New very serious bug (UNICODE characters)
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Site News, Newbies, Help and Improvements
Forum Name: Report bugs here
Forum Description: Help us improve the site from a tech standpoint
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=130912
Printed Date: May 24 2025 at 12:58
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: New very serious bug (UNICODE characters)
Posted By: NotAProghead
Subject: New very serious bug (UNICODE characters)
Date Posted: May 12 2023 at 16:30
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My teammate found a new and very serious bug. If it will not be fixed a good amount of PA database will be sooner or later damaged - actually any album with special characters will be spoiled after editing, no matter from the album page or from Admin panel. Step by step instruction how to reproduce the problem: 1. Choose any album in Admin panel and add the line with special characters: https://imgbb.com/" rel="nofollow">  2. Save changes, refresh the album page - changes look OK: https://ibb.co/QC4FwcW" rel="nofollow">  3. Choose the album in Admin panel once again - special characters turned to abracadabra: https://imgbb.com/" rel="nofollow">
 ------------- Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour) |
Replies:
Posted By: progaardvark
Date Posted: May 13 2023 at 11:23
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This looks like a character encoding scheme error in whatever code the admin panel is using, or the code that sends the data back and forth from the database. Maybe it's trying to convert UTF-8 to ASCII or ISO 8859-1 or maybe something else? In the library world I work in, we used to have similar problems between MARC-8 and UTF-8, but that doesn't happen so much nowadays since most of our databases have been updated to handle the full Unicode character set. ------------- ---------- i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions |
Posted By: NotAProghead
Date Posted: May 13 2023 at 13:49
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^ Anyway nothing we can do w/out M@X. Bartek (Tuzvihar) already notified him via Facebook, hope it will be fixed. ------------- Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour) |
Posted By: I prophesy disaster
Date Posted: May 13 2023 at 14:46
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I experienced something similar in a forum post not long ago. I was trying to use the word "Kobaia" but with a diaeresis over the "i". IIRC, the word displayed correctly initially but subsequently displayed a junk character upon returning to the post. Also, I recently tried to post a link to the Wikipedia article "Bonini's paradox", in which "%27" is used in the address in place of "'". But even though I copied the link address from the address bar of the Wikipedia article page, the resulting link failed to point to the article (though the link did work as a link to something). ------------- No, I know how to behave in the restaurant now, I don't tear at the meat with my hands. If I've become a man of the world somehow, that's not necessarily to say I'm a worldly man. |
Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: May 19 2023 at 22:28
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Any updates? Has this been fix'd? ------------- 
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Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: May 20 2023 at 03:47
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Writing "Kobaïan" still works for me in threads. -------------  BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: May 20 2023 at 03:56
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^ The forum has different architecture, provided by WebWiz, from the rest of the site. There are diacritics that work in forums that haven't in the database entries for bands and artists (and the rest of the site). I read the problem that was being referred to went away: fixed, resolved.... ------------- Watching while most appreciating a sunset in the moment need not diminish all the glorious sunsets I have observed before. It can be much like that with music for me. |
Posted By: projeKct
Date Posted: May 20 2023 at 04:47
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Yes, the problem is gone (for now). We were discussing it in the Collab Zone, sorry. So this time (it's not the first time) it lasted a few days, almost a week...  And we don't know if it was repaired by M@X or just randomly gone... because we didn't have any word from him.  |
Posted By: projeKct
Date Posted: May 29 2023 at 18:58
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... and, as you may have noticed, the problem is back again! Since M@X seems unreachable, we have to find a solution by ourselves. Here is what I suggest. We all know that editing directly from the album page is not a good idea, as some special characters are messed up. And now the same thing happens within the Admin panel. So we have to: 1) copy all info from the album page to the Admin panel 2) then edit whatever we want 3) then click on Save 4) and it's always a good idea to check the results...
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Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: June 09 2023 at 22:26
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Looks like it's fixed now! YAY!  -------------
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Posted By: projeKct
Date Posted: June 10 2023 at 06:00
^ No, it's not...    ... but it works if we follow these steps: 1) copy all info from the album page to the Admin panel 2) then edit whatever we want 3) then click on Save 4) and it's always a good idea to check the results... |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: June 10 2023 at 06:07
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Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Line-ups with names that have special characters - works most of the time (worked today, I added the albums of a Belgian band). It didn't work in the biography, which I had to edit and it worked the second time. |
Posted By: Tapfret
Date Posted: June 10 2023 at 08:31
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Honestly, is this really a new thing? My experience is that from the earliest days of adding albums in both the main site loader and from the admin panel I have had to re-enter text because of character replacement. I learned early to copy/paste my text to achieve the desired format. It goes beyond "special characters". Sometimes a simple apostrophe results in a string of garbage characters. It even occurred when entering reviews and profile bio info. Am I the only one to have noticed this for years? I am certain it has come up in discussion previously. ------------- https://www.last.fm/user/Tapfret" rel="nofollow">  https://bandcamp.com/tapfret" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp |
Posted By: NotAProghead
Date Posted: June 10 2023 at 10:47
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^ I believe the problem discussed in this thread is new. The rest ("a simple apostrophe results in a string of garbage characters. It even occurred when entering reviews and profile bio info") is old and familiar. ------------- Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour) |
Posted By: NotAProghead
Date Posted: June 10 2023 at 11:04
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It seems I found out how to live with this problem: - keep the text with correct characters somewhere (in notepad or smth alike); - edit the page from Admin panel or from the album page - special characters turn to abracadabra; - edit the page from Admin panel or from the album page once again, using the saved correct text - special characters look OK. In other words, we have to edit pages with special characters twice. No matter how we edit the album - from Admin panel or from the album page.  ------------- Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour) |
Posted By: Tapfret
Date Posted: June 10 2023 at 17:48
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^like I said, these is the exact same problem and exact remedy I have been experiencing/doing for years. Character's are being replaced with code text on the first save. A second save of the pasted correct text does not results in the correct text. ------------- https://www.last.fm/user/Tapfret" rel="nofollow"> https://bandcamp.com/tapfret" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp |
Posted By: projeKct
Date Posted: June 10 2023 at 19:20
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^ I guess you're right, Ian. But this new bug is not about adding new albums to the database. It's about editing existing albums within the admin panel. I've been doing that since 2020, and the bug appeared in 2023 only. Before the bug, the admin panel was a safe place to edit albums. Now it's more complicated and unstable. We have discovered workarounds, but it's much less user-friendly. Mainly for me, as I update hundreds of pages each month. Anyway, my new tools (scripts) are stronger than anytime before, so I can bypass all those bugs and correct all glitches along the way...
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Posted By: Tapfret
Date Posted: June 11 2023 at 02:50
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^I see. It's similar behavior, but now subsequent edits are effected, not just initial entry. ------------- https://www.last.fm/user/Tapfret" rel="nofollow"> https://bandcamp.com/tapfret" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: June 11 2023 at 04:27
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Looks like something M@x should fix - probably at some point something was upgraded (maybe the database server), and as a result the character encoding changed from UTF-8 to ISO. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to: 
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Posted By: siLLy puPPy
Date Posted: July 11 2023 at 21:05
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I just noticed that all special characters now show up as gobbledygook IS it just me? -------------  https://rateyourmusic.com/~siLLy_puPPy |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 12 2023 at 01:24
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^ It's as NotAProgHead explained: The special characters become corrupted when the content is edited.
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: siLLy puPPy
Date Posted: July 12 2023 at 17:50
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^ i've never noticed that when others say it happens. Only very recently. Bizarre ------------- https://rateyourmusic.com/~siLLy_puPPy |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: November 10 2023 at 12:42
| *bump* Trying to add an album and get a VBscript error message when I submit. Anybody else facing this issue? |