Wiki Editor Bugging Out

[TechAngel85]

So, I've been working on the wiki a lot lately and for the most post I haven't thought much of it; however, it seems to be happening more often. While editing, every once in a while the editor will not load properly as seen in the image below. You can still edit and save your work without issue; however, I just thought I'd mention it in case it's something that actually should be looked into.

 

[z929669]

That would be true of the wiki. If you edit the main guide for example (or if you use PAGE TOOLS  >  REFRESH), it can take up to a minute or more to finally complete the transaction. During this time, the wiki is pretty much frozen for everyone.

 

At this time, though, the forums can be navigated without issue in my experience, which makes sense if Mediawiki is using all available key resources it has to complete the task. The forums have a separate resource allocation to a large extent in my understanding.

[stoppingby4now]

I can see edits on the wiki potentially causing 504 errors. There is a timeout that is set for php scripts, so that may need to be increased. Saving edits shouldn't block other users from being able to view pages though.

 

I'll do some tweaks tomorrow and see if it improves things.

[z929669]

It certainly blocks the edit saver (me) from navigating the wiki though, even in another browser tab, and I would wager even a whole other browser.

 

Try it. Just refresh the guide and try to navigate the wiki.

 

EDIT: I just tried it, and it was way too fast for me to test anything

It must be the time of day (night). It is never that fast in peak hours.

[Kelmych]

I've occasionally seen the delays that are being mentioned that don't seem to last very long and then go away. I've never tried to use one browser tab on a wiki page while I was saving a guide edit on another tab. I use Chrome, by the way.

[hishutup]

I believe I said this before... I doesn't last a long time. It's enough time that you start to sweat and hope the servers didn't get nuked and you lost everything... 

backing up everything removes this worry, for the most part.

 

Its so minor but it can be stressful if you made a really large edit.

[z929669]

I do really big edits in TextPad, otherwise, I try to edit pages by heading.

[TechAngel85]

I do really big edits in TextPad, otherwise, I try to edit pages by heading.

This is probably the best practice. I don't think I ever do really large edits unless I'm either creating a page for the first time or if there is no header to edit under for what I'm needing to edit. In the second case (usually only when using header tabs), then I would be forced to do a page edit.

[hishutup]

I generally don't but there are times that I do get carried away.

One example of this was when I was typing a collapsable table. I started out with a skeleton but then I just kept going.

 

I made it a habit that after making a large edit and then realizing it, I will generally select everything and copy it to a txt file.

 

Isn't there an autosave for wiki editing?

 

Edit: isn't there a way to add edit section? Maybe there is an extension for mediawiki

Edited October 28, 2014 by hishutup

[z929669]

that is my other problem with Headertabs. It forces large edits, and it is more tedious to navigate back to the point of interest after saving

[stoppingby4now]

I generally don't but there are times that I do get carried away.

One example of this was when I was typing a collapsable table. I started out with a skeleton but then I just kept going.

 

I made it a habit that after making a large edit and then realizing it, I will generally select everything and copy it to a txt file.

 

Isn't there an autosave for wiki editing?

 

Edit: isn't there a way to add edit section? Maybe there is an extension for mediawiki

There is no auto-save in the Wiki. You can enable edit section however, it is available in your user preferences on the Editing tab. Make sure that Enable section editing via [edit] links is checked.

 

Headertabs also allows edit links to appear, but we had disabled them due to display issues when there were a lot of tabs. We can enable the edit links for Headertabs again, but it is also a case for not including a large number of tabs.

 

At some point, the Wiki skin will get an overhaul to provide much better navigation, particularly with respect to table of contents. Once that occurs, there will honestly be very little reason to keep Headertabs around. Breaking content up into multiple pages based on major content will be preferred as it also helps to keep the amount of information required to be loaded to a minimum (which is particularly important with respect to the inclusion of a large number of image resources).

 

That's a ways out though. However, using Headertabs liberally is still a good idea today.

[TechAngel85]

I'm planning on converting most of the content I've maintained over to TOC and away from Headertabs. I've just focusing in on other things atm.

[stoppingby4now]

It certainly blocks the edit saver (me) from navigating the wiki though, even in another browser tab, and I would wager even a whole other browser.

 

Try it. Just refresh the guide and try to navigate the wiki.

 

EDIT: I just tried it, and it was way too fast for me to test anything

It must be the time of day (night). It is never that fast in peak hours.

That is mostly because the other tab in the same browser is utilizing the same php process (session related) that is currently handling the save edit request, which is causing the blocking within the same browser. If you load a page from a completely different browser, you should not get blocked during a page save.

 

I'll do some research to see if there is way to help alleviate the issue.

[stoppingby4now]

The "issue" in regards to the same browser not being able to handle multiple requests concurrently in MW can be resolved, but it's going to require an additional component, and subsequent recompile of PHP. Not going to happen overnight, but it's on my list.

[hishutup]

thanks s4n for looking into "issue"

your work is appreciated

[stoppingby4now]

Just a heads up in regards to the blocking issue. I have resolved it in my dev VM, and we are getting close to doing some site maintenance to upgrade software and infrastructure. It will be resolved soon.