[Vita]

URGENT. I've been hosting the monthly PF Photo Contests since Jan 2018. I think I encountered a glitch in trying to do the Voting Poll.

I checked the box for the poll to close after 7 days:




I tried it three times and it doesn't work: The Poll closes the moment I post it.




This pic below is from is from Golden Retriever Forum, where the closing date shows for their current Holiday Photo Contest:




Can you please see if this problem at my end and if so let me know what to do, or configure so it will work? Please respond as soon as possible so we can complete our December contest.

Thanks,

Vita

 

[Administrator]

I will pass on this information to the team to see if we can get to the bottom of this.

- Cricket

 

[Vita]

Thanks!

 

[Vita]

I just tried it again, Poll still not working, see screenshots:



Before I attempted to post, configured correctly to have end date of Poll in 7 days:





After posting, Poll ended the moment I posted:

 

[Mfmst]

I can’t see the pictures with your link. Will try to find the original thread.

 

[EVpoodle]

Vita said that she is working on fixing it. I found that you should just look at the original thread.

 

[Vita]

I can’t see the pictures with your link. Will try to find the original thread.

I can't upload the pics, there's some kind of weird glitch. The way the voting poll works is I write in the voting options, i.e. the names of the entries. Then I post that.

Afterwards I quickly upload each contestant entry with the photos. No point in doing that this time, since no one can vote in the Poll.

When Cricket or their IT person figures it out, I'll delete that thread and post a new one for us to vote in, with a 7-Day period to vote. I hope it's resolved this week.

 

[Administrator]

Is this the exact process you are following as the images would be added prior to the poll options.

How To Post A Poll

Navigate to the forum section where you would like to start a poll and then near the top right of it, click Start Discussion.

Start your posts as you normally would, including text and any images you might want to add.

Scroll down to “Post a poll” and click the arrow to the right of it to view poll options.

Now you can enter your poll question and begin to add possible responses. Once you add one poll response, another will open to add multiple choices.

Select how many of the possible responses members can choose and select any options you want to add including closing the poll after a certain number of days.

Click to post your thread.

- Cricket

 

[Vita]

It's inconsistent and still glitchy. I uploaded Test 2, Test 3, and Test 4 Polls.

Only Test 2 had the closing date. Note, however, there was a lag. In the first 2 or 3 seconds, it said "poll closed a moment ago", but then the closing date appeared.



**

Test 3, no closing date showed at all.

**

So I tried again, Test 4. Here's the most recent one, Test 4 screenshots showing problem

In this first photo, it was Configured to close after 2 days, before posting:




But is said Poll closed "a moment ago" as soon as I posted:




I noticed the Edit Button for the Poll and clicked it. As you can see by the screenshot, it says the Poll will close in two days, but this isn't reflected on the thread/post. I even clicked Save to see if it would repopulate correctly, but it didn't:

 

[Vita]

PoodleAdm/Cricket,

I just looked over the Test 4 Poll again. It didn't show the closing date yesterday when I uploaded the screenshots on this thread at 4:34pm. Now i shows the date (for tomorrow at 4:03 pm). This is still a problem since I won't know if or when a real Contest Poll will work or not, and end up deleting it and trying again until it sticks on first try.

On the Test 3 Poll, it still doesn't show the closing date, but Dechi said she can vote in it. The problem with running a real poll for the contest is in these cases, members won't think they can vote when it says "poll closed a moment ago".

I hope you or the staff has time to troubleshoot today or early tomorrow. Our December PF Photo Contest had really good entries by lots of contestants, and ideally the voting would have began and ended by now. Thanks.

 

[Administrator]

Hey there,

Thanks for keeping such a thorough log of the tests and applications of the poll feature. We can certainly work towards a resolution for this. We'll keep the community updated as we work towards a solution, until we can resolve this try putting the closing date as the first bit of the text in the poll comments. Not ideal, but it should help until we iron out these kinks.

Cheers,
Gerrit

 

[Vita]

Suggestion: Try consulting with the VerticalScope tech who configured the Golden Retriever Forum's photo contest voting poll. He/she may be able to spot the problem quickly on PF and fix it.

 

[Vita]

Good Monday morning, Cricket. I hope your tech team can fix the Voting Poll today. My experience from past requests in April and May is these things have a way of sliding and being forgotten; that particular problem was fixed only b/c the forum format was changed in December.

The PF Photo Contests are a nice feature for PF that I began two years ago, free as a volunteer member. I think it's worth the effort by VS to make the poll feature work perfectly so we don't lose voters due to members assuming the Poll closed. The only other dog forum that has this is the VS favorite, the Golden Retriever Forum; they appear to get more resources and time than we do, yet we are your 2nd most active pet forum. So please put this problem at the top of your to-do list for today or tomorrow and keep us posted.

Thank you.

 

[Administrator]

Hey there,

As noted, the bug has been reported; however I tried to duplicate this myself on this forum, and couldn't. You may have shared this with Cricket already, but can you tell me what Device, browser, versions, and any add-ons you're using. This will help us work towards a resolution with you.

-Gerrit

 

[Vita]

Thanks Gerrit. Did you run more than one test? I ask b/c it was fickle with me with three different outcomes.

I'm using a Windows 7 desktop with a Firefox browser.

 

[Administrator]

@Vita

We have some updates and minor bug fixes rolling out tomorrow in the afternoon. If you could try the poll again Wednesday night or Thursday morning it might resolve your issue.

Also just for the sake of trying please disable any extension, pop up blockers and clear your cache before you post and share the link here so we can verify it live as we have been unable to reproduce this on our end.

Jeff M

 

[Vita]

Jeff, thank you for this info! Fingers crossed and I'll try it again Thursday evening and follow your suggestion.

 

[Vita]

Update to PoodleAdm and members:

I am encountering problems with the free and easy photo hosting site, postimages.org, which I historically used for the contest photos. I used them b/c as a PF member, I had a limit on the number of photos I could upload using PF software, and they were small unless you clicked on a pic.

Today, I can access the Postimage.org — free image hosting / image upload site but not a single photo in any of the monthly contest albums will load, and I get a message for each photo: "503 Service Unavailable. The server is temporarily busy, please try again later."

This happened once before in March 2019 when they encountered a big jump in their server expenses and I think had to go from .com to .org., which caused a problem in links to the photos than many PF members used. Back then Yung was able add a line of code to PF, so that all postimage photos would show. It was resolved that time.

I sent them an email, and we'll see if they respond if this is temporary problem, etc.

Ideally, now that PF has a new forum format, I'd like to use PF for the photos. Is there a max on the number of pics we can upload?

Vita

 

[Vita]

PoodleAdm, I tried running a test Poll again in the past half hour.
Didn't work, please see outcome in photo below and here on.the Test 5 thread, and submit a ticket.

Thanks,
Vita

 

[Vita]

I talked with the Golden Retriever Forum photo contest host on Saturday, and she said their Voting Poll has the exact same bug. If PF and GR has it, then this is quite possibly a software problem affecting all VS forums that had the platform change. She did a workaround of having people vote anyway and writing the closing date in her first comment.

I guess I'll do that - but, my thought is the downside is some members will see the words "This poll will close: a minute ago" and move on, thinking it's too late to vote, and won't. That would be a disservice to our contestants.

So... I hope whoever wrote your program or your best tech person can fix this multiple forum bug asap. Let me know please as you find out more.

Thanks,

Vita