If you’re getting the “confirm form resubmission” dialog popup, it typically occurs on Chrome on refresh or after pressing a back button.
Though it’s been seen on other browsers like Firefox:
It will also sometimes provide the error code “ERR_CACHE_MISS”. It’s not so much an error, however, more of a ‘feature’, according to Super User posters who have investigated the issue.
Whatever the case, many internet users are trying to figure out how to turn it off. First, let’s take a look at why it happens.
Why Does It Happen
According to a Super User poster, Chrome introduced this “feature” to prevent browsers from accidentally duplicating POST actions on forms.
For example, buying the same item twice. If you refresh a page after buying something, your credit card could be charged twice if you weren’t asked to “confirm form resubmission”.
Getting more technical, the user says that there was a fix on earlier Chrome invocations that leveraged the -disable-prompt-on-repost parameter, but this also was broken in later versions.
Further, despite many Chrome user complaints and bug reports this issue has remained persistent.
Complicating it, this Super User poster says, is that the Chrome module that does back/forward is built so poorly that it is nearly impossible to fix.
And no Google developer is brave enough to rewrite it from scratch.
How To Fix It
Solution #1 (Super User Theories)
The Super User says that if you can’t actually modify the page containing the POST operation, then there really isn’t any solution.
On the other hand, he says, if you can modify the page there are two potential solutions:
- Employ GET instead of POST
- Employ the Post/Redirect/Get method with the HTTP 303 response code
If you’re just a regular browser, that’s obviously not much help. Let’s move on to the next fix.
Solution #2 (Google Forum Fix)
One Chrome user over in the Google Product Forum user said this ‘feature’ has developed into real annoyance.
He’s encountering the message on a regular basis and would like to disable this function. It requires him to reload a web-page whenever he navigated back to a dynamically created page.
He criticized it as extremely irritating due to the fact all sorts of pages will trigger the message.
A user posted the following fix. Use it at your own discretion:
- Right-click on your Chrome shortcut icon and select Properties
- In the target field, add in: “-disable-prompt-on-repost” (no quotes after chrome.exe)
He provided an example- his target field looked like:
C:UsersJohnAppDataLocalGoogleChromeApplicationchrome.exe -disable-prompt-on-repost
Close down and re-open Chrome using the shortcut and see if you encounter the problem again.
Solution #3 (Don’t Use The Back Button)
Another workaround comes from a Chrome user who explained that this isn’t a bug but occurs because Chrome does not cache POST.
The workaround, in order to “disable” it, Chrome browsers should stop using the back button after you have submitted a form.
Solution #4 (Update Google Chrome)
A Google Product Forum user writes that many of these confirm form resubmission issues have been cleared out with Google Chrome updates- so it’s a good idea to check your current version and update if possible:
While it seems many of the original complaints about this resubmission issue are quite old, bug reports keep popping up.
This clearly isn’t a conventional error, it would seem- more of a feature to prevent users from re-submitting forms that could lead to unintentional credit card charges!
How To Prevent POST On Reloading A Form
For a more technical explanation, the Dave Hollingworth YouTuber provides a lecture on the subject.
He says if you’re looking to prevent POST on reload, if you press the reload button after a form has been submitted you could see a message warning you that the internet browser must resend data to be able to show the webpage again.
This error message is displayed for internet pages which are loaded because of forms submitted using POST.
It is presented to notify the user that if the webpage is reloaded, the form data will be submitted once again, which may replicate any action that was taken.
For example like charging a credit card, placing an order from an e-commerce site, sending a verification, etc.
The thrust of the problem is that the internet browser fills out the form, clicks Submit, which in turn sends the form data using POST.
The scripts on the server take the action and, in the same script, transmits a verification page back to the internet browser.
Then when the user refreshes the page, they are refreshing this script, the alert is shown, the form data is reposted and also the script carries out again.
Any action that was taken will occur again.
The YouTuber walks you through an example- a simple form with a charge card number that is submitting its data to this script and in this script, the hypothetical buyer is doing something which must only occur once.
Once the charge has been made, and if the user then presses refresh, they’ll get the message that POST data is going to be resent.
The problem occurs when many computer users who aren’t very tech savvy will just press re-send which could end up charging the credit card over and over again.
To fix this, the YouTuber explains that you need to employ a POST redirect get pattern following running the POST data- watch the video for the full tech tutorial!