CAPTCHA problem

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When will this be fixed?

I would tell you, if I had a clue.

It is part of a site feature that, apparently, goes beyond spam blocking.

Judging by how Cloudfront (or Cloudflare or whatever it calls itself) treats me and many other folks on this site, it's some kind of spambot stopper that's either got a few grievous bugs or has just been written by somebody who doesn't care about the frustration and harm it does to genuine posters. It typically seems to affect veteran members attempting to make medium-to-long-sized posts, by making them complete "one more step" which starts as a simple checkbox ("I'm not a robot") and then demands another step (a rather difficult capcha puzzle), then another, and deletes a lot of what the poster has written, in such a way as to render it unrecoverable even by using the "back" button. And it still doesn't let the post go through.

The only workarounds I've found are to copy the post before hitting "submit" and then splitting the post into smaller chunks and submitting them one by one, with an apology for the split posting and a very brief explanation pointing to CLoudCrap as the culprit.

Sadly, although it's been annoying us for quite a while, nobody with enough power round here has fixed it or (AFAIK) responded in any way to the users' reports of the problem. If anybody wants to start a petition about this issue, I'd be happy to sign it if I'm made aware of its existence. It sucks.

Yes, that's the worst part, that even once you verify that you are human, the system still won't let your post go through. My workaround is mostly to avoid quoting other people as much as possible. Especially if I have to refer to more than one person. If I need their quotes, I will just do it manually with quotation marks, and try to make short quotes. If my post is short enough, and I'm only making one short quote to one person, then the built-in "method seems to work OK.

The part that bothers me is that my poor eyesite won't allow me to tell the difference between a salad and a bouqete of flowers, for example.

That must be troublesome at mealtimes and on Mother's Day. But seriously, I have fairly good close-up vision when I wear my reading glasses, yet I still find those picture puzzles almost impossible.

I've been toying with the idea of using italics for multiple quotes. It takes a little longer to add the posters' names, but compared with getting caught in the capcha trap, it's probably a price worth paying. To give credit where it's due, I've not seen the dreaded, lying "just one more step" message for over a week now, but it'll be a long time before I trust WP again in that respect. Just give me five minutes in a dark alleyway with an iron bar and the author of that abomination......

I have had this problem, and I find that there is a way to get around it (which has always worked for me).
1. Write message to post
2. Copy message
3. Click 'Submit' button
CAPTCHA comes up.
4. Click 'I am not a robot' box
5. Complete puzzle and click 'Verify' button
CAPTCHA deletes message and reverts to 'Post a reply' page.
6. Click 'Cancel' button
7. Click 'Post Reply' button
8. Paste the message text
9. Click 'Submit' button
CAPTCHA does not come up and message is posted.

This works for me.

^
I like that. Maybe the capcha becomes temporarily fatigued between its attacks? But personally I hate it so much that I usually refuse to check its box. It would stick in my throat to dignify it thus. I can be irrational like that when I'm angry.

Update:
I was beginning to think we were flogging a dead horse here, but it's still alive and kicking, as I found out today. Using italics instead of "proper" quotes didn't help at all, at least not this time. FandomConnection, I swallowed my pride and checked its nasty little "I'm human" box, that didn't work either. I followed your protocol as far as I could, but no joy - not surprising, as step 5 proved too much for my little brain - I'm crap at those horrible picture puzzles. Yet every other source of capchas I've ever encountered have been much more sensible and I've rarely even had to get a new one in order to get to the goodies. Anyway, I divided the long post I wanted to make today into 2, and that worked.

Have you ever tried the audio challenge instead?

Well, it might be no easier than my existing workaround, and for some reason I view the Capcha monster as if it were an evil person who I don't want to appease by pandering to its dictats. I'm belligerent and irrational like that. But I might well find myself in a mellow mood and with a bit of spare time........what are the audio puzzles like?

The.audio puzzles are easier than many I've seen. Also, I tried filling out Captcha, then hitting Cancel on the Post A Reply screen, then doing Post A Reply again, to no avail.

Nothing wrong with my eyesight, but when I post from a device with a small screen...

That's a shame. It seems that many of these workarounds do a fair job for some of the people some of the time, just enough to tempt the user to distribute the method. I'm still usually capcha-free as long as I refrain from using "proper" quotes and writing long posts. I've noticed that using italics instead of "proper" quotes isn't always enough.

I just got CAPTCHA'd. Wasn't even a huge post but it deleted it. Had to retype it. Hmph.