Thanks for the reply. I followed all the instructions above and it is still not working, since you have a cut and paste answer to this question and saw a number of search returns from this issue (a number from you I believe) I assume it may be interesting (if not useful) to have some detailed information so I have included replies/notes to your suggestions/instructions below.
However - so that it does not get lost in the long list of details below I think the most important detail that I figured out last night may be:
If I try to use the Publish button with the "Visual" tab of the editor active it fails consistently (I believe actually 100% of the time). If I make the "Text" tab of the editor active it appears to succeed 100% of the time. (I thought Publish worked 'sometimes' - I am guessing the 'sometimes' were when I happened to be in the "Text" tab).
Notes:
I updated Firefox to version 17 as listed on http://browsehappy.com/
I disabled all Add-ons and restarted
I cleared the caches in Firefox
Cleared existing cookies and confirmed that 3rd party cookies are enabled (and restarted Firefox for good measure)
--Instead I recommend that you ONLY log-in directly you your own blog
I actually do not know how to log directly into my blog at http://www.cmiles-consuming.info (am I just not seeing a link - weird...) - so I logged in via http://www.wordpress.com.
I have HTTPS: enabled per the link and confirmed a HTTPS: connection when on the dashboard.
I went to All Posts and selected Add New
I typed in a title and body text using the 'Visual' tab in the editor
I hit Publish and nothing happened - I x2ed my blog to make sure the post had not been published (in another tab). I tried this several times just-in-case while typing this reply.
I hit All Posts to go back to the post list and confirm the post did not publish - I get a dialog box with "This page is asking you to confirm that you want to leave - data you have entered may not be saved." I hit Stay on Page and try Publish again - nothing changes or appears to work, I refresh my blog in the other tab to confirm it did not publish. I hit All Posts again this time choosing Leave Page.
My All Posts list has my post in the list as a Draft (I delete the draft so I don't confuse myself later...). I repeat the process of Adding New and Putting in a post, hitting publish to confirm I am not crazy - same results detailed above.
Information that I think may be interesting:
For - I believe years - this sequence worked without problem, and then became problematic ?within the last year (sorry I wish I had a date for easy comparison with svn history/browser version changes/etc... - I would say my estimate is +/- 6 months?).
I can not remember any instance of Save Draft not working
I can publish/schedule reliably from the Quick Edit Menu in All Posts (what I have been doing for awhile).
I assume that this is some odd edge case - I also assume that if anyone ever wants to explore this that all my blog settings/information can be pulled out of the database so I will not speculate and list a lot of useless information.
Hope that helps - please feel free to contact me here or via email with questions,
Charles Miles
[email redacted]