sometimes my posts don't show up - anyone else have this problem?
 

Hi - I've recently found this site and like to offer USA help whenever I can. Sometimes when I post a reply, it doesn't show up - other times it does. It gets to be a bit discouraging, as I'm trying to help people. Anyone else have this problem?

The problem you describe has been on-going and unyielding ever since I first started reading and responding on Fodors. Often you will see a heading with no message. I lay the blame on the Fodors Cookie Byte Monster. It has a big appetite at times and eats postings. <BR>Every so often we get an apology from Fodors, promises, etc. But you can predict with about 75% accuracy when your response is not going to show up. <BR>There is a long delay, then something totally unrelated to the original appears on the screen, and your message is off to never never land. Somebody's bit bucket must be full be now. <BR>My ploy is this. Before you click on the Post My Reply red spot to send you message, copy it to the Windows clipboard. If it fails to show up, click on the back button on your browser (I use Netscape), or right click on Back and return to the entry for post a reply. Try posting again again. If this fails, go to Forums Home and try again by returning to the original topic. Check and make sure your posting is not there. If it is not, respond againl, but this time you simply paste in your copied response and send it again. <BR> <BR>Being a stubborn, bullheaded type, I keep banging away at it until it crashes totally or accepts my posting. After a while it gets to be sort of game. Can you outwit/outlast the Fodors Cookie Byte Monster? It does occasionally get sated, or gets indigestion. Given some of the stuff on this forum, I suspect indigestion. <BR>Keep it in context. This forum is an expense to Fodors. And we should be happy it is there, despite any minor inconveniences we may suffer.

Bob - Thanks for your suggestions and humor. I did get quite a laugh out of your post and I agree, this is a freebie for us travelers and I'm sure things run smoothly most of the time. Thanks for replying and I *hope* this of mine goes through! ;-)

Oh Bob! I've been reading your posts for a long time and have come to appreciate your breadth of knowledge. This post reveals your sense of humor. Can just see you sitting at your keyboard fiendishly trying to outwit the Forum. Love it!

I often find that when I type a response of more than a few lines (fairly typical and I'm a slow typist to boot), the connection to the server appears to have been lost (or timed out) and the reply never gets posted. A simple solution is to go back to the messages list, open your word processing program, write the reply, then do a "select all" and "copy" from the edit menu. Now return to the post, click on "post my reply", do a right-click of your mouse on the text box of the reply area, and select "paste" from the dialog box that appears. This has completely solved the problem for me (and it's far easier to do than my long winded instructions might lead you to believe).

In Fodor's defense I should mention this: the dilemma is most likely caused by a high volume of traffic to the web servers and your "session" is bumped off when someone else is connecting to that server and there just isn't enough bandwidth to reconnect and post your reply when you hit the button to do so. There is a commercial hardware/software solution that overcomes this problem but it is VERY expensive and it's understandable why a free website with no advertising (which also isn't trying to sell us anything) doens't have this.