Could Not Reproduce Insert Image button occasionally grayed out

[Frankincense]

Sometimes the Insert Image button is grayed out and can't be clicked.

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This is just a small inconvenience though. It can easily be circumvented by manually typing in the tags or just reloading the page. It seems to happen randomly from time to time, about 5 or 10% of the time. I can't seem to duplicate the problem. I don't have any clue about it either.

Or perhaps the problem doesn't lie in the forum, but in my browser?

 

[nanashi1]

Hmm... On my side is it clear the Insert Image button, maybe just a temporary issue...

 

[Anayomex]

Grayed out here as well, most of the time.
I don't bother anymore and always insert IMG tags manually.

 

[Ignis]

I've tried duplicating your user account settings from usergroup to preferences such as post editor mode and timezone into an alternate account, with which I tried visiting the exact same page you have in your screenshot, but I can't seem to be able to reproduce the problem. I've also tried both Chrome and Firefox (well, alternate builds, but same difference).

I have to admit I've never paid much attention to the button in question as I'm not much of a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get, i.e. rich-text formatting) person and always manually type [img] when I want to post images.

A quick and dirty guess without much thought or analysis is to blame caching. However, as I can't reproduce the problem myself, we'll need more certainty before we can analyse the problem more accurately.

 

[Frankincense]

OK, I'm a newb at this, but I'll try to provide as much information as possible.

I managed (or should I say happened) to reproduce the problem, tried looking around, and found that the button seems to execute a different javascript. It's like there are two versions of the page. Perhaps this will help identifying the problem.

The grayed out version executes javascript:void('Image')

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The functional version executes javascript:void('Insert Image')

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[corocoro]

I first noticed that issue yesterday. Occurs randomly here too.

 

[Ignis]

So far we've only seen random instances of the bug occurring and haven't been able to reliably reproduce it with identifiable parameters. For the time being, we can only hypothesise that the bug is caused by an incomplete loading/rendering of the forum's posting/editing interface.

Posting images is a basic function, but besides linking to an external site (whereby the [img] code is used), the "insert image" button also allows users to upload images as attachments. This is a function that requires the forum system to check permissions and ascertain whether the user using that function has sufficient permissions to upload attachments. An incomplete loading/rendering of the posting interface may cause discrepancies between the verdict handed down by the server ("user is allowed/not allowed to do this function") and your browser receiving it ("I have/don't have permission").

This may cripple the permission checking procedure. The system errs on the side of caution, so if confirmation ("yes, I've received the permit, I'm going to proceed with what I was going to do") isn't explicitly obtained from a user who was asking for permission, it's going to assume that the user isn't permitted to do the function she wanted to execute. This could be the reason behind the button being greyed out, as if you didn't have permission to post images, and why it only happens intermittently.

As a side note, while connection lags can be caused by a myriad of things, browsing the forum with a VPN may increase the possibility of this happening. The increase in latency, even though hardly noticeable, may just be enough to trigger this minor annoyance every now and then. From our side, we've cleared the CDN cache just now. Short of the code itself being faulty, for the time being, this is the best explanation we can come up with.

 

[AB_Titty]

In my environment, it's mostly a gray similarly. So I always use imgur.
(browser: Cyberfox, x64)

 

[Sakimichi]

Did you guys happen to have browser extensions installed, browser toolbars, or an anti-virus with browser protection feature? Can you disable it first and see if the problem got fixed.

 

[MarkPPC]

I can not use Image　buttan firefox only.
IE Chrome OK.

 

[Frankincense]

I have more questions. I tried to reproduce the problem on advanced reply page instead. While the Image button was grayed out, the Attachments button still worked and I could upload files just fine. Does this mean that it might not be related to permission to upload attachments? This also happened after the cache had been cleared.

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I didn't have any extension installed. Actually, it's hard to tell if that's really the cause since it happens very randomly. By the way, I'm using Chrome, so it might be safe to assume that this happens to any browser?

 

[Ignis]

Yes, it doesn't appear to be a browser-specific problem. Besides you using Chrome and the poster before you using Firefox, two other people―one using Chrome and the other Firefox―have reported having this problem randomly too.

There may be something the Insert Image button has that the Attachments button doesn't. It doesn't rule out the possibility elaborated in my previous post, as the Insert Image button may need to check at least two permissions (posting attachments and using the [img] code) while the Attachments button needs just one check.

If the problem happens only to a button that needs two checks and doesn't happen to another button that only needs one, that seems too specific and too much a coincidence to be caused by permission checking. The function itself may be inherently faulty as a result of bad code in the forum software itself (in which case there'd be little we could do).

Either way, we'll need to look more into identifying possible parameters that trigger the problem and see if it's innate to just one function (the Insert Image button) or a procedure (permission checking). Thank you for the extensive testing and all the reports on the bug so far.

 

[corocoro]

We have been unable to reproduce this error, no matter what we tried. As such we're giving up on fixing it—please use external hosts as a workaround (or refresh the page to get the button working again).