Problem with boards

[To show what works and what does not] Ampersand & dollar $ pound # quote " question ? colon : apostrophe ' semi colon &#59; slash / percent % at @ exclamation ! parentheses ( ) brackets [ ] greater > less < equals = dash -

It is an issue of double encoding. We have an idea what it is from. No, it is not a hack. No need for rumors here.

I just replied to you via the PM line? Did I have a problem? The problem, obviously, is occurring where the software takes what we type into one of those boxes and tries to convert it to text for the display. So, if they are working on that area, it might affect our PMing. I wonder what happens if he just reboots. Isnt that what tech support always suggests to do?

I can't seem to get the Helpline to load on Windows Explorer (keep getting "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" message and when I "diagnose connection problems" it comes back and says everything is fine). However, the site has no problem loading on Firefox (what I just used to post this). Is any of this related?

not only are text characters jumbled, any attempts to put spacing between paragraphs is getting removed.

I use Safari on a Mac and am having the same problems with my posts.

Hi everyone, Thank you for letting us know about the different issues you are having. If you have a unique issue that hasn't been brought up yet, please let me know. To answer the question if all these issues are related, the answer is... yes. Please know that we are working hard to resolve these issues. To be realistic, it will be tomorrow at the very earliest to have these issues fixed. Hang in there... I will give updates as they are available.

Doin' OK with Firefox on a Mac here. I couldn't even log in with IE on a PC earlier.

&#40&#59;in a sing-song voice&#41&#59; Thanks, Webmaster!!! IE, no&#59&#59; Firefox, yes! [Don&#39&#59;t tell my husband&#59&#59; my IE dependency drives him a little batty. He&#39&#59;s a Firefox dude...] EDIT: Don't like the extra characters!!! &#59;-) We'll be all better soon.

Chrome is working as well - on a Mac.

Im doing fine with Firefox on a PC, but IE has problems.

Who needs punctuation

Chrome of OS X rendering special characters as code in this post, but I did create a link earlier in another thread that did not do this...

I think someone spilled limoncello on the helpline server.

So here is what we can tell is happening. The generation of links within the helpline is all wrong. Nothing should end with .html in the helpline. For Firefox users, these html versions are updating regularly enough that you haven not been able to see the difference. For IE users, this has been much more difficult. IE users currently need to remove the .html, the thread title, and the preceeding slash [so it ends with a number] from the web address to make it work right. Yes every time. Yes, we are working on that. If you still can not log in with IE, we believe we have fixed that problem, but you need to delete your cookees [spelled wrong because one of our issues is that you can not spell it right. Try it:[INVALID] ] and restart your browser. This is all probably enough for IE users to toss your cookees anyway.

Punctuation is goofy with Firefox too.

Punctuation coding is a secondary issue at this point. We are working on getting IE users and proper linking back on line first.

So, you are telling us that the links embedded in YOUR code are written incorrectly? Because all I do is click on the link and I get a page with the URL in the address line, and that URL ends with dot html. And why did all of this suddenly become an issue two days ago?

line <br> break. OK, so line breaks still aren't working.

<a> At least we are not getting ampersand codes for the <> anymore. Oh, but <a> should have executed, not displayed.

It looks like everyone is going to have to go back and clean up their own postings. One of my posting have a lot of junk caused by the symbols. When I went back and removed the junk and put the symbols back in it worked fine.

Hi &#39; &lt;a&gt;a link&lt;/a&gt;

Hi ' <a>a link</a>

Linda, you missed something. I found his posts under a couple of his aka's. Let's move on to how many shooters there really were in Dallas. And is Hitler still alive and living in the Sonoran Desert?

Good job. You worked hard to get it straightened out for us. We appreciate it.

Punctuation is secondary, and the fact that everything is in one long paragraph is secondary, but FWIW Firefox for me only recognizes periods and commas... So now I'm going to check some stuff out; I need my ;-) and more cowbell, of course! I wonder if this is looking better? Prolly not...yet.

WOW! The difference 5 minutes makes! Good job, Webmaster! Now if I can lose the looong paragraph...

What I want to find out is... ...can I avoid the Dreaded Long Paragraph yet?

Apparently, nope. Keep Calm and Carry On...

Let's have a round of applause for our hard-working, beer deserving webmaster. Hip Hip Hooray....Hip Hip Hooray!!!!!!!!

Frank II, I'll drink to that (hiccup)! [in Firefox ;-) ]

...and I'll drink another in IE (hiccup)! Ya gotta love them beer-making Belgians!

Testing with apostrophes ' ' line break: after break cookie <a href="http://www.ricksteves.com/&quot;&gt;RS.com&lt;/a> update Update UPDATE

Frank, I'll toast to that!

<a href="http://www.ricksteves.com/&quot;&gt;RS.com&lt;/a> Must mean it is still not working quite right. That should have been a link to RS.com. Hey everybody, that's how you write a link.

Actually Lee, I'm sorry to say that we removed the ability to use html on purpose. The lack of line breaks, though... that is not on purpose.

Seriously? We can't use html any more? Why?

How about <p> for para returns?

I agree with you, Lee, that html will be sorely missed. That being said, I am still not sure I understand the rationale behind removing the ability to use html. For one thing, it is not just about the links. Disallowing html removes the ability to emphasize text by bolding it, etc. Every other message board out there has that ability (most, in fact, use wysiwyg), and I've never seen it as a problem. Why are RS boards the exception? It's handy to just click on a link - most of the time, if I don't have a link handy, I won't bother.

I think they took out the html ability to put you link enablers on a level playing field with us cut and pasters. Makes us feel less tech stupid.

Or perhaps it was because of previous abusers who ruined it for those who used this device sparingly.

Karen, hooray for us cut/copy-and-pasters! And usually I can right-click on the address and have it take me (in 2 steps) to the website, anyway; YMMV. OR I can just Google search for the article mentioned in a post - ex. New York Times traveling naked scottevest lee colorado 8/20/10. I don't need no stinkin' html...

Actually, the format of a link is quite simple (I've posted it several times). It's shown on my last post on this thread and previously by the webmaster. You don't need any "Tech Savy". I kept a text file on my desktop with a "boiler plate" of a link, with the URL and link name missing, copied the URL from the address bar to the boiler plate, then copied the entire link to my Reply:. It was more work for me but saved everyone else from having to copy/paste. And some people found browser add-ons that did it all for you. I'm really going to miss being able to use html.

<CR> still doesn't work (still have one long paragraph. You can separate the paragraphs with multiple posts). <br> also doesn't work.

Heck, I couldn't even sign on yesterday. Thanks for fixin' it all up, Webmaster. Why can't we leave spaces between paragraphs now? It is going to make reading some of the longer posts a lot more difficult. Will this be fixed? I did try and go back and edit a post, to see if I could get spaces, but that still does not work.

For paragraph breaks I think I will use........That will help the reader recognize the break.

How about cutting our hard working webmaster a bit of slack about the HTML withdrawal........S/He has done phenomenal work getting a really sick board back sitting on the edge of the bed....... But it is still a sick board....... I bet that when it gets released from hospital and is recovering at home that HTML will find its way back........ Thanks Doc...

Nigel, the webmaster said that they removed the html on purpose. I think it was a legitimate question but agree that he is hard-working and I'm glad they are fixing it.

When you are debugging code problems, sometimes you have to eliminate all the functions that might be causing the problems, then bring them back one at a time, seeing which one wasn't causing it. Hopefully html will return eventually. BTW, has anyone else thought about what, without <CR><LF> or <br>, itineraries are going to look like.

As I indicated on another thread, we will be bringing back the ability to format everything on the Helpline. We just can't specifically use HTML for it anymore due to an immediate need for a security update to our system. It just so happened that the Helpline was the most affected part of the website (which makes me want to sarcastically jump up and down yelling "yaaay"). We have reviewed how we are going to bring back formatting and are now working on that fix. I don't have a target date for the implementation of that fix yet, but please know that we are working hard to get the Helpline back to proper functionality. Many thanks to all of you for your patience through this process.

Oh that's a relief! I thought this was specifically aimed at long-winded helpliners like me.