Messages in chat get posted even when the "error: you have timed out" msg appears in input field

[Wezel]

Yesterday I was banned for 1 month from the chatbox because of this bug. When I raised the issue in a ticket and explained the whole situation, the only reply was:

"I've had a look at your advertisement message. The evidence showed there doesn't appear to be any connection issues (https://gyazo.com/46eb35bd8eb2d1206484e038e2f542c9) - As you can see, there was at least a 5-minute gap there."

Since the timegap between the messages sent has nothing to do with the bug, I'd rather post it in a bug report, in the hopes of Jayson having a look at this, and me being able to explain this to him instead on how im innocent because of a bug, developer to developer.

-----------

Bug: (Screen recording showing some of the stuff Ive explained below attached)

I tried loading in the website yesterday on my bad mobile service. The speed is drastically slowed atm. When entering the site the main parts such as navbar, title and section gets loaded, but the messages in the chatbox is not. So I cannot see the messages at all. Keep in mind, the input field are still usable. I knew it was hours since my last ad, so posting one should be no problem. I put my ad in the input field in chatbox and hit enter.

I wait...

It loads for a bit, then suddenly a error message pops up in the input field: "error: the message has timed out". (I dont remember the correct text in the error and I cannot recheck atm cuz im banned from cb).

Okay, so I tried posting my message and the server returned a error in the input field, okay that must mean the message wasnt posted, right? Right? Why else would a error message pop up in the input field when trying to post a message? Both as a IT student and a normal user that makes the most sense. No point raising an error without a failed operation.

Keep in mind the messages of the chatbox is not loaded and I see nothing.

Alright, at this point due to the error the message wasnt posted in my eyes, im gonna try posting one more time. Sometimes you just gotta reconnect and retry cuz of connection errors. Same thing happens. Im gonna wait a bit and come back later and try. Same thing happens.

I go offline for 2 hours, come back online, boom im banned for 1 month. The message was infact posted every single time the error message was raised. Why would a error message saying "you timed out", in the input field where you typed your message get raised, if the message still was posted? This is the only time it occurs, when you actually try to post a message, so why should a message still be able to be posted? Shouldnt that mean the operation was stopped, and you need to retry?

------------

I do not blame the chat-mod or whoever it was that banned me, that person only saw one side of the story. But I do not think its fair I should be punished for this bug, even after trying to explain it to staff. Ill explain it to the dev instead in the hopes of proving my innocence, and this bug being fixed to prevent further people being banned because of it.

I could record and show the bug in action, and the error being raised, but for that I need to get access to the chatbox again. Here is a recording of the loading in of the site anyways: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/779095653770854450/857359588491919440/video0.mov

Ive searched everywhere on site for the explanation of the custom error messages on mc-market, but I cant find any, so most are up for own interpretation, and in this case its pretty clare what a vast majority would interpret the error mentioned above to mean.

I am also going to post a suggestion on not to punish users that discovers bugs, since I see nothing on site explaining this either. I have raised the issue in a ticket with a staff replying, im still being punished so this is infact the case for me.

Thanks!

Wezel.

 

[Wezel]

I know there are alot of talented freelance developers on this site. If you are reading this, feel free to speak up and come with your opinion on these issues.

 

[Ally]

I go offline for 2 hours, come back online, boom im banned for 1 month. The message was infact posted every single time the error message was raised. Why would a error message saying "you timed out", in the input field where you typed your message get raised, if the message still was posted? This is the only time it occurs, when you actually try to post a message, so why should a message still be able to be posted? Shouldnt that mean the operation was stopped, and you need to retry?

Normally I believe the policy is if you re-enter your message several times and it hadn't appeared to have gone through, then you'd still be punished. But the fact an error went through should indicate a failure to send the message. In that case, it should be valid to assume that your message actually didn't go through - because you know for a fact that error messages indicate error. In fact, it is absolutely the fault of the site itself.

Make sure you conveyed that through the ticket explicitly, though.

With that being said, I absolutely despise the design of the shoutbox (despite being basically the best option if not the only one for a shoutbox) - it will refresh every 10 seconds if your tab is active, and will refresh when you send a message - assuming your internet works correctly. I've had situations where I have had the same message send over a non-short interval of time.

 

[Harry]

Okay, so I tried posting my message and the server returned a error in the input field, okay that must mean the message wasnt posted, right? Right?

Especially with timeouts, no. The server may have received your request, processed it appropriately, and sent a response - the stall in the connection may occur when sending the response back to you, hence you receive a timeout while the message was still sent successfully.

This isn't a bug, it's just... how the internet works?

This isn't a scenario we can ever really handle appropriately because MCM has no way of knowing if you timed out the request on your end and even if we could, what would the appropriate response be? Delete the message that was just successfully sent? Send you some sort of notification? I can think of multiple issues with both.

The appropriate, and easy resolution to me is simply adjusting how you interface with MCM on a very slow connection:

• wait for shoutbox messages to actually load in.
• refresh your page if you do receive a shoutbox timeout error to see if the message was sent successfully.

 

[Wezel]

Especially with timeouts, no. The server may have received your request, processed it appropriately, and sent a response - the stall in the connection may occur when sending the response back to you, hence you receive a timeout while the message was still sent successfully.

This isn't a bug, it's just... how the internet works?

This isn't a scenario we can ever really handle appropriately because MCM has no way of knowing if you timed out the request on your end and even if we could, what would the appropriate response be? Delete the message that was just successfully sent? Send you some sort of notification? I can think of multiple issues with both.

The appropriate, and easy resolution to me is simply adjusting how you interface with MCM on a very slow connection:

• wait for shoutbox messages to actually load in.
• refresh your page if you do receive a shoutbox timeout error to see if the message was sent successfully.

To me, and I highly think to most users on this site, that error message would be interpreteted that the message was never sent. Youre sending a message using the input field, it starts loading, and suddenly stops, giving you an error message IN THAT EXACT INPUT FIELD YOU WROTE YOUR MESSAGE IN. If the connectionside of this problem cannot be fixed, then I think the error message should be changed, because this resulted in me being banned for 1 month, and I dont want others to go through the same.

As I mentioned above, I dont remember the excact error message content, but I know for sure it didnt say "Retrying", "Attempting to resend message.", "Sending message" or anything of that sort. It only gives a error message in the same input field you try sending your message. Either change the error message or release a wiki explaining the error messages.

The punishment I have received from this harms my business a lot, and I dont think its fair at all seeing as this could easily be prevented by the site by either explaining their errors somewhere on site so it is 100% known to the community WHAT the error means for you and leaves out interpretation (as all errors should), or change the error message completely, clearly showing that the message has INFACT not failed, and will be sent/attempted to be sent.

 

[Ally]

Especially with timeouts, no. The server may have received your request, processed it appropriately, and sent a response - the stall in the connection may occur when sending the response back to you, hence you receive a timeout while the message was still sent successfully.

This isn't a bug, it's just... how the internet works?

This isn't a scenario we can ever really handle appropriately because MCM has no way of knowing if you timed out the request on your end and even if we could, what would the appropriate response be? Delete the message that was just successfully sent? Send you some sort of notification? I can think of multiple issues with both.

The appropriate, and easy resolution to me is simply adjusting how you interface with MCM on a very slow connection:

• wait for shoutbox messages to actually load in.
• refresh your page if you do receive a shoutbox timeout error to see if the message was sent successfully.

You can't actually send a message if the shoutbox hasn't 'fully loaded' (or supposedly has on your end). I have a crappy connection fairly often too. But yeah I think that's already a thing.

Perhaps an interesting way would be to send the message on your next refresh instead of on submit - and then force a shoutbox refresh. That way if the refresh drops, it won't send the queued message. The major problem is that the shoutbox is still ajax iirc and is only one way, rather than web socket which requires an open connection. Until you could get that happening, that issues are gonna keep happening and unfortunately when stuff like this happens there's nothing anyone can do.

 

[Wezel]

Especially with timeouts, no. The server may have received your request, processed it appropriately, and sent a response - the stall in the connection may occur when sending the response back to you, hence you receive a timeout while the message was still sent successfully.

This isn't a bug, it's just... how the internet works?

This isn't a scenario we can ever really handle appropriately because MCM has no way of knowing if you timed out the request on your end and even if we could, what would the appropriate response be? Delete the message that was just successfully sent? Send you some sort of notification? I can think of multiple issues with both.

The appropriate, and easy resolution to me is simply adjusting how you interface with MCM on a very slow connection:

• wait for shoutbox messages to actually load in.
• refresh your page if you do receive a shoutbox timeout error to see if the message was sent successfully.

Sure, I get what you're saying, this is how the internet works. But writing proper error messages that leaves out subjective interpretations from the common users is also something that should be done, to prevent confusion is extremely important.

Now, I had to interpret the error message myself, and I really thought it meant that the message sending process failed, because why else would an error be raised in the input field where you tried sending the msg?[DOUBLEPOST=1624535214][/DOUBLEPOST]"The appropriate, and easy resolution to me is simply adjusting how you interface with MCM on a very slow connection:

• wait for shoutbox messages to actually load in.
• refresh your page if you do receive a shoutbox timeout error to see if the message was sent successfully."

Ok, sure this can be done. But where was the wiki/this explanation before you posted it to me here? Where on site can I read this? Nobody on this site knows this, and seeing as punishments can be given because of stuff like this, I really think it should be explained somwhere. An error/dev wiki.

Atm the error message looks something like this:
"Error, your message timed out", implying to non tech (and some tech people like myself) people that, ok the operation failed and the message wasnt sent.

If you cant do anything about when and how the error is posted, the error content itself should be changed to something that implies that the message can be or have been sent. Atm its unclear.[DOUBLEPOST=1624535297][/DOUBLEPOST]The problem is the error message, and how it looks like the message was not posted, but it infact was.

 

[Mick]

This is a relatively minor display issue and given the fact that we're moving to XF2 relatively soon and redeveloping everything from scratch so this will likely not be an issue after the move. Thank you for the report, but this won't be fixed. If it stays as an issue once we move to XF2 then please let us know through another bug report.

I'll move this to the bug report archives.