Author Topic: Forum Bug Reports (Read 45711 times)

endlesslimitation · « **Reply #60 on:** 02/12/2021 05:49 pm »

It looks like the 'Carbon capture x prize' thread previously in the 'advanced concepts' section has disappeared. I think it happened in the last ten minutes or so after I made a comment - did I brake it?

gongora · « **Reply #61 on:** 02/12/2021 05:53 pm »

Quote from: endlesslimitation on 02/12/2021 05:49 pm

It looks like the 'Carbon capture x prize' thread previously in the 'advanced concepts' section has disappeared. I think it happened in the last ten minutes or so after I made a comment - did I brake it?

The thread is really not on-topic for this forum.

endlesslimitation · « **Reply #62 on:** 02/12/2021 05:55 pm »

fair enough - but it inspired some interesting discussion nonetheless. Did it get moved to another section? Or simply deleted?

the_other_Doug · « **Reply #63 on:** 03/26/2021 09:53 am »

New odd bug:

I opened the SpaceX Missions topic and, as I normally do, clicked on the NEW icons next to threads which have new posts since the last time I looked at them. The last thread I clicked on in this manner was the Crew 1 discussion thread, which did have two new posts about the alarms that were spuriously sounded from Resilience overnight last night.

However, when I clicked the NEW icon, instead of being brought to the new post from today (the first new post in that thread since December of 2020), I was brought to Reply #548, posted on 11/15/20 I believe. Literally hundreds of posts prior to the new post. And before y'all ask, yes, I had already displayed and read the hundreds of posts between the post displayed and the actual newest, unread posts. Put it this way, I have my forum settings set to show 100 posts per page. The NEW icon opened me up to page 11, while the latest posts are on page 15. That is be definition hundreds of posts...

This happened at about 5:40am CDT. I'm awful at remembering what the offset is in both standard and daylight savings times, but I think that's about 10:40 UTC.

That's the first misdirect I've seen using the NEW icons in, like, forever. Figured it caught my attention, so I'd report it.

xor · « **Reply #64 on:** 03/26/2021 03:41 pm »

Quote from: the_other_Doug on 03/26/2021 09:53 am

New odd bug:

I opened the SpaceX Missions topic and, as I normally do, clicked on the NEW icons next to threads which have new posts since the last time I looked at them. The last thread I clicked on in this manner was the Crew 1 discussion thread, which did have two new posts about the alarms that were spuriously sounded from Resilience overnight last night.

However, when I clicked the NEW icon, instead of being brought to the new post from today (the first new post in that thread since December of 2020), I was brought to Reply #548, posted on 11/15/20 I believe. Literally hundreds of posts prior to the new post. And before y'all ask, yes, I had already displayed and read the hundreds of posts between the post displayed and the actual newest, unread posts. Put it this way, I have my forum settings set to show 100 posts per page. The NEW icon opened me up to page 11, while the latest posts are on page 15. That is be definition hundreds of posts...

This happened at about 5:40am CDT. I'm awful at remembering what the offset is in both standard and daylight savings times, but I think that's about 10:40 UTC.

That's the first misdirect I've seen using the NEW icons in, like, forever. Figured it caught my attention, so I'd report it.

I can confirm the same odd behavior on the same Crew-1 thread at 1:50am EDT, and whatever caused it happened in the previous hour or few.

This is the "New" link I was given:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50525.msg2154284#new

It was so far back, I checked it a couple of times and couldn't make sense of how it happened this time.

Normally it's either edited, or more usually deleted and the link does its best job to land at whatever post follows that.

The odd thing here is this is the first post in a while that still existed as a valid target (i.e. wasn't deleted), and wasn't obviously edited.

AFAICT, Crew-1 thread metadata had its own SEU.

Arb · « **Reply #65 on:** 03/26/2021 08:26 pm »

Quote from: xor on 03/26/2021 03:41 pm

Quote from: the_other_Doug on 03/26/2021 09:53 am
New odd bug:

I opened the SpaceX Missions topic and, as I normally do, clicked on the NEW icons next to threads which have new posts since the last time I looked at them. The last thread I clicked on in this manner was the Crew 1 discussion thread, which did have two new posts about the alarms that were spuriously sounded from Resilience overnight last night.

However, when I clicked the NEW icon, instead of being brought to the new post from today (the first new post in that thread since December of 2020), I was brought to Reply #548, posted on 11/15/20 I believe. Literally hundreds of posts prior to the new post. And before y'all ask, yes, I had already displayed and read the hundreds of posts between the post displayed and the actual newest, unread posts. Put it this way, I have my forum settings set to show 100 posts per page. The NEW icon opened me up to page 11, while the latest posts are on page 15. That is be definition hundreds of posts...

This happened at about 5:40am CDT. I'm awful at remembering what the offset is in both standard and daylight savings times, but I think that's about 10:40 UTC.

That's the first misdirect I've seen using the NEW icons in, like, forever. Figured it caught my attention, so I'd report it.

I can confirm...

Likewise

gemmy0I · « **Reply #66 on:** 03/26/2021 09:41 pm »

Quote from: the_other_Doug on 03/26/2021 09:53 am

The last thread I clicked on in this manner was the Crew 1 discussion thread, which did have two new posts about the alarms that were spuriously sounded from Resilience overnight last night.

...

However, when I clicked the NEW icon, instead of being brought to the new post from today (the first new post in that thread since December of 2020), I was brought to Reply #548, posted on 11/15/20 I believe.

I encountered something similar, with that exact thread IIRC.

I've noticed that this frequently happens when the mods have merged two threads together, particularly if the "side thread" being merged in is itself substantial and/or spread out in time. It seems to confuse the forum software's ability to remember "where have you left off in this thread".

I've noticed it always happens after merges because I'm subscribed to email notifications for most threads I'm interested in, and (by default) notifications go out for splits and merges as well as for new replies.

When it works "right", it takes you to the oldest newly-merged-in post in the resultant thread. If that's older than the last post you'd previously read in the pre-merge thread, it will have the effect of "rewinding" you to the merge point. So, for instance, if a side thread was merged in which had some posts going back a month that you hadn't read (perhaps because you weren't following that thread when it was freestanding), it'll drop you into the merged thread starting a month ago.

Sometimes, though, the forum software seems to just get confused and give up, in which case it'll drop you at the first post and leave you to figure out what the heck happened. Other times it "rewinds" to a post somewhere in the middle whose connection to the merge is non-obvious (but presumably makes sense somehow in the database's internal representation).

Given that this is connected to merges, I suspect this erratic behavior is due to deeper limitations in how the forum software tracks thread reading progress across merges. As any programmers who've worked with revision control systems like Git or Subversion are no doubt painfully aware, merging is actually a very complex topic, algorithmically speaking, and it's not always obvious (or easy to compute) what the "best" resolution is.

gemmy0I · « **Reply #67 on:** 04/02/2021 08:42 pm »

(Posting this here because I can't find a specific thread for discussion of the relevant article. Mods, feel free to move this to somewhere more appropriate.)

Just wanted to make the site admins aware that many of the inline images in this recent article on the NSF main site are broken:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/04/blue-origin-complex-progress-new-glenn/

Specifically, this seems to affect all the images that are captioned as "via L2". Closer inspection reveals that these images were hotlinked directly from attachments on the forum side of NSF rather than actually uploaded to the WordPress side in connection with the article. Presumably these images are attached to posts in the L2 section, which is why they are failing to load in the article for those who aren't L2 members. (I can see how this mistake might've been missed when the article was posted, because the authors are presumably L2 members themselves and thus their browsers would've had the appropriate login cookies to give them access to the images.

)

I've attached a screenshot showing what the problem looks like from a non-L2-member's perspective. In the screenshot I've opened Chrome's developer console to inspect the broken image and highlight the problematic hotlink URL.

FYI, I've also noticed similar "broken image" issues on several recent main-site articles. I haven't checked those in detail but I would guess they are broken for the same reason.

gongora · « **Reply #68 on:** 04/02/2021 09:26 pm »

Quote from: gemmy0I on 04/02/2021 08:42 pm

(Posting this here because I can't find a specific thread for discussion of the relevant article. Mods, feel free to move this to somewhere more appropriate.)

Just wanted to make the site admins aware that many of the inline images in this recent article on the NSF main site are broken:

thanks for pointing that out

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #69 on:** 04/02/2021 10:09 pm »

Great spot. Article fixed. Issue was the images weren't uploaded to the article via CMS but hotlinked. That's fine, but the hotlinks were to L2 sections thus non L2 members got a broken link.

ChrisC · « **Reply #70 on:** 04/13/2021 06:19 pm »

Is there something weird going on with the timezone settings in this forum? I know that we have to set our timezone offset in our profile settings (in the "look and layout" section), and that the forum's own clock was weirdly one hour west of UTC, instead of actually *at* UTC as one might expect. And that I need to change it manually every time we go through a DST shift. But today I noticed that it was off by an hour again, and now the correct offset for me is -4. It was -3. Did the forum's own clock finally get corrected to UTC and now everybody is off by an hour?

Hog · « **Reply #71 on:** 04/16/2021 05:14 pm »

Quote from: ChrisC on 04/13/2021 06:19 pm

Is there something weird going on with the timezone settings in this forum? I know that we have to set our timezone offset in our profile settings (in the "look and layout" section), and that the forum's own clock was weirdly one hour west of UTC, instead of actually *at* UTC as one might expect. And that I need to change it manually every time we go through a DST shift. But today I noticed that it was off by an hour again, and now the correct offset for me is -4. It was -3. Did the forum's own clock finally get corrected to UTC and now everybody is off by an hour?

It's been an issue for years.

Paul451 · « **Reply #72 on:** 04/20/2021 01:27 am »

Not at all important, but weird:

In the User Profile, under Stats, the "Most popular boards by activity" display uses percentages that add up to a tiny amount. While it's obviously only the top ten forums being shown, it still doesn't make sense.

Using my own as an example (attached cap below), the percentages start at only 1% at the top and drops down to 0.15% for the tenth most active. That suggests that everything not displayed is not going to add up to the missing 95%.

Is this another example of the board software not being able work out percentages, or does "activity" include something not displayed. (Aside, the little pie-charts in the "Most popular boards by posts" display seems to be right, which is essentially a percentage display, so it's a weird fault.)

Proponent · « **Reply #73 on:** 04/21/2021 04:05 pm »

Over time, attachments to posts sometime mutate and deteriorate.

See this post from 2013 for an example. All five attachments now appear as big black rectangles, which take up a lot of screen space and convey no information. When downloaded, the PNG attachments are barely visible.

AnalogMan · « **Reply #74 on:** 04/21/2021 04:45 pm »

Quote from: Proponent on 04/21/2021 04:05 pm

Over time, attachments to posts sometime mutate and deteriorate.

See this post from 2013 for an example. All five attachments now appear as big black rectangles, which take up a lot of screen space and convey no information. When downloaded, the PNG attachments are barely visible.

I too see black backgrounds on these images when viewed in the thread (grid lines and plots are barely visible). However, if I click on them to see them full size the backgrounds revert to a very light gray and look like they were intended to. If I download them they also display correctly (as viewed in Windows Photo Gallery)

--------

Having looked at the images in more detail, the problem may be that they have a transparent background set, rather than an actual color. This may be confusing the forum software.

--------
Edit to add: I've attached a copy of the first image which I downloaded and saved locally beforehand, and also a version where I have given it a white background to replace the transparent one.

bobthemonkey · « **Reply #75 on:** 04/26/2021 09:54 pm »

Seem to getting corrupt text on older articles in the CMS - odd symbols at the end of a few words.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2005/10/flights-of-the-death-star/

I’ve seen it on IPad OS (Safari) and Chrome/Win10.

AnalogMan · « **Reply #76 on:** 04/26/2021 10:26 pm »

Quote from: bobthemonkey on 04/26/2021 09:54 pm

Seem to getting corrupt text on older articles in the CMS - odd symbols at the end of a few words.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2005/10/flights-of-the-death-star/

I’ve seen it on IPad OS (Safari) and Chrome/Win10.

I see them too with Firefox/Vista (yeah, I know!)

Looks like character strings to encode apostrophe and single/double quotation marks:

â€œ open double quote
â€ close double quote
â€˜ open single quote
â€™ apostrophe/close single quote

Suzy · « **Reply #77 on:** 04/27/2021 04:47 am »

Quote from: bobthemonkey on 04/26/2021 09:54 pm

Seem to getting corrupt text on older articles in the CMS - odd symbols at the end of a few words.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2005/10/flights-of-the-death-star/

I’ve seen it on IPad OS (Safari) and Chrome/Win10.

The older page was likely using a different character encoding, and these characters got messed up when the forum began using UTF-8.

JonSBerndt · « **Reply #78 on:** 04/27/2021 09:12 pm »

Trying to access nasaspaceflight.com through a VPN fails. I get an error, with a message saying access is blocked.

russianhalo117 · « **Reply #79 on:** 04/27/2021 10:24 pm »

Quote from: JonSBerndt on 04/27/2021 09:12 pm

Trying to access nasaspaceflight.com through a VPN fails. I get an error, with a message saying access is blocked.

Please provide any browser error codes (i.e. Error 404), system/browser details and VPN service provider info if you would like fourm help.

Lists of system/browser HTTP error codes:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes