Personal Message problem

[Hamish]

Sorry, but I cannot think of anywhere else to raise this query - in fact, I do not know if even this one will get through to you!

I have received a PM from a new member (Biblemonkey) in which he asks for advice regarding the differences between a 13oz wool kilt and an 11 oz PV kilt, and also advice regarding the wearing of clan tartans other than those to which one might have affiliations.

Twice in the past two hours, my lengthy replies to Biblemonkey have been lost forever due to an 'Internal Server Error' at the time of submitting each of them! The resulting messages told me to contact the webmaster of X Marks the Scot noting the times of submission - I can say only, as I have, that they occurred in the past two hours!! The first message, a detailed and what I hoped would be a helpful response took me over an hour to write (I am not feeling at my best by any means!). Cursing its loss, I had another go and put together a precis of that first message - that too disappeared into the ether when I submitted it. I am now lacking mental and physical strength to try again and would not want Biblemonkey to think I am ignoring him.

What am I to do? I may not be able to come on-line again for a day or two and when I do, time wiull be at a premium with so many E-mails and other correspondence awaiting my attention. Are you able, on my behalf, to let Biblemonkey know that I have tried to answer his enquiries but it may now be some time before I am able to try again? Is there an Internal Server problem preventing my posting PMs?

Frustratedly yours,

Take care,
Ham.

[Steve Ashton]

Hamish,

Thank you for posting about your problem. I am looking into it.

I am very sorry that this happened.

[McClef]

From bitter personal experience (not necessarily here on X Marks) I find it best to copy the text of a lengthy reply or post before sending so if there is a problem it can be then pasted and saved in Word or some other text editor.

Saves a lot of frustration and time.

[Jerry]

Echoing McClef, I usually compose lengthy pms or emails in a free text program called.Jarte, save it as a document, then copy and paste it into my message. Then if it gets "lost in the mail", so to speak, I still have a copy.

http://www.jarte.com/download.html

[Hamish]

Trefor and Jerry, thank you for your oh-so-good advice. Doing just that is what I always tell myself I should do, but I never do because I think it cannot happen to me yet again! I am prompted to write or respond to a post without delay and immediately set-to typing in the 'Reply' box - maybe I will learn one of these days.

Take care,
Ham.

[tripleblessed]

I find I am so poor a typist the system times me out before I've finished, and
it disappears on "send". If, when finished, you open another tab, you can log in again, then go back to the original tab and hit send. It will work then.

Alternately, just reply with a request for e-mail address and side-step the
time limitations

[tulloch]

I think of two things; draft long messages in a text editor like Word or Word Perfect and then they are still there if you lose them in sending. Second idea is send them in small one- or two- paragraph segments with a last line: more to follow. I hope this helps.

[biblemonkey]

Got the message everyone. Thanks for the help. If you want to give advice on the topic Hamish mentioned I went ahead and posted a discussion under the heading "purchasing dilemma" so he and everyone else could reply with less problems.

[Mike_Oettle]

I can affirm that this is a common problem when I use the internet.
I have on occasion used either Word or Notepad (the office computer does not have Word) to keep my longer replies on record before posting, but I still occasionally have hassles.
This morning I spent a considerable time writing a response to a post by McClef, only to find that the forum had logged me out and the response was lost.
So I must start all over again . . .
Regards,
Mike