Anyone else having problems moving comments?

I had tried to move this comment to attach it to the corresponding answer, but It seems that I cannot. Every time I try, I just get this error:

Of course, reloading the page changes nothing. Logging out, clearing cookies, cache doesn't change anything. The behavior is the same in Firefox and Chrome, although sometimes in Chrome, it simply fails silently without giving the error message.

I've been sitting on the issue waiting to find another comment that needs to be moved. I figured maybe it's just the one. I tried moving this comment today, and I get a slightly different problem:

It gave me the same error, but it actually did move the comment. It just failed to delete the old copy.

Any ideas? I have moved things before, but I guess something's been changed. I wondered if anyone else noticed issues.

[Jan]

Please move me!

[Jan]

My test comment was moved successfully to an answer and back again.

[DGM]

This is a comment posted as an answer. Maybe I should move it to a comment.

[DGM]

I can move your comment to an answer and back, and I can move my answer to a comment and back.

I still can't move that comment in the link. Considering that I've demonstrated both silent failures and object duplication problems already, I'm wary about going around and trying to find a pattern regarding what I can or can't move.

[the cyclist]

I tried to move the comment you linked, and got the same error. I have successfully moved comments around before. Seems like a bug, but I agree that the pattern would probably be difficult to suss out.

[Walter Roberson]

I had a comment move without the old one being deleted in September, which I reported to Mathworks. A moment ago I also pointed your difficulty to them.

[DGM]

Thank you both.

Well, as bad as it sounds, it's reassuring that I'm not the only one. I see so many sites these days that simply don't work or present bizarre bugs when used on slow connections. I usually expect that I'm the only one that gets to experience it.

Is there a better way to bring up issues about the site like this? The tech support page seems like the wrong place for site support, and asking other users seems like a roundabout way. ... or is it just best to do it this way? I kind of wish there were a meta category sometimes.

[Walter Roberson]

You can post with tag:meta . You might want to @ me so I can report the problem through other channels.

[DGM]

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

[DGM]

I figured I'd keep this here in an appropriately-named thread instead of re-describing the problem.

I've been collecting a list of other old threads full of comments-as-answers which can't be moved.

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/8517-finding-the-exact-thrreshold-for-im2bw (OP's comment-as-answer belongs to Walter's answer) (Attempts to edit this question result in the following error)

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/703312-to-write-a-function-called-voltage-that-computes-the-voltages-at-different-junctions-in-electrical-c (OP's comment-as-answer likely belongs to the question itself, but the move button on it can't even be clicked) (this seems to be a unique type of bug; the workaround doesn't help here)

I haven't really kept track of which specific objects I tried to move, or to where I tried to move them; that's something I can figure out later if necessary. The general pattern among these is that they're threads from circa 2012-2013, and that none of the objects in the thread can be moved.

EDIT: I went back and added notes on what goes where. It's all pretty obvious, but I figured it's my responsibility to be clear about any work I ask of others.

EDIT AGAIN: I've deleted the links to the threads which have been fixed.

[Dyuman Joshi]

@DGM, I can help with moving the comments, if it is alright.

[John D'Errico]

(using safari) I sometimes see a problem in moving a comment. Usually it suffices to simply quit the browser and restart it. Sometimes it means the post has been changed by the OP, or even deleted. (I have seen similar strange occasional occurrences on the BridgeWinners website.) Sometimes it is a reflection they are doing something to the site here itself, so usually if I just come back in an hour or so, all is back to normal.

My test here was to create this response as a comment, then move it to an answer, then back to a comment. All worked with no problem. As such, my guess is your issue may be only a temporary one. Or, maybe the site has taken a dislike to you personally. :)

[DGM]

@Dyuman Joshi Are they movable for you? I was under the impression that there was some sort of bug associated with threads from this 2012-2013 timeframe -- possibly due to some sort of changes that happened to the forum in that period. I figured they were just broken for everyone.

@John D'Errico In the cases where I've been so curious, the threads in question were persistently messed up across all browsers that I've tried. Ones like #703312 with the very particular unresponsive Move button are still broken months later in a different browser and on a different computer.

Earlier this year (and most times prior), I would have to consider the possibility that my terrible network connection was wreaking havoc with fragile scripts, but most of that is resolved now. 1-2Mbps is probably lower than what most sites are designed for these days, but it's a fair bit more reliable than 200kbps with 6000+ errors per minute.

[DGM]

@Walter Roberson Do you think you can make some calls on the bat-phone for me again? I've gone back and put notes on a bunch more immovable objects that I've collected. See the last few comments above.

[Walter Roberson]

I asked ET to phone home.

[Rena Berman]

(Answers Dev) @DGM, @Walter Roberson, this is happening with content moves for some older question threads. For there threads, there is a formatting-related error happening under the hood that is preventing these moves from completing. I won't be able to get a fix in until next week, but I have identified a workaround that you can try to use to update the internal question formatting if a move fails on these older questions:

1. Reload the web page for the question thread in your browser*
2. Wait until the RTC editor at the bottom of the page has fully loaded
3. Click "edit" to edit the question and wait until the question body appears in the description textbox
4. Click submit
5. Proceed with your move

I was able to move a few things from your list this way.

* Please note: this workaround may not work in a mobile browser.

I'll post an update when a fix has been released.

[DGM]

Very interesting! I've noticed that a few threads are stubborn, but it seems to work if I actually make a minor edit to the question (e.g. adding a trailing space) instead of just opening the editor and submitting without changes. A few of them have unacceptably-short titles, and so that needs to be fixed before they can be resubmitted, but fixing that's probably a good thing anyway.

I'm going to see how many I can clear out. I'm going to delete the links above as I fix them, so if those are needed for anything, let me know. I have them all in my notes.

EDIT: Everything in the list has been resolved except for the two which remain listed above. Those seem to be different in one way or another.

[Rena Berman]

(Answers Dev) @DGM, I fixed the second one listed above. I am investigating the first one.

[William Rose]

I recieved the same error and pop-up as reported by @DGM, when I clicked "Submit" button for my answer here. I copied my unsubmitted answer to a text editor, then reloaded the Matlab Answers page, then pasted my text into the answer window and tried again to resubmit, but got the same error, multiple times. Eventually I closed my browser (Firefox) and started over. Then it worked. This had also happened in preceding day or two with some other answers or comments I tried to submit.

[DGM]

@Rena Berman

I am now running into problems very similar to what @William Rose described. It happens on almost every page now.

When the issue presents itself, I cannot comment, answer, flag, or upvote. Sometimes if I am trying to post an answer/comment, I can cancel that action and post a comment in another location with a simple body (e.g. "test") and it will succeed. I can then delete the test comment and the rest of the page works after that. Otherwise, I'm forced to edit something on the page. Sometimes, even editing the page doesn't fix it. It took me several attempts just to post this comment, and editing my own comments, other comments, or the question itself wouldn't fix it until I closed and relaunched the browser, then edited and test-posted again. So there doesn't seem to be a single reliable fix.

Reloading the page, clearing cache/cookies, restarting the browser don't reliably work by themselves. I'm running Firefox ESR. It's not the latest version, but it's the latest version that will run without crashing immediately on this site.

[Rena Berman]

(Answers Dev) @DGM, @William Rose, do you mean this happens every time you try to move a comment? What browser are you using?

[William Rose]

@Rena Berman,

I use Firefox. The problem was not just with moving a Comment to an Answer - the problem was answering at all. I haven't experienced problems with answering or commenting for the past several weeks. I just tried moving this comment to be an Answer. It worked. Then I deleted the answer, and re-pasted it here as this comment. All working fine, for me, at the moment.

[Rena Berman]

(Answers Dev) There was an issue after we upgraded the underlying software for the app about 2-3 weeks ago. It's all sorted out now.

[DGM]

I'm running Firefox ESR on that computer. It's not the latest version, but I don't recall what version it is exactly (I'm not over there right now). I haven't been using the forum on other computers enough to know whether it's something specific to the browser or the system.

It happens when trying to move items or when trying to post answers, comments, flags, etc. I haven't had it happen when trying to edit other people's questions, but I've had it happen when trying to edit my own questions (the editor is different, so maybe that changes something).

It hasn't been happening nearly as often lately, but I did have it happen once yesterday. I haven't been able to nail down a consistent pattern to describe either the causal conditions, or the resolution. The one yesterday was resolved simply by reloading the page repeatedly until it just happened to work.

I was hoping that I wasn't the only person observing this, but I guess I am. As it is, I probably don't have enough usable information to facilitate troubleshooting.