Oh the irony... My lost post on steemit vulnerabilites through the centralized aspects
So I just wrote a post explaining some vulnerabilities to steem blockchain data, mainly pointing out that only the aspects that are on a centralized host such as videos, and images are potentially vulnerable. I explained this in some detail and offered some tips on how to approach posts if these images and videos are critical to your post and you want them also preserved.
I posted the post... it actually used the same image above. (without the big X and have you seen this post part)
It appeared BRIEFLY at the top of my blog. By briefly for about 2 seconds and then it was gone. Then I refreshed and it popped in briefly again and I clicked on it real quick only to receive a SORRY THIS PAGE DOES NOT EXIST.
Then I refreshed my feed and I saw a resteem symbol, no image, not title, etc at the top of my feed, and then that disappeared.
I have heard people talking about disappearing posts. This is the first time it happened to me. I posted it using Firefox on a Windows 10 computer.
EDIT: Here is an image I just grabbed from steemdb.com:
It occurred somewhere in the spot above that top most curation reward and the dwinblood posted on steemit message, as that notification is about this post you are reading.
There was another post that isn't even showing on steemdb, no hint of it.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmWc8U4ZhHmzGiNDFgvq2UeSEHT1x9bheZ56rPAPhDH4eX/image.png)
Hi @dwinblood,
Many people having issues like that, even myself at once. The developers are aware and already working on the problem.
As much as I understand, the problem is that sometimes the witness who receives the transactions can not include all of them into the block he creates. And those remaining transactions never make it to the blockchain because the next block will be assembled by another witness.
For more info, check out on Github: New blogpost never made it to the blockchain #1532
I use mdCharm to format and save before posting, just in case, but I've never stumbled on a lost post. My son has, though, and I'm pretty sure I've seen the same thing with some of my votes. I also used to see it when mining was enabled. My miner would get 1 or 2 entries into the miners' witness list, then disappear.
With mining, I always assumed it had to do with the consensus process. i.e. I got on a short chain that got replaced by someone else on a longer chain.
Not sure if the issue is the same for posting and voting (and transfers?). You would hope that the web site would hold a copy of the the transaction until the witnesses all reached consensus - then resubmit if necessary.
mdCharm looks very cool. I will have to try it.
That happened to me a couple days ago.
everything the last 2 days I have posted has said 6min old too.
something is screwing up.
I have learned after my experience that it is important to copy and paste stuff onto a note pad b4 posting.
this morning it did it to a comment I made, had to go into the edit tab 2 times b4 it would show up at all.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@skeptic/first-post-dissapeared-second-try-did-this
https://steemit.com/steemit/@skeptic/i-wrote-a-post-but-it-disapeared
Just a thought: instead of copy-pasting in a notepad, I can recommend writing your posts in a Google doc. It's all saved in the cloud, so you can never lose it.
that's a good idea.
I already use notepad so I can easily copy and past all my picts into the post as im writing it but if I didn't that sounds like an easy solution.
:D
I think primarily we use notepad as a backup we can do a select all, copy, and paste to try to repost the same thing on steemit, busy, etc. So it is not intended as permanent storage. I use Google Docs for a lot of things but with regard to this problem I think most of us simply need a backup we can go to if the post is LOST for whatever reason so we can try again.
writing something 2 times after you spent 3 hours on the original is depressing.
Damn. I can feel your pain but there has been so many report already. Plus report or not it's a big no-no to write a big post directly on any website without using a word processor of some sort.
Steem on @dwinblood!
Fortunately in my case the post was not that large.
Hm. 2 days ago we experienced Image server link error, where the images we posted up but was not able to show in Steemit main site.
A couple of hours back when I tried posting a reply, it got stuck, like the page just froze, and when I refreshed it, the POSTDATA was never fired and the things wrote in the box is still there. Whew!
After reading this post of yours I guess the best way to do is to create a copy of what we have posted and set it aside incase it disappears again. I usually write a draft but with images, I will upload it on another site unless those are screen captures that is worth losing.
This is getting really odd for Steemit platform.
@dwinblood I've simply been selecting everything & copying it in the Markdown window and then if I hit POST & it disappears, I just paste it back in, add the tags and title & hit post again.
Yeah I have done that before since I started here just out of habit. Yet I've not really had problems with anything blowing up in about a year. That's pretty good considering how active I am. So I tend to only do that with really long things that took me a ton of work to produce... even some of those I don't.
So I know how to protect myself as this is a common process for any of us that have been dealing with WEB FORMS for years. The reaction though seemed a little weird. Like why did it appear in my blogs list of posts for a bit if there wasn't anything actually there to view? If the block was simply lost you would think it shouldn't have momentarily appeared there. Yet, it did.
This is very odd. :)
Yes, the short appearance, disappearance thing is odd.
It would make more sense if it just dropped into nowhere.
Yeah that short appearance thing and then disappearing doesn't really fit with the witness narrative I've read. I think something a bit stranger is going on. It is almost like it is there for a moment, but then consensus kicks in and decides it shouldn't be there.
Know how I write? I notepad++ it up, and I save all my posts so I have them if I want to find something easily. So if a post doesn't get posted to Steem chain, I can still report it right after as I don't lose anything :)
Yeah I write them up in the box on the website and then if I remember select all and actually copy it to Notepad++ myself. I could just write them there and I may start doing that myself.
However, once images and such are in I'd need to copy it back to notepad++ to preserve those links as well unless I simply go back to the older method of sticking my images somewhere like imgur.com and putting the image links into my post manually. I could do all of that with Notepad++
Yeah I do it that old way with imgur lol, since I do alignment. Otherwise, I just do
//label
to indicate where to put the image if its full size no float with a drag-n-drop.Yeah, happened to me as well. That's why I always keep my posts saved on a word document before posting.
The irony, just happened again a minute ago ^^ (pff, am I glad I got it backed up)
Do you have any guesses as to what's causing this? I wonder if there's a misconfigured witness or something.
I don't know. I do know some witnesses do read my blog occasionally which is why I included as much information as I could find with this post.
Speak of the devil, I JUST made a post that disappeared. Might've been some kind of hiccup server side? Thankfully I was able to just copy/paste it over again.
Yeah, mine I didn't copy into a notepad. I have done so before, but in over a year this is the first post I've ever lost.