Copy Post: Editor seems to revert title and content changes when saving

[pauljacobson]

Quick summary

There's a confusing user experience issue when copying posts in the WordPress dashboard. When a user copies a post and modifies the title of the copy, the interface appears to revert to the original title, making it seem like the changes weren't saved. However, the changes are actually being saved to a new draft post with a different post ID. This creates confusion because while the URL shows an updated post ID, the visible title doesn't reflect the changes made, leading users to question whether their modifications were preserved.

Here is a video in which I demonstrate the issue using a test WordPress.com site on a free plan:

20241215.Copy.post.UX.issue-optimized.mp4

Steps to reproduce

1.	Open the WordPress dashboard and navigate to the list of posts.
2.	Select a post you want to copy, and note its current URL slug and post ID.
3.	Click the three dots next to the post, and choose Copy Post.
4.	In the post editor, rename the copied post (e.g., change the title to “Some Other Post Copy”).
5.	Save the draft - Observe that the title in the editor sometimes reverts to the original post’s title.
6.	Exit the editor and navigate to the Drafts list - Note that a new draft post is created with an updated post ID, but the title may not reflect the changes you made.
7.	Repeat the process by copying the newly created draft post - Observe similar behavior where the copied post has an updated post ID, but the title and slug behavior remain inconsistent.

What you expected to happen

When copying a post, the copied post with changes that are made to the copy should be preserved in the editor window that the user sees.

What actually happened

When a user copies a post and modifies the title of the copy, the interface appears to revert to the original title, making it seem like the changes weren't saved. However, the changes are actually being saved to a new draft post with a different post ID.

Impact

Most (> 50%)

Available workarounds?

No but the platform is still usable

If the above answer is "Yes...", outline the workaround.

No response

Platform (Simple and/or Atomic)

Simple

Logs or notes

This was reported in 9177618-zen and reproduced in a test site on a free plan.

This issue persists irrespective of browser used. Our customer experienced this issue using Brave, Microsoft Edge and Firefox. I reproduced the issue using Microsoft Edge on macOS 15.2

[github-actions]

Support References

This comment is automatically generated. Please do not edit it.

• 9177618-zen
• 9176633-zen
• https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/bug-copied-posts-cannot-be-edited-saved
• 9196413-zen
• 9177509-zen
• 9196053-zen
• 9204899-zen
• 9206635-zen
• 9206492-zen
• 9235851-zen
• 9240262-zen
• 9242094-zen
• 9243440-zen
• 9287475-zen
• 9300637-zen
• 9303829-zen
• 9283270-zen

[jordesign]

I have a user reporting something similar - Even when they make changes to the post titles in the editor - they revert.
9176633-zd-a8c

[jordesign]

Plenty of examples in this Forum thread too:
https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/bug-copied-posts-cannot-be-edited-saved/?view=all#post-4066835

And it appears it effects the content of the post/page as well. Not only the title.

[supernovia]

📌 REPRODUCTION RESULTS

• Tested on Simple – Replicated
• Tested on Atomic – Replicated
• Replicable outside of Dotcom – Yes, but only after updating Gutenberg

📌 ACTIONS

• Triaged
• Pinged Jetpack; we may need to transfer repos as well: p1734447112673469-slack-CDLH4C1UZ