Groundspeak Portal

Hello fellow waymarkers

Starting about a month ago, I started experiencing problems with submitting waymarks written in html code. In about two thirds of the time, a waymark written in html and supposed to look like this, comes out all garbled up and looking like this.

The only thing I have figured out to do in this case is to close all groundspeak applications, open it again and pray that it won't take more than five attempts to get back to normal. This is really frustrating and I have pretty much lost all fun in creating waymarks. Besides, I wonder what it will do to the approval of a waymark if all the approver gets to see is some total mumble jumble.

does anybody else experience the same problem and if so, is there anything I can do about it?

By the way, I had to try three times to get this message posted. Looks like I really have to find a new hobby.

Groundspeak has been contacted about the problem you are seeing.  Can you post the waymark numbers for ones that you are having problems with even if you have not submitted them.  They want to see the waymarks and html and see where the processing is failing. 

> Can you post the waymark numbers for ones that
> you are having problems with even if you have
> not submitted them.

Thank you, Bruce, for the fast response!

It seems to have something to do with the size of the waymark (yes, I know I have a reputation of "overdoing" it.)

Here are three I had troble with, they are having between 9,900 and 13,900 characters in html code and it never happens at the beginning of creating it. It seams like once I pass a certain threshhold, the server starts having trouble handling the code:

WM4M60
WM4HMZ
WM3C5N

It doesn't happen every time I open them but quite frequently.

Seems like size doesn't matter after all. I have just been informed that waymark WM4HKR has also been garbled up. and that is a relatively small one. The only thing they all have in common is that they were all written in html.

What is strange is that they all look fine for me now.

It really is a hit and miss and I can't figure out what makes it happen and what doesn't

<Bernd das Brot Team> skrev i en meddelelse news:15893@portal.groundspeak.com...

It really is a hit and miss and I can't figure out what makes it happen and what doesn't

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http://portal.groundspeak.com/forums/15891/ShowThread.aspx#15893

  There definitely is a problem as at times it shows the code, even when refreshed, and then some  time later it will show the actual working links.
  I don't think refreshing always works.

Yes there is a problem. I had overlooked this post earlier. and posted about it in the release notes thread over here. I thought the issue showed up after the latest release.

This is what I posted there.

"Is anyone else seeing a weird HTML problem since the latest upgrade?

I will enter a link code and it seems that it strips out the first part of the code. It affects all of the HTML leaving out the < at the front and maybe the one at the end too. If I go in and put in a return before the code in edit mode sometimes it magically makes all of them work but later when I view the page again it may be broken again. If I go edit and take out the return it may fix it but often I have to take it out go back and view it then put it back in and it may work then." 

Maybe my fiddling with the waymark didn't have anything to do with it showing up properly based on Jake39's report.

I just checked a couple of other waymarks and the same problem applies to pretty much every waymark written in html.

 

bottom line: I will not submit any new waymark until this is solved, I don't like to spend a lot of time on layouts if they don't work after all

I've noticed a problem only in the last couple of waymarks I've posted.

In the most recent, I had two links. Both were properly formatted HTML, but only the first one was properly displayed. The second one was displayed as if I was viewing HTML source. This is in a Long Description that contained only three short sentences.

I went back to the Edit page, copied and pasted the tags, and then viewed the waymark again. Everything was displayed properly.

Matt

I've been getting the same thing sporadically with copied and pasted links in the long descriptions.  Sometimes they show up long and spelled out, but if I go back and edit again and hit the ENTER key with the cursor right next to the last character of the web address it seems to fix it.

Groundspeak is aware of the problem.  It is a difficult one to fix because it is not predictable and not consistent.  Each of the waymarks listed here may show the problem one time and not the next.  For developers this makes it very difficult to diagnose and test as even if you think you have fixed something you can't be sure just because the problem does not show up.

Thank you Bruce and everybody else for all the work you put into this. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to cchase something that happens only sporadicly.  This must be almost like ghost hunting :-)

I think the only hint we have is that is must have something to do with the last upgrade since it never happened before (though now, it happens also to older waymarks submitted before the upgrade.)

Thank you guys for not giving up on it.

Any news on the subject?  I just submitted two new html encoded waymarks and had absolutely no problem "recreating" this bug.  At least two third of the time, everythinng was a giant mess whenever I clicked "Preview and Submit."

Very frustrating

This bug is still an issue and I have a new twist on it. I submitted a new waymark. It looked good when I sent it off but when it came back approved... chaos ensued.


Here is the new twist on the old HTML bug. Each link will take you to a screen shot featuring the issue I encountered.

 I submitted a waymark with HTML checked. When it was approved it came back and there was a typo in the title. A missing e on the name Eugene  in both instances it was used. Also The HTML  looked like it wasn't checked either but when I went to edit it, the e was there and notice this, the HTML box was checked. For some reason the e was being stripped out and the HTML was acting as if it wasn't enabled at all when it was. I went in and added or removed a return in the long description in the edit mode and updated the waymark. When I checked the waymark again the e's in Eugene were in place and the old broken HTML that I am used to seeing on occasion was there in the place of the missing HTML that was there in the long description before. Next I went back in and edited it a few more times and added a line break removed a line break etc. and finally the HTML started working for some mysterious reason.

This problem seems worse than ever after the last site update. Even very basic long descriptions with just one simple link are not displaying as a link, but showing the html understructure.

I have found that if I use a return just before the HTML it will often cause it to work properly.

So lets say I am doing a source line for a text that I am using in the waymark.

Source: <carriage return/enter> Link

The link will show up on the correct line. This seems to work when the problem is while using HTML or when just dropping a link into the description.

Also a space at the very beginning of the long description and then a <br> or <p> to start the description off seems to bypass or fix the problem....sometimes.


 

I've read your trick before and tried it. It's unreliable for me as well. When I can sit on a badly rendered waymark page and refresh it a few times, eventually the page displays properly, with no changes to the user data. It doesn't matter which browser is used. It seems to be a server problem to me.

Yes, my methods may all be wishful thinking.

I too am having problems, but I thought it was just me. Particular to links, sometimes if I put the link in quotes, it works, other times it does not. If I reverse what I put in, then it sometimes works... It has always seemed so random on what works and what does not, I figured it was me on something else I had entered.

i put my links inside paranthases (link).

i have seen that it doesnt display correctly to reviewers. sometimes approving the mark fixes this. sometimes i just have to go to the edit mark page and resave.

(but this really sucks when you HAVE to change something to resave under the new system. MUST you change something? this is also a problem when resubmitting when there really wasnt anything to be changed....)

i just hate having to go back and write html for a long description just cause the link wont display right....

What's happening with this problem. I get extremely frustrated trying to get a Long Description with HTML links and picture links to render properly. I work everything out in a stand-alone HTML document and everything works perfectly. When I paste that working text into the Long Description it's not rendered properly. Are there any tips or restrictions that should be noted. I spend a lot of time on my waymarks and to have them look like gibberish crap is disheartening and frustrating.

WM86HN, WM86H0, WM86H4, WM848Y, WM8981, WM7G0W, WM89RC, WM8A6P, … the list goes on.

Some are small with a couple of simple link, some are larger with clickable image links. Sometimes they render OK, most of the time they don't. I can't find a pattern.

I'd suggest copying and pasting one of these long descriptions into a standalone document, surrounding it with … , put it on the waymarking web server in some reachable directory and ask for the page to be served up to any browser. If that renders properly, it should prove that the user Long Description text is valid. Perhaps there's something that needs to be improved in the wrapper HTML that surround the Long Description when the waymark paged is served up for rendering. Or perhaps the waymarking web server has a problem, that I can't imagine. Now I'm guessing.

If you want more waymarks that fail to render properly, I can expand the list even more. What can I do to help solve this problem?

I have now captured the source behind the web page for a single waymark, WM8A6P, once when it displays properly and once when it renders improperly. There are difference in these two files, that someone at Groundspeak ought to look at and determine why there are differences. Perhaps this can help lead to a solution to this problem. Who would like these two files?

DougK:

I have now captured the source behind the web page for a single waymark, WM8A6P, once when it displays properly and once when it renders improperly. There are difference in these two files, that someone at Groundspeak ought to look at and determine why there are differences. Perhaps this can help lead to a solution to this problem. Who would like these two files?

You should send them to Bootron. The official email is contact@waymarking.com and of course include as much info as you can.

It would be great to see this issue resolved. Helping to identify the differences and how it is created, whether a delay in HTML Tidy or something else... it is an ongoing annoyance to everyone.

BQ