Curious error received while reporting posts

[GazetaBitcoin]

I Received this error while reporting (very many) posts during yesterday:



I never seen it before. I will explain step by step what I was doing, in case it helps.

1. I started to "clean" (of spam, of course) an ANN thread that was using bumping services
2. I opened in new tabs each post I was going to report
3. I started reporting post after post

After a while I received that error, for the posts I wanted to report. The error has two behaviors: sometimes I could go back to the previous page (where I was supposed to write the comment for the report), but sometimes the "Back" option was not functional. This occurred to me inside multiple threads.

At some point I observed something: the mod started to delete also post after post from that respective topic, seeing I am doing the same -- like going ahead of me and deleting the posts which were spam before I reported them. Seeing that, I thought that maybe the error was received as the respective post was already deleted -- but that was not the case though.

And I verified that was not the case inside another topic, with many pages, and there, once I received the error I refreshed the topic and I saw the mod was not deleting the posts before having me reporting them and even though I got the error.

I received this error about 30 times yesterday. (In case I was not clear, I received the error after I clicked on "Report to moderator" button and in the next screen, after I wrote a justifying comment for the report, I pressed "Submit").

Is it a bug?

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[NeuroticFish]

I know that one can - under certain conditions - read a board that is ignored in his settings.
I've seen that one cannot merit posts in an ignored board. I don't know if that's the case about reporting, but that's where I'd start with.

So: was by chance the culprit post in topic on an ignored board?

[PrimeNumber7]

When a post is deleted, it is not actually deleted. It is actually moved from its current thread to another thread, created daily, for all deleted posts that day. For example, I reported a post that broke a rule and a mod deleted it moved it to the deleted posts thread for today.

As a Legendary Member, I do not have access to the daily thread for deleted posts. In order to report a post, you need to have access to the sub that the thread the post is located in. So if you want to report a post in a thread located in meta, you need to have access to the meta sub.

When I try to report a post that has already been deleted (and moved to the above-mentioned thread), I receive a similar error message. The error message you are encountering will likely mean that a moderator has already deleted the post in question.

It would probably be an improvement if the displayed message was more descripative, however I guess that is what happens with outdated SMF forum software.

[hosseinimr93]

I don't know if that's the case about reporting, but that's where I'd start with.

I don't think that's the problem.
For testing, I just ignored "Altcoin Discussion" board and reported a few posts on that board.
I didn't get that error and I was able to report the posts.

The error message you are encountering will likely mean that a moderator has already deleted the post in question.

This is the only thing that comes to my mind. But GazetaBitcoin said that the post hadn't been deleted when reporting it.

Seeing that, I thought that maybe the error was received as the respective post was already deleted -- but that was not the case though.

[PrimeNumber7]

The error message you are encountering will likely mean that a moderator has already deleted the post in question.

This is the only thing that comes to my mind. But GazetaBitcoin said that the post hadn't been deleted when reporting it.

Seeing that, I thought that maybe the error was received as the respective post was already deleted -- but that was not the case though.

If you click the "back" button on your browser, you will not receive a current version of the page you previously visited. If a moderator deleted a post between the time when GazetaBitcoin visited the thread and when he clicked on "report to moderator", he would have seen the error message described in the OP.

If GazetaBitcoin wants to post an example of a postID in which this happened, an admin can look into this, however I am confident the issue is that the post was already deleted as of when the 'report to moderator' link was clicked.

[GazetaBitcoin]

was by chance the culprit post in topic on an ignored board?

No, all the times I encountered the error I was reporting posts from un-ignored boards.

The error message you are encountering will likely mean that a moderator has already deleted the post in question.

This is the only thing that comes to my mind. But GazetaBitcoin said that the post hadn't been deleted when reporting it.

When a post is deleted, it is not actually deleted. It is actually moved from its current thread to another thread, created daily, for all deleted posts that day.

These two led me to think something else. Think about Windows, where, if you delete a file, it appears as deleted, but it actually still exists on the HDD until another data is written in the same space of the disk where the previous data was (before being deleted). (I won't go in a too technical discussion here about software for fully erasing the HDD thus no data can be retrieved anymore; what I said was just an example.) So maybe these files (in our case the process should be looked as reversed) were flagged to be moved to trashcan; they were still visible inside the thread, but because they were already flagged to be deleted they could not be reported anymore...?

If you click the "back" button on your browser, you will not receive a current version of the page you previously visited. If a moderator deleted a post between the time when GazetaBitcoin visited the thread and when he clicked on "report to moderator", he would have seen the error message described in the OP.

Yes, but that was not the case... Practically, as I wrote in OP, I opened in new tabs each post which I wanted to have deleted (then closed the tab of the topic) and started to insert comments to each report. At this point, on each tab I had a report window, where I just had to insert the comment then click on Submit.

When the error appeared, the only "Back" function (when it worked, as it did not work all the time) returned me to the page where I had to insert the comment for the report, not to the topic containing posts... And in that case, although I inserted again my comment then clicked on Submit, I received same error.

If GazetaBitcoin wants to post an example of a postID in which this happened, an admin can look into this, however I am confident the issue is that the post was already deleted as of when the 'report to moderator' link was clicked.

This would be the best indeed, but I could not have any ID of any post at that moment, as I did not know what post I was reporting. As already explained, I looked over the entire topic then opened in new tabs all posts which I wanted to report. Then I just switched from tab to tab after each report was done...

[LoyceV]

I thought that maybe the error was received as the respective post was already deleted -- but that was not the case though.

I tested it and this is how I can reproduce your error:
If the post you're trying to report doesn't exist anymore, you can this error message:

An Error Has Occurred!
The board you specified doesn't exist

If the topic in which you're trying to report a post doesn't exist anymore, you get this error message:

An Error Has Occurred!
The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.

It seems like the Mod got tired of your reports and deleted them before you could report any more posts, like you suspected:

At some point I observed something: the mod started to delete also post after post from that respective topic, seeing I am doing the same -- like going ahead of me and deleting the posts which were spam before I reported them.

Seeing that, I thought that maybe the error was received as the respective post was already deleted -- but that was not the case though.

Any chance your browser didn't really refresh? Try CTRL-F5.

And I verified that was not the case inside another topic, with many pages, and there, once I received the error I refreshed the topic and I saw the mod was not deleting the posts before having me reporting them and even though I got the error.

Another possible explanation: any chance it's a very long topic? I know the WO-thread often takes a while to reorganize which post is on which page after some posts get deleted.

I could not have any ID of any post at that moment, as I did not know what post I was reporting.

It's in the Report URL

[GazetaBitcoin]

I tested it and this is how I can reproduce your error:
If the post you're trying to report doesn't exist anymore, you can this error message:

An Error Has Occurred!
The board you specified doesn't exist

It seems like the Mod got tired of your reports and deleted them before you could report any more posts, like you suspected

I noticed that too, in two circumstances:
1. I was making report after report within a topic, most reported posts being made by same user. So I opened all these posts into new tabs and I started reporting one by one, tab after tab. At some point I received that error again and again. I looked at that user's profile and noticed s/he got nuked.
2. I also received that error when the mod deleted all the posts from a topic (only the first post - the OP - remained inside the topic).

However, this is why I said in (my) OP that was not the case: I was making reports from a topic which had 5 pages (there were very few posts on the fifth page). And after I made a few reports (which were deleted by the mod almost same time as I made them) I noticed the post went from 5 pages to 4. And at this moment I think I received that error 20 times in a row, but the topic remained still at 4 pages long. If the mod would have been deleting posts ahead of me, the number of pages would have been reduced, right?

So while I understand the normal cases when that error appears, I still don't understand what happened in this case...

Any chance your browser didn't really refresh? Try CTRL-F5.

I don't know about that... I hit just F5, not Ctrl+F5...

Another possible explanation: any chance it's a very long topic? I know the WO-thread often takes a while to reorganize which post is on which page after some posts get deleted.

No, it was a topic with 5 pages long or so...

I could not have any ID of any post at that moment, as I did not know what post I was reporting.

It's in the Report URL

Uhm... actually it's not there, because I did not make the respective report, as I received that error message when I tried to submit it... Am I missing something here?

[Rizzrack]

So maybe these files (in our case the process should be looked as reversed) were flagged to be moved to trashcan; they were still visible inside the thread, but because they were already flagged to be deleted they could not be reported anymore...?

There is no such thing as "flagged to be deleted".
You just submitted the report after the post was just deleted by a mod, as hosseinimr93 & PrimeNumber7 said. Same thing happens when you want to reply in a thread that gets trashed while you write your post.

Yes, but that was not the case... Practically, as I wrote in OP, I opened in new tabs each post which I wanted to have deleted (then closed the tab of the topic) and started to insert comments to each report. At this point, on each tab I had a report window, where I just had to insert the comment then click on Submit.

When the error appeared, the only "Back" function (when it worked, as it did not work all the time) returned me to the page where I had to insert the comment for the report, not to the topic containing posts... And in that case, although I inserted again my comment then clicked on Submit, I received same error.

Well that's just how browsers work... If you open a link in a new tab you don't have a "back" option because that is the first link for that tab. There is nothing to go back to as far as it's concerned.
Even if you went back to the previous page the DOM would not update. It would just display the same information as before. The content is updated only after an action, like click on a link, refresh (F5) or similar.

[GazetaBitcoin]

You just submitted the report after the post was just deleted by a mod, as hosseinimr93 & PrimeNumber7 said.

No, this is not what happened. Please re-read this part:

However, this is why I said in (my) OP that was not the case: I was making reports from a topic which had 5 pages (there were very few posts on the fifth page). And after I made a few reports (which were deleted by the mod almost same time as I made them) I noticed the post went from 5 pages to 4. And at this moment I think I received that error 20 times in a row, but the topic remained still at 4 pages long. If the mod would have been deleting posts ahead of me, the number of pages would have been reduced, right?

So while I understand the normal cases when that error appears, I still don't understand what happened in this case...

Well that's just how browsers work... If you open a link in a new tab you don't have a "back" option because that is the first link for that tab. There is nothing to go back to as far as it's concerned.
Even if you went back to the previous page the DOM would not update. It would just display the same information as before. The content is updated only after an action, like click on a link, refresh (F5) or similar.

The part about "Back" function was mentioned just to explain better all the aspects of the error. There is no problem with the "Back", be it functional or not, except the part that sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, thus making an inconsistency. Anyway, when hitting "Back" while that error is displayed, you are not returned to the topic, but to the page where you have to submit the report (where you also add a comment explaining why you report the post). However, this is not important. The important part is what I quoted above. Regarding this "Back" function, if you want, it's just an inconsistency in its functionality, as sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but that's all...

[PrimeNumber7]

The error message you are encountering will likely mean that a moderator has already deleted the post in question.

This is the only thing that comes to my mind. But GazetaBitcoin said that the post hadn't been deleted when reporting it.

When a post is deleted, it is not actually deleted. It is actually moved from its current thread to another thread, created daily, for all deleted posts that day.

These two led me to think something else. Think about Windows, where, if you delete a file, it appears as deleted, but it actually still exists on the HDD until another data is written in the same space of the disk where the previous data was (before being deleted). (I won't go in a too technical discussion here about software for fully erasing the HDD thus no data can be retrieved anymore; what I said was just an example.) So maybe these files (in our case the process should be looked as reversed) were flagged to be moved to trashcan; they were still visible inside the thread, but because they were already flagged to be deleted they could not be reported anymore...?

You mentioned that you opened multiple tabs when reporting posts. Just because a post is visible when you visit a thread does not mean there are not other outstanding reports against that post, or that a moderator will not otherwise delete that post. If a post is clearly breaking the rules, the longer the time between you visit a thread, and the time you actually report a post, the greater the chances the post will have been removed by the moderators for a variety of reasons.

[GazetaBitcoin]

You mentioned that you opened multiple tabs when reporting posts. Just because a post is visible when you visit a thread does not mean there are not other outstanding reports against that post, or that a moderator will not otherwise delete that post. If a post is clearly breaking the rules, the longer the time between you visit a thread, and the time you actually report a post, the greater the chances the post will have been removed by the moderators for a variety of reasons.

I perfectly understand this, but re-read please my quote from above. What happened that time was this:

- I was "cleaning" topic X (it had 5 pages of posts and just a very few on the last page)
- I opened in new tabs all the posts I wanted to report
- I made a few reports (which were deleted by the mod almost same time as I made them)
-I noticed the post went from 5 pages to 4 (I noticed that by opening again the topic in a new tab, thus I could see its posts were reduced to only 4 pages)
-at this moment I think I received that error 20 times in a row, for the rest of posts which I had opened in tabs and I tried to report

I wanted to make sure if the posts were deleted by the mod (before having me reporting them) so I opened again the topic in a new tab. Thus, by opening it again it should show a refreshed information, correct? However, the topic remained still at 4 pages long. If the mod would have been deleting posts ahead of me, the number of pages would have been reduced, right?

Perhaps I explained now better...

[Rizzrack]

Perhaps I explained now better...

A bit  

This is one of the reported posts : [ANN] Verlux - First Decentralized Cross-Chain NFT Marketplace

Checked on ninjastic.space https://ninjastic.space/topic/5370306 and it shows the thread had 46 posts. There are 19 reported posts from that thread and the other 24 were just deleted by a mod...

Perhaps not the exact thread you are referring to but just an example that it could happen and seems more plausible. Or the entire topic was trashed after the first batch of reports...

opening it again it should show a refreshed information, correct?

Normally YES, but seems it didn't that time...



P.S. The main thing here is this: thanks for reporting ! 

[GazetaBitcoin]

opening it again it should show a refreshed information, correct?

Normally YES, but seems it didn't that time...

Uhm, sadly, I also can't say precisely which topic it was, as I "cleaned" many topics during the day. But I will keep watching the issue and, if it occurs again, I'll come back to this thread and mention precisely the topic / post(s) generating the error.

[Lafu]

The error you got here and thats showed up , you should not to be worried about .
I get and got that error message very much when i try to report the Fake Phoenixminer or LHR-Pill posts and threads .
Mostly you get it when you unlucky report it and the post or thread gots deleted in mean time you are reporting it.

[Welsh]

Before I get into the specifics about the situation, thanks for reporting, appreciate it! Definitely went through quite a bit of pages. A whole lot of spam was cleared up. 

- I was "cleaning" topic X (it had 5 pages of posts and just a very few on the last page)
- I opened in new tabs all the posts I wanted to report
- I made a few reports (which were deleted by the mod almost same time as I made them)
-I noticed the post went from 5 pages to 4 (I noticed that by opening again the topic in a new tab, thus I could see its posts were reduced to only 4 pages)
-at this moment I think I received that error 20 times in a row, for the rest of posts which I had opened in tabs and I tried to report

I wanted to make sure if the posts were deleted by the mod (before having me reporting them) so I opened again the topic in a new tab. Thus, by opening it again it should show a refreshed information, correct? However, the topic remained still at 4 pages long. If the mod would have been deleting posts ahead of me, the number of pages would have been reduced, right?

Perhaps I explained now better...

I'm not exactly sure what happened on your end, but I know I was handling reports as you were putting them in, as well as cleaning the page up myself. Therefore, I may have deleted those posts right when you refreshed, but when you came to reporting the post it was already gone.

Without actually seeing what your process was, I couldn't really offer an alternative explanation to that. The particular reports were basically serial spammers, that were bumping threads up, even across multiple threads, but using the same accounts, so their posts were fairly easy to identify.

My normal process when I have time is whenever I have reports on a user who looks to be a particular problem I either take a look at their profile for further investigation or I go through that thread if I suspect there's multiple accounts involved. If I can't nuke them myself, but believe they justify a ban I usually delete the posts, and then keep a few for reference for the global moderators just to make life a little easier, and then submit a ban request. So, while all the posts may not be reported in that thread, I was going through on my own initiative to do a complete clean up.

Although, I suspect while when you opened the tab the posts were refreshed, and still there by the time you submitted the report they may have already been gone. Assuming I was the mod handling your reports at the time of this error. I think we went through pages, and pages of reports the last few days though, so it could have potentially been another moderator handling it.

I wanted to make sure if the posts were deleted by the mod (before having me reporting them) so I opened again the topic in a new tab. Thus, by opening it again it should show a refreshed information, correct? However, the topic remained still at 4 pages long. If the mod would have been deleting posts ahead of me, the number of pages would have been reduced, right?

It should be updated at the time of opening the page, usually. Though, sometimes deleting posts can take time, not an awful amount of time maybe a second or two, so that potential delay could have caused the issue. Plus, reporting posts takes a lot longer than a moderator actually deleting them. So, while you might report 10 posts, we can delete several posts at once if we use the checkbox system. I normally use Ctrl + clicking on delete post, so I can speed up the process a little bit.

Although, as you say most reports were being handled right after you reported them, so it was likely that the posts were getting deleted at the very same moment you opened the tab, then the time it took you to process that report i.e fill in the contents, and actually submit it that's when they were removed.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Before I get into the specifics about the situation, thanks for reporting, appreciate it! Definitely went through quite a bit of pages. A whole lot of spam was cleared up.

Thank you as well, Welsh!

I'm not exactly sure what happened on your end, but I know I was handling reports as you were putting them in, as well as cleaning the page up myself. Therefore, I may have deleted those posts right when you refreshed, but when you came to reporting the post it was already gone. [...]

Although, I suspect while when you opened the tab the posts were refreshed, and still there by the time you submitted the report they may have already been gone. Assuming I was the mod handling your reports at the time of this error. I think we went through pages, and pages of reports the last few days though, so it could have potentially been another moderator handling it.

It should be updated at the time of opening the page, usually. Though, sometimes deleting posts can take time, not an awful amount of time maybe a second or two, so that potential delay could have caused the issue.

I noticed that we went in par, to say so, about the reports, and I actually had a great feeling in those moments. I really thought this: "how great it is when you report posts and you see the mod taking care of them at the same time!". As a joke, when I saw that you (or the mod which was doing that, if it was a different one) were deleting posts ahead of me from various topics I was thinking "let's see if now, in this topic, I manage to make the reports before the mod deletes the posts ahead of me reporting them" Seriously, it was a great feeling in those moments, as I really felt an invisible, but strong collaboration.

Regarding the issue, maybe it was a glitch, who knows... This is why I said I'll keep it under observation and come with new details if it'll occur again. So far I did not see it anymore, although I reported many posts since that day, but if the error ever comes back, I'll come with an update.

Thank you for the thorough explanation and thank you as well for the fast processing of the reports