Very Limited Editing Capability

I'm currently unable to edit pages above a certain (fairly short) length due to my connection timing out, despite having a reasonably fast (10.0 mbps) Internet at all other times. I'm using Firefox on this computer, although the version of Internet Explorer on the university computers has the same problem. Recently-edited pages seem to be easier to alter, though that's by no means a guarantee.

Any suggestions, please?

Assuming that it's keeping the edit window open that's causing the problem, it's a work-around rather than a solution, but try this:

Hit the "View Page Source" button (the left most button on the second row), copy the section you want to edit, paste it into Notepad or Word or whatever text editor you choose, make your edits, then open the edit window and do a quick cut and paste.

What page(s) are you working on? It could be that these pages are taking a long time to parse and format.

I tried the cut-and-paste idea, although that still only works very occasionally, and certainly not with the bigger pages. Last one I tried to edit was Screw the Rules, I Have Money!, and Straw Feminist before that.

Those have acceptable parse/format times. What leads you to believe it is timeout? Is there an error message stating so, or does the page just go white and this is your guess about a cause?

Better way to ask: What, specifically, is happening?

edited 10th Oct '10 12:24:01 PM by FastEddie

Sometimes it just goes white, sometimes I get a message saying the connection timed out.

For Bleach, it was timeouts. For Star Driver, which I just tried editing, it was whitescreens with increasing regularity until I couldn't add anything further.

EDIT: Huh, that edit on the Star Driver page worked. Looks like it might be random on that one.

edited 10th Oct '10 1:13:04 PM by Iaculus

I just change a server configuration parameter that may help. It will be interesting to see if it did.

Ah? Right then, let's give this thing a go. I'll stick with the Star Driver page, since I was getting interestingly mixed results with that.

EDIT: OK, two edit attempts, two timeouts. Doesn't seem to have changed much.

edited 10th Oct '10 1:46:04 PM by Iaculus

Are you using wifi? Perhaps you are getting connection drops.

Well, I was before I came to university, but not since then. On-campus internet involves cables and suchlike. Plus, it's been like this for over a week. Those would have to be some very, very frequent drops... which wouldn't make sense unless I was also having difficulty with the rest of the Internet. And I'm not.

edited 10th Oct '10 2:00:04 PM by Iaculus

My on-campus internet is filtered in such a way that sometimes packets get lost in the filtering software, resulting in exactly what you describe during peak hours - blank pages, pages only partially loading, pages saying they don't exist. During the middle of the day when most people are in class it's fine. Do you do your editing at a certain time of day? Also it's more noticable in sites that are more complex - a simple page of text will load okay easier than a facebook page or worse, a flash game.