FORM data being lost

eblade

Since I've written a bulletin board system type site, I've noticed that a lot of errors on my site are related to FORM data just totally missing after posting the form. I don't get it. If a user enters a large cut/paste into a TEXTENTRY field, then submits it, all the form data is returned to the new script as blank. Anyone ever have this problem before?

It -seems- to mostly affect IE 5.00.19.xxxx users, but in one particular form, if a large entry is put in, it affects any browser. I'm totally lost.

brandonschnell

try sending the data using a POST method if you're not already doing so

Anon

Hi Eric,

I've had the same problem on my site, but it's very random. Some people enter their data, hit the submit and it's fine. However, people have encountered all of their data being lost with no error messages.

Hopefully, someone will have an answer!

:-)

eblade

Yes, it is very strange. If posting a message to my new message forum, the subject and text will just not be there.. or the subject will be and the text won't be.. or if replying, i put the msg id that they are replying to into a hidden field in the reply form, and everything will be there except the message id that they are replying to.. it's weird.. very weird..

like.. boom! it's not there.
Someone suggested making sure I put METHOD="POST" in all the forms, hopefully that will do it? I think the forms that are failing most frequently for my testers are those where I may have forgotten to specify a METHOD .. which I'm guessing means IE will default to the worst possible choice.

(anyone know of any documents that explain the different METHODs for submitting data?)

brandonschnell

two basic methods, GET & POST:

1) GET, places all of the variables being returned by the browser to the webserver in the URL. IE & Netscape can have problems with long URL, so if there is a lot of data to be returned the browser might not return it correctly in the URL.

Pro: easy to make bookmarks of the page and return right back where you were.

Con: limited to returning about 256 characters (bytes) of data safely but this depends on the browser. Some browsers have buffer overflow bugs with excessively longs URLs.

2) POST, returns all of the variables hidden to the user. The user doesn't see whats being returned in the URL.

Pro: allows for the browser to send back a lot of data (think megs) and doesn't clutter up the URL.

Con: doesn't let the user easily return back to the page. if the user tries to bookmark the page and return later the brower will ask the user to repost the data. its an extra thing for the user to click on.

imho use GET for to pass a litle data. use POST when you're using a TEXTAREA html tag, having the user upload a binary file, or having the user fill out a large form.

Anon

Great.. so why is it then, using the POST method, I have exactly 21 lines of text, if I hit 22 lines in my textentry field, then the formdata never makes it to the server? I don't get it. And some browsers (IE 5.00.0019.xxxx) seem absolutely incapable of posting any form data? is this a problem with my web server, or with PHP??? confused