Sweep the broom...(Chrome 73 VS MRH Autosave auto-recall pop-up)
Dear Mike,
It's not you, I've seen and confirmed this symtom on both Win7 and 10, running Chrome 73.
Follow along for an explanation:
- The MRH forum has a feature which "autosaves" your posts as you type them.
- Most of the time, you don't notice this, and you don't need the feature.
- However, if you are one of the people who seem to be affected by the "force logged-out just as they hit 'Post' on a message", using the "restore autosaved" function can save your life.
(For more on how this feature works, see here
https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/mrh-website-logouts-and-best-practices-12212328
https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/an-auto-saved-version-would-you-like-to-compare-content-huh-12205258 )
Now, why is your cursor not-appearing sometimes?
(The "arrow" cursor moves around the screen,
but the flashing-bar "cursor" which allows you to type doesn't appear,
and attempting to mouse-drag to select any text doesn't work as-expected...)
- When you click on a thread that you may have posted-to
(or written a "draft" posting but not actually committed to posting the comment)
_sometimes_ a pop-up box will appear saying something like
"...you have a saved version of a post from this thread. Would you like to restore the saved content?"
(See the above links for screenshot examples)
- Normally, you would just click "Cancel" to this, and continue on your way...
HOWEVER, in some recent versions of Chrome, that pop-up does not always "pop to the front" so you can see it!
This leaves the computer in the weird state that:
- it has "popped a pop-up" which it expects you, the human, to click
- it has "pulled focus" onto the pop-up (IE that's where your cursor is, waiting you to do something)
- BUT, because you, the human, can't see the pop-up,
you don't/can't "click the (invisible) pop-up away",
and also cannot see the (equally invisible) cursor...
NB: Unlike some similar situations in the Windows world, ALT + TAB won't "cycle thru" to allow you to force the "missing/hidden pop-up" to the top/front so it's visible... :-(
SOO, how to get out of this situation?
Quickest way is to click the "Broom" icon at bottom right of the Message box,
this _normally_ is used to clear your "autosave history",
but in this case, clicking the broom forces the "Do you wish to clear your Autosave History" pop-up in front of all other windows,
thus making it visible and "pulling focus",
thus you can "click it away" (click "Yes" or "No", your choice),
...and, with the main MRH page no-longer having a pop-up "steal the cursor focus",
you can continue on as-normal, to type the post/message/comment you were originally intending to post...
Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr
PS so, what causes the pop-up to sometimes "pop-up behind/invisible?"
Good question... I suspect its some form of page-load-timing/race-condition VS the Autosave-recall pop-up mechanism, but have not been able to consciously and predictably provoke the symtom to occur as confirmation... :-(
... and how do I know that the "autosave" pop-up was hidden?
...Well, when the 2nd "sweep the broom" pop-up is invoked,
it appears and the missing 1st "autosave recall pop-up spontaneously appears underneath it,
IE popping the "2nd pop-up" resets the Z-layer and drags the "invisible" pop-up box up into visibility...
PPS now that I think about it, sometimes these pop-ups appear in the middle of the screen,
(IE centred L<> R and Top<> Bottom)
and sometimes they pop-up hard-up-against the top of the screen...
(Centred L<> R, but all-the-way at the TOP)
I wonder if the X/Y "appear onscreen" pop-up co-ords might be part of the issue?
(If X/Y co-ord is somehow invalid, then subsequent Z-layer co-ord becomes invalid too,
with "invisible pop-up" results?)
