topic Re: Damn Lithium! in Community Site Feedback

Damn Lithium!

pvmb — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 16:05:21 GMT

I know there is no point now but I just have to let off steam about damned Lithium!

What exactly is the point of forum software that seems mainly dedicated to discouraging posting on a forum?

Apart from when composing any posts whatsoever I have to avoid so much as looking at any 'wrong type of keys' - or else BANG! That's the end of that post.

Apart from when quoting posts I have to always remember to start the post with a SPACE or NEWLINE before I do anything else, or I just get caught in the...

Quote Repeat
Quote Repeat
Quote Repeat
Quote Repeat

...line forever.

But why exactly does Lithium randomly decide to put up this silly and annoying box during editing:

Reload site?
Changes you made may not be saved.
X Prevent this page from creating additional dialogues
Reload Cancel

Touch anything you shouldn't when this appears (what SHOULD you touch?) and BANG! There goes another post.

OK. I know nobody really knows the answer to any of these mysteries. It's just Lithium.

Re: Damn Lithium!

jab1 — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 16:14:44 GMT

I know it doesn't answer your question, but I don't encounter any of the issues you raise above, and I haven't seen anyone else mention them either.

Re: Damn Lithium!

pvmb — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 17:44:01 GMT

...Well, if that is true, then it's even weirder than I thought! 😮

P.S. Had Lithium pop up nuisance box during this post. Time to get paranoid?

Apparently, wrt that pop up nuisance box - which I only ever encounter posting on this forum:

javascript - How to disable a "Reload site? Changes you made may not be saved" popup for (python) selenium tests in chrome? - Stack Overflow

"This popup with text as Reload site? Changes you made may not be saved is the implementation of onbeforeunload property of WindowEventHandlers

onbeforeunload

The onbeforeunload property of the WindowEventHandlers mixin is the EventHandler for processing beforeunload events. These events fire when a window is about to unload its resources. At this point, the document is still visible and the event is still cancelable.

Solution

There are different strategies available to handle this popup.

Chrome solution: Using --disable-popup-blocking through ChromeOptions():

from selenium import webdriver

options.add_argument("--disable-popup-blocking")
driver=webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options, executable_path=/path/to/chromedriver')

Firefox solution: Using dom.disable_beforeunload through FirefoxProfile():

from selenium import webdriver
profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
profile.set_preference("dom.disable_beforeunload", True)
driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile = profile)

Cross Browser solution: As a Cross Browser solution, you can disable this dialog invoking the executeScript() to set window.onbeforeunload as function() {}; and you can use the following solution:
```
driver.execute_script("window.onbeforeunload = function() {};")
```

JQuery based solution:

$I->executeJS( "window.onbeforeunload = null" );

You can find a relevant discussion in How to handle below Internet Explorer popup “Are you sure you want to leave this page?” through Selenium

--undetected Selenium"

🙄

Plus:

Disable annoying "Leave site? Changes you made may not be saved" Pop-up

https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/jjg1wp/disable_annoying_leave_site_changes_you_made_may/

I like that extension name: "Let me out".

Re: Damn Lithium!

dvorak — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 18:44:11 GMT

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Plusnet Feedback to Community Feedback.

Re: Damn Lithium!

pvmb — Sat, 02 May 2026 13:19:43 GMT

@jab1 wrote:

I know it doesn't answer your question, but I don't encounter any of the issues you raise above, and I haven't seen anyone else mention them either.

FWIW - You may(?) be correct that these faults (there are many) are more down to possibly MS than Lithium, however, it is only while using Lithium they are apparent to me!

There are endless, random, tiresome, fiddle-faddles I have to go through, posting on this Lithium forum, whatever the root cause is.

Re: Damn Lithium!

7up — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 20:41:11 GMT

Years ago the plusnet forum was based on Simple Machines Forum (aka SMF) and it was really out of date, simpler to use (though more effective in so many ways) and eventually even plusnet decided they'd had enough.

So then they decided to use this Lithium abomination which went through a trial phase with trial users (I was invited but turned it down when I was sent a contract from BT) where all the quirks were supposed to be ironed out etc.

Then it was revealed to us as the new forum.. and within a few weeks quite a lot of us were becoming agitated with it. Unfortunately it's not going to go away as it's tied into some of plusnets internal systems so we're now stuck with it.

What I've noticed though is that over the years this forum has become a lot quieter, some of which was caused by this lithium 'thing' and some was caused by a change of moderators with some becoming a little overly keen to use their new powers.

Re: Damn Lithium!

jab1 — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 20:54:14 GMT

@7up I, personally, don't have any real issues with the forum software, although I do have issues with some of the recent 'improvements' - read BT Group changes.

Re: Damn Lithium!

Townman — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:40:03 GMT

@7up

To some extent that is a core issue with this forum - unlike SMF this space is NOT integrated with Plusnet’s business systems. It does though have a good deal of Plusnet customisation in the skin / UI.

Problems with the mods? I would suggest that they are at times rather relaxed about things, strictly sticking to the rules (or absence thereof). Whatever theirs is a thankless task and whichever way they turn, someone will disagree.

Re: Damn Lithium!

Mav — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:35:26 GMT

@7up wrote:

What I've noticed though is that over the years this forum has become a lot quieter, some of which was caused by this lithium 'thing' and some was caused by a change of moderators with some becoming a little overly keen to use their new powers.

There wasn't a change of any of the moderators at the time of switchover which was April 2016. I was the latest addition to the Moderation Team back in November 2015. As far as I remember no new powers were handed to moderators at switchover, either.