Post/Page Publish/Update button not clickable once I make an edit

Question

I open a page and make an edit and the update button becomes grayed out. I have to copy all page content, refresh the page and paste it back in the page, only then does the update button become clickable. It does update the page so there is no issue with that.

Only when making the initial edit is in not clickable.

Update: I was able to recreate the issue, but not faithfully. It seems to occur when the page is trying to auto save. It would begin to autosave and then hang.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Has anyone encountered something similar?

Answer 1

Once I realized it was an issue related to the Page/Post autosave, and not something to do with pasting the data from a text editor, I disabled all plugins to determine if that would be the cause. Disabling the plugins did not seem to have an effect.

No errors were reported in the browser error console.

I manually updated the Wordpress installation and this seems to have fixed the issue. Unfortunatley I do not understand why, none of the files replaced were ever edited by me.

Answer 2

It appears to be a bug, but one that can be hacked around each time it happens with about 2 seconds of work. This wordpress forum thread:

If you're using Chrome, right-click on the greyed-out "Update" button and select "Inspect Element". You will see something to the likes of:

<input name="save" type="submit" class="button button-primary button-large disabled" id="publish" accesskey="p" value="Update">

Just delete the word disabled and the update button will become clickable again. Click it and it should update.

Saved me reloading and losing work.

See also this less resolved thread.

Answer 3

I registered a function in the save_post hook via

add_action('save_post', 'my_function', 10, 3);

In the function itself I did nothing, except logging for testing reasons, and the button still became disabled, once the autosave (and my function was triggered).

My function was also called peridodically ~20-30s according to the logs.

I deregisterd my function and the button worked flawlessly again.

It turned out, the logging to error_log/syslog itself was the problem. When I disabled my custom log function, my code and the registered function worked, and the button never became disabled again.

Answer 4

This problem is often due to a sucuri firewall perceiving your actions as malicious. If you have a sucuri firewall either directly or through some other provider, you need to whitelist your IP address and the problem will end.

Answer 5

Regarding the grayed out Update button, it is often the result of a sucuri firewall viewing your changes as malicious and my problem was resolved once I clicked on a URL supplied by sucuri while I was logged into my site which whitelisted my IP address so that the grayed out Update button would no longer happen. I suggest you contact sucuri or the vendor that uses sucuri to provide your firewall and ask to get your IP address whitelisted.