Rich Text Editor changes are lost on second Save and preview: preview shows old content until full page reload

[renaldas]

Which Umbraco version are you using?

16.2

Bug summary

When editing a content node with a Rich Text Editor (RTE), the first Save and preview correctly opens the preview pane with the latest changes. However, after returning to the editor and making further edits, clicking Save and preview again opens the preview but the new changes are missing (it shows the previous state). The updated content only appears after fully reloading the backoffice page.

This makes iterative previewing unreliable and can cause editors to think their changes were not saved.

Specifics

Repro video: “umbraco_16.2 bug.mp4” (shows first preview OK, second preview loses new edits until backoffice reload).

umbraco_16.2.bug.mp4

Steps to reproduce

Steps to reproduce

Open any content node that has a Rich Text Editor property.

Type some text in the RTE.

Click Save and preview → preview opens and shows the new text (OK).

Leave preview window (tab open) and return to the editor.

Modify the RTE content again (e.g., add/remove words).

Click Save and preview once more.

Expected result / actual result

The preview should show the latest RTE content on every Save and preview, without needing to reload.

[github-actions]

Hi there @renaldas!

Firstly, a big thank you for raising this issue. Every piece of feedback we receive helps us to make Umbraco better.

We really appreciate your patience while we wait for our team to have a look at this but we wanted to let you know that we see this and share with you the plan for what comes next.

• We'll assess whether this issue relates to something that has already been fixed in a later version of the release that it has been raised for.
• If it's a bug, is it related to a release that we are actively supporting or is it related to a release that's in the end-of-life or security-only phase?
• We'll replicate the issue to ensure that the problem is as described.
• We'll decide whether the behavior is an issue or if the behavior is intended.

We wish we could work with everyone directly and assess your issue immediately but we're in the fortunate position of having lots of contributions to work with and only a few humans who are able to do it. We are making progress though and in the meantime, we will keep you in the loop and let you know when we have any questions.

Thanks, from your friendly Umbraco GitHub bot 🤖 🙂

[leekelleher]

@renaldas Thanks for reporting this, I appreciate the frustration.

I have only watched your repro video so far, the part I noticed is that when the preview tab/window reverts back to the "lorem ipsum", the URL changes, showing only the content item's Guid ID, (doesn't contain "/preview?id=" part) and the preview menu at the bottom has disappeared. This sounds the same as issue #19443.

I'll investigate this further.

[leekelleher]

Update on this issue, it does look to be the same issue as #19443, so I'll close this one off.
The good news is that we do have a fix in PR #20561.