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Under some circumstances, when posting an answer and using the browser's back button, hitting the 'Post Your Answer' button again results in the answer being posted twice. This happened to me here by accident; I thought I was editing my original answer. I was able to reproduce it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEafIYCq8os

(note the orange banner which appears halfway, AFAICR it didn't appear when I first experienced the bug on Meta Stack Overflow)

This bug report looks similar: I was posting an answer, but it ended up appearing twice under a different question - bug? but it has so I'm not sure.

I would expect the Answer form to have some kind of GUID which prevents a form from being submitted twice, or that hitting the back button would empty the form. Either way would be a good solution to prevent this behaviour.

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4
  • 2
    This is one of those "so just don't do it" bugs. SE can't really and shouldn't fix mistakes done by the users, IMO.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Nov 7, 2019 at 11:27
  • 1
    Did you post identical answers? I'm sure they block those - I have done this (press back, try to submit answer) accidentally and was greeted with a message that it's too similar to an existing answer or something to that effect
    – muru
    Nov 7, 2019 at 16:04
  • It happens to the best ...
    – rene
    Nov 7, 2019 at 17:19
  • 7
    Definitely a bug that needs fixing, not a “let’s blame the user” moment.
    – user215040
    Nov 7, 2019 at 18:56

2 Answers 2

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Testing "back-button theory"

If you see this post, it is because I just posted an answer (here) and hit the "back" button to edit it. This sequence of activity will (theoretically) create a second post (this one).

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Write an answer
  2. Click Post Your Answer
  3. Notice an omission or improvement and click the browser 'back' button to edit
  4. (the previous answer appears in the text editor): edit your answer
  5. Click Post Your Answer

You will see a second, new answer posted

Conclusion:

confirmed

This and similar reports were previously marked , but I've since recreated this effect (usually inadvertently) many times.

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2

Test post, please ignore. Testing back-button theory (revisited).

See the results in my answer here: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/337727/98786

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