A discard confirmation modal appears when clicking ‘New Post’ if a post is pending approval

Contribute Fout
1

A discard post confirmation modal (see below images) is shown after clicking ‘New Post’ or ‘Reply’ action in a certain topic if you have a pending post for approval.

image
image1656×608 33.5 KB

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Create a new post that requires admin/moderator approval.

  2. After submitting the post, click “New Post.”

  3. A discard post confirmation modal appears.

  4. Click Cancel on the modal.

  5. Click “New Post” again — the discard confirmation modal appears again.

  6. Click Cancel again.

  7. Try to reply to any post.

Actual Result:

  • The discard post confirmation modal still appears, even when replying to a post.

Expected Result (?):

  • The user should be able to create a new post or reply to existing posts normally without seeing the discard confirmation modal.

Workaround:

  • The user refresh the page to remove the modal confirmation.

Discourse Version: 2026.1.0

3 likes
2

This happened to me today, too. Instead of refreshing, you can also click ‘discard,’ but I agree that this creates the impression you will lose your pending post.

The user experience is really confusing.

3 likes
3

I agree with you here , but there is something holistic about this process that does not feel right to me @lindsey / @mcwumbly

We need to think through the whole experience for the actual end user when a community managers requires post approval.

At the moment it can feel so hostile that you just bounce users off which is never the intent.

Eg:

  • After I posted was it clear to me that my post is in a queue
  • Is it clear to me when it is expected to be reviewed
  • Will I be notified when it is approved, if so how
  • What if I post more?
  • How do I find my pending approval posts?
  • Is the composer being weird?
1 like
5

This bug is pretty bad — as far as I can tell, if you have a pending post, you can’t post really at all:

  • You can’t post again in that same approval-required category
  • You can’t create a new topic in another category
  • You can’t reply in another category

The good news is that you don’t actually lose the post if you click Discard when prompted — it is still accessible in the admin’s review queue and appears as expected when approved — but it’s obviously a super confusing user experience, and this pop-up appears after:

image
image1279×455 21.8 KB

I think we should loop in an engineer to take it from here for the bug fix, and then I can pick back up with looking at the overall process that @sam wanted to look into.

However, I do have a few notes there so far:

Yes, there’s a pop-up notification after submitting the post:

image
image627×309 16.6 KB

No, there’s no indication of how long it might take to be reviewed.

Yes, you get a notification when the post is approved:

image
image392×144 8.6 KB

Right now, you can’t — because of the bug :slight_smile:

Right now, they are listed in your drafts.

image
image562×178 14.9 KB

However, if you try to open the draft, you get the same “Do you want to discard your post?” message. I wonder if it’s expected that these would show in drafts?

I’m not sure if this is a composer problem or not at this point.

8

I am surprised yours aren’t in my/activity/pending which is where I usually find pending posts, for example, when I posted a theme component here on Meta. The fact that the post is in drafts seems like part of the bug.

Screenshot_20260324_193006_Firefox
Screenshot_20260324_193006_Firefox1830×673 155 KB

9

Yes, I agree, I think capturing these as drafts is incorrect.

1 like
11

I have a fix in the works - @martin what do you think?

2 likes