I've seen others complain about this and experienced it more than once myself. Generally, it occurs when composing long posts, or taking an "abnormally" long time with the "reply" window open.

I suspect that the forum software is timing out as once you attempt to post the response things simply "hang" and the post never saves.

I'm wondering if there is a "time out" setting in the forum software--I think I've seen that type of thing in forum software I've set up (Simple Machines Forum).

As a workaround, one should always either compose in Notepad or a word processor OR at least do a copy of the text before attempting to post a long response or if you've had a window open for a long time.

yeah the forums has been known binge eating some posts. I'll pass this on to admin, since I have no clue about a time out setting.

To copy and paste is a good idea, I also just hit the back button and try sending again.

Yes, hitting the back button often (but not always) allows one the chance to copy the text. It's not been my experience, though, that the post will ever "go through" at that point, even after resubmitting it. Generally I'll have to close it, refresh and open a new reply, pasting in the text that I've copied.

This behavoir happens on my both my new Dell i7 running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit (Explorer 9 Beta) as well as my home laptop running XP Pro (Explorer 8).

This has happened to me before. I always copy before posting just in case the back button fails to bring my text back.

I always thought it was caused by a blip in internet connection.

Copying before hitting Submit Reply is the safest thing to do, but sometimes it's easy to forget.

I have a 10 gig fiber connection at work, so I don't think it's the Internet (perhaps Al Gore is flipping the Internet switch on and off--that jolly prankster?)

yep yep, most forum default timeout at any where between 5 to 10 mins.

When I start to feel like I've been typing a while, and have more to say, I'll post and then edit.