Back button issue: Multiple users (cpradio, elberet, TechnoBear, purldator, sam, JSey, danwad, jaming, and dkf) are experiencing issues with the back button on Discourse, where it occasionally takes them to the wrong page (two pages back in their history instead of one). This issue affects both mobile and desktop users, across various browsers (Chrome, IE11, Firefox) and platforms (Android, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 7, OSX).
Users have reported that the issue is intermittent and can be reproduced by quickly hitting the back button after entering a topic or using the <kbd>u</kbd> shortcut key. jaming and Mittineague have provided reproducible steps, which involve clicking the back button before a topic loads or using the backspace key on desktop Chrome.
The issue has been reported before (#18034 and #9829), but a fix is now in the works, thanks to eviltrout, who has committed a fix to the master branch.
Okay, I don’t think this is just me any more. I’ve been having this odd experience on mobile and on a desktop for a few days now here at Meta.
Whenever I use the back button on my mobile (Android using Chrome) or if I use the u shortcut on a desktop, I’m occasionally taken to the wrong page (think 2 pages in my history instead of 1 page back in my history).
I don’t have easily reproducible steps other than, use it for a while and see what happens, but here is my typical workflow that causes it (after you use it for a while)
Navigate to Latest
Click on a topic
Read topic, press u
You should be back to latest
Click on the same topic you just read
Press u
You should be back to latest (but you might not be)
I’ve also been experiencing the same thing, but you know me - I’ve just been assuming I must have done something wrong. Nice to know I’m not alone here after all.
Adding more voices that it has happened to me as well. Intermittent but enough to remember. Didn’t know if it was just me or if the Matrix is actually having a glitch, heh.
I can repo this on my Win 8.1 Desktop using IE11 & Chrome. I don’t think the problem is contained to this, but the easiest way to repo this is to quickly hit the back button after entering a topic. You will go back to the topic list and after less than a second the url will be update from /latest to the url for topic you were just loaded even though you are on the latest view.
Though I had to “force” it as this has never naturally happened to me
From latest click on topic before the topic loads, click back
Address bar updates to topic URL although really on Latest
Click on a topic letting it load
Click back
Goes to URL that was in address bar
I’ve been seeing this fairly frequently for a week or two (Chrome, just a bit behind current, OSX) but not every time I go back a page. Just enough times a day to be really annoying. If I ever figure out how to get a reliable reproduction I’ll say more.