Answered by:
"Select a Forum Category" Empty

Question
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Quite often when I go to post a question, it will have the screen with Title and Body, and underneath that it has Select a Forum Category with an empty box. Try as I might when this happens I cannot get it to accept my question. I cannot type into it; it requires a selection, and there is no way I can select a forum because the list is empty so there are none to choose from. I have tried going back to the Forums Home and reselecting the right forum; I try clicking on My Forums or My Forum's Threads in the navigator to the right, but no matter what, when I click on Ask A Question, that empty selection is on the screen I get.
Eventually I give up and when I come back later, even through the same bookmark, I go into the appropriate forum, click Ask A Question and, instead of any selection box, the text beneath Body is "Post this to: " and the correct forum name. It already knows! Why doesn't it pick it up from the forum I am in at other times and, even if it can't, why doesn't it display a list of the forums for me to choose from?
Is this a known problem?
Answers
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Hi Brent. I have just received notice of this message you posted some months ago. I wish I could be more help but I changed jobs not long after it was posted and I am not able to repeat the problem here and now. As I said above, it happened "often" but not all the time. (I would estimate about 25% or more though, from memory.) However, I am not even on the same network now, let alone the same machine environment, so I doubt if I would be able to recreate it. I am just replying out of courtesy so that you will know your message was eventually received.
- Proposed as answer by Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, November 7, 2011 9:52 PM
- Marked as answer by Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, November 7, 2011 9:53 PM
All replies
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Surely I can't be the only one this happens to?
Others have reported something similar on Answers but no one seems to have bothered trying to diagnose it. I would suspect an environmental issue. E.g. have you tried running in No Add-ons mode or any other troubleshooting procedures? A different approach would be to use the Developer Tools to see what it looks like when it's working normally and then compare what it looks like when it fails. Another approach would be to run Fiddler2, capture both cases and compare them. Etc.
Good luckRobert
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Thanks again for your suggestions but all those things you mention are outside my experience and, with respect, not what my employer pays me to do.
I just thought I'd mention it here as a problem in case there was a quick fix or to highlight the issue to whoever runs this website in case they wanted to do something about it (in which case your time and help will have been of benefit to them and, on your behalf, I hope they recognise it).
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What's the url when you are trying to post. That will help us figure this out maybe.
Community Forums Program Manager- Proposed as answer by Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Saturday, October 29, 2011 8:02 AM
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Hi Brent. I have just received notice of this message you posted some months ago. I wish I could be more help but I changed jobs not long after it was posted and I am not able to repeat the problem here and now. As I said above, it happened "often" but not all the time. (I would estimate about 25% or more though, from memory.) However, I am not even on the same network now, let alone the same machine environment, so I doubt if I would be able to recreate it. I am just replying out of courtesy so that you will know your message was eventually received.
- Proposed as answer by Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, November 7, 2011 9:52 PM
- Marked as answer by Ed Price - MSFTMicrosoft employee Monday, November 7, 2011 9:53 PM