Unable to Reply to topic

[riogrande5761]

I tried to reply to a topic in the Layouts section and got a error:  "403 Forbidden".  Anyone else having this issue?

[dknelson]

Yes it has happened, far too often in fact.  It is not the same problem as when a Windows update wipes out my "pre aproval" to be logged into Trains.com -- when that happens you can't even create a reply until you re=log back in

What is curious is this.  Sometimes I have spent quite a bit of time on a reply and then get the dreaded 403 Forbidden when I hit Submit your Reply.  I tried copying my posting elsewhere and coming back to it.  Then I went back and posted a different reply.  and it was allowed.  So I went back to the created document, copied my old reply and tried once again to post it as a reply.  Same problem: 403 Forbidden.  So clearly it isn't me, it isn't my computer, it isn't some other issue.  It seems to be something with the CONTENT of my reply.  Now I know better than to post naughty words or images.  I do not randomly copy other people's stuff and try to post it.  I could imagine programming intended to detect and forbid that.  Are the replies too long?  I don't think so.  There is just something about them, and even trying to change them, trim them, whatever, does not seem to work.  The 403 Forbidden lurks forever somewhere in the content.

Darned if I can figure it out but as a professor of mine once said, sometimes the problem is just the cussedness of the universe.

Dave Nelson

["JaBear"]

Apart from the Forum wide no reply business a couple of weeks back, I have not had the “403 Forbidden’, though other ffolkes do mention it from time to time.

 

Last night, 12.05 am, Sept 15, Forum time, I was just trying to insert an embedded video and s smile emoji replying to the “Post that Train Song Thread” and got the “403 Forbidden” . Curiously though, there was also the “Google Translate” box in the top right corner, Danish to English!

 

I thought that this may have been because of a Microsoft update 12 hours earlier, tried posting again with the same result. Deleted the embedded video from my reply but replaced it with the video URL and it worked, so tried embedding the video and it worked!

 

I then had no problems replying to WPF and the Diner!

 

Conclusion. While I think Dave is on the right track, I have absolutely no idea the what or why, but have long suspected that a Gremlin or several of his kind inhabit the Forum.  

 

Cheers, the Bear.  

[gmpullman]

I've had the occasional 403 Forbidden alarm, too. I found that there seems to be something in the html code that triggers it. To work around it what I'll do is first post only the text. Then sequentially EDIT and add the photo, video, quoted text or emoji as originally planned. This seems to trick the software into working.

I've gotten into the habit of highlighting my entire reply and copying it to the clipboard before hitting Submit. An ounce of prevention kind of thing 

Cheers, Ed

[SeeYou190]

dknelson

What is curious is this.  Sometimes I have spent quite a bit of time on a reply and then get the dreaded 403 Forbidden when I hit Submit your Reply.  I tried copying my posting elsewhere and coming back to it.  Then I went back and posted a different reply.  and it was allowed.  So I went back to the created document, copied my old reply and tried once again to post it as a reply.  Same problem: 403 Forbidden.  So clearly it isn't me, it isn't my computer, it isn't some other issue.  It seems to be something with the CONTENT of my reply. 

I am glad you wrote this, because I was having the same problem with Peter's incandescent lighting thread. I wrote a replay and saved it, but I could not post it on that thread.

I just posted a test response to that thread that worked.

Then I pasted THE EXACT SAME reply on this thread, and it went through.  It is obviously the content, but other factors are in play as well.

So strange.

-Kevin

[Edit: Earlier post in this thread was deleted because content was successfully posted in other thread by me.  Agree that certain html code (or combinations of code) in a post triggers the 403 error message.  What those combinations are is uncertain. ~Tom]

[maxman]

have long suspected that a Gremlin or several of his kind inhabit the Forum.  

If there is one of these in there you'd think someone would be able to spot it

[Overmod]

Here is what I've deduced so far:

There is a 'net nanny' routine running on initial new replies -- it looks for combinations of letters or words that it deems 'risque' or whatever, and blocks them.

What's interesting is that if you post anything in a reply, and then go back and edit it by pasting in the whole of the 'rejected' post... it will go through with the risque content intact.

 

[AEP528]

A 403 Forbidden is a permissions error, not a content error. Think of it as trying to access an admin function without being an admin user. 

Obviously I can't tell why it's happening, without seeing server logs. I'd speculate, without proof or evidence, that sometimes the forum editor fails to include the authentication token when it attempts to save a post.

[dknelson]

AEP528

A 403 Forbidden is a permissions error, not a content error. Think of it as trying to access an admin function without being an admin user. 

Obviously I can't tell why it's happening, without seeing server logs. I'd speculate, without proof or evidence, that sometimes the forum editor fails to include the authentication token when it attempts to save a post.

 

 

That makes sense but again, when one of my replies gets rejected with a 403 Forbidden, a different reply is immediately OK and allowed, yet a second attempt with the original rejected content is again 403 Forbidden.  All within a fairly short time frame.   So the lack of permission in question is not of me as a poster but again seems related to the content of the attempted post.

 

Dave Nelson

[BigDaddy]

I don't know what is happening but this has been going since at least Jan 2021. 

Fixing legacy software is indeed problematic and takes longer than one would think possible.  Two years and 8 months is longer than anyone would think possible.