Expected Behavior

As described by JRA-14031, it's expected that the browser will warn users if they try to navigate away from a page where form data has been entered.

Actual Behavior

The browser doesn't warn at all, so users have to rely on caching to hold the information entered, which depends on the browser. On a OS X system, for example, the behavior of browsers is described below.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start entering a comment or editing any field;
2. Navigate away from the page, either through the back/forward buttons or by clicking a link;

Workaround

Users can use Lazarus Form Recovery on Chrome or Firefox to be able to recover form data without relying in intermittent cache functionality.

Please note this is a third-party product, therefore not supported by Atlassian.