset to Auto. I do appreciate your thoughts and ideas here. To clarify : our manual clearing of system cache as well as template cache was a nugget gleaned from other corners of this forum from other users with the same "no text box" issue. I've thought of it as a sledgehammer approach, but even sledgehammers can be useful. Monte Edit: yes, I was able to turn off the Cron job and enable automatic mode. I suspect it will be a while before we know if that helped, but I can check the Cron parameters on our host to ensure it's correct. Edited June 7 by Thomas Emme
Jim M Posted June 7 Posted June 7 4 minutes ago, Thomas Emme said: 1) Yes, Invision software resource caching. No external cache system (Cloud Flare, etc) is set up on our domain through the shared hosting service we use. Our host, however, is keen to have us do that. Considering our site is comparatively small in footprint, visitor total and bandwidth used, I see no reason to use such a service. Some hosting providers do impose caching of their own on shared hosting so worth a conversation. 4 minutes ago, Thomas Emme said: 2) Do you know the specific file permissions that are required? I don't feel permissions are the issue simply because the site has worked well with Invision for several years now with no change in providor or server location. That said, I'm still open to check and change things as required. This would be highly dependent on your hosting configuration so we cannot provide a "one size fits all" solution here, I'm afraid. If you are unsure, you will want to contact your hosting provider to ensure folder/file permissions are correct and are owned by the proper user/group.
Recommended Posts