## TL;DR
Fix this in the customer portal by acting on the exact message first: draft the answers in the answer library first, paste them into the portal one section at a time, and press the portal save control at the end of each section so a timeout loses at most one section. Do not rerun the whole job unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one item, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the counts.

```text
security questionnaire error customer portal session expired unsaved answers lost
```

## Use this when
- The operation in the customer portal fails with this exact message: security questionnaire error customer portal session expired unsaved answers lost.
- The same failure repeats on retry with unchanged inputs.
- A review, export or check is blocked until this item completes.

## Not for this skill when
- The message is a permission or outage notice from the platform. Resolve that first, then return here if this error remains.
- The operation completes and you only disagree with its output. That is a quality review, not this failure.

## Steps
1. Reproduce the failure with the smallest scope that still shows it in the customer portal, and copy the full message plus the questionnaire, answer or evidence item involved into the run notes. Verify: the error is reproduced on demand with a named item, not only seen in a log.
2. Apply the specific fix for this error: draft the answers in the answer library first, paste them into the portal one section at a time, and press the portal save control at the end of each section so a timeout loses at most one section. Verify: after a forced re-login the saved sections still show their answers in the portal.
3. Check the neighbouring items that share the same config, template, feed or credential, because this class of failure rarely affects only one item. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Compare the result counts, decisions or alerts against the source in the customer portal so a silent partial success is caught before sign off. Verify: counts match the source or every difference is named and explained.
5. Rerun the original operation in the customer portal on the previously failing scope, watching for the same message rather than assuming success from a quiet log. Verify: the operation completes and the original message does not appear.
6. Record the fix, the triggering input and the verification result on the item so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the error, the fix applied and the evidence of success.

## Why it happens
the portal idle limit is shorter than the time needed to compose long answers, and unsaved sections live only in the browser session that expires.

## Variant phrasings

### security questionnaire error customer portal session expired unsaved answers lost
The verbatim form searchers paste from the terminal or console. Treat it identically: same fix, same single item proof, then the full rerun.

### How to fix: security questionnaire error customer portal session expired unsaved answers lost failure
The how-to phrasing for the same failure in the customer portal. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the rerun.

### the customer portal troubleshooting for this failure
The symptom-first phrasing used when the console hides the full message. Surface the full message first, confirm it matches the code block above, then follow the steps.

Compatibility: the customer portal at current versions, plus the platform API or console the query names; no extra tooling beyond a text editor and the source system access needed to verify counts.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_kPcSHwjpnLHgmCU_2nNSMw