Another new bug

[nice90sguy]

I have just submitted a story with a lot of center, p, hr tags. I noticed sporadic bugs in rendering this story in preview mode too, which came and went as I edited the text of the story -- presumably my adding text changed the pagination points (even though there is no actual pagination in preview mode).

75% certain this is a server-side rendering / sanitizing issue

 

[AwkwardlySet]

My story keeps losing its score, sharply, and now I'm genuinely intrigued whether it's the top list mafia continuing to bomb out of spite - even if I'm long out of the top list, or it's readers who were annoyed by the unreadability of the story.

The funny thing is that instead of putting their effort into fixing the issues affecting the most basic functionalities of the website, Lit's admins are busy tweaking the visuals in the UI. And they keep doing it live.

What they allowed to happen to the website with such longevity and reputation...

 

[RocketGrunt]

Well, center alone doesn't trigger it, because I dug up some of mine that I remembered used center, and it's centered exactly as I expected with no weirdness.

Is everyone experiencing this bug using asterisks for their scene breaks?

It triggers on asterisks, it triggers on dashes, it triggers on hashtags.
Bizarrely, a quick check on one of my other stories that uses "=/=" for scene breaks and I think maybe that one is NOT affected. I'm not sure though, because on top of everything else it doesn't hide every single scene break when the bug triggers on page transition. So seeing some scene breaks on one story after switching pages does not mean that none of the pages would be missing scene breaks.

It would maybe be even weirder if the bug triggered on some commonly uses scene transition symbols and not others, but that might be exactly what we're looking at.

 

[RejectReality]

It triggers on asterisks, it triggers on dashes, it triggers on hashtags.
Bizarrely, a quick check on one of my other stories that uses "=/=" for scene breaks and I think maybe that one is NOT affected. I'm not sure though, because on top of everything else it doesn't hide every single scene break when the bug triggers on page transition. So seeing some scene breaks on one story after switching pages does not mean that none of the pages would be missing scene breaks.

It would maybe be even weirder if the bug triggered on some commonly uses scene transition symbols and not others, but that might be exactly what we're looking at.

I've got some pretty wild scene breaks on my older stories as Dark. Primitive ascii art. I looked through them, and none of those are going bonkers either. Includes asterisks, dashes, parentheses, pound sign ( not a hashtag, goddamnit! LOL ) and even some non-keyboard ascii characters.

They were all submitted with standard left justification, though.

I'm trying to narrow it down. Center alone apparently doesn't trigger it. Special characters alone doesn't trigger it. It's the combination of the two.

 

[onehitwanda]

It doesn't appear to choke on the separator I have for "Damselfly": ═🟀═

 

[Voboy]

* * *

That's always been my separator, left-justified. I've checked several of my stories both old and new, and that set of characters is rendering just fine.

 

[iwatchus]

* * *

That's always been my separator, left-justified. I've checked several of my stories both old and new, and that set of characters is rendering just fine.

It seems to centering that breaks it. At least someone here mentioned using centered stars and was breaking.
I used to left justify (out of laziness I think) but decided to center them because they look better. Damed stylistic sense!

 

[Voboy]

It seems to centering that breaks it. At least someone here mentioned using centered stars and was breaking.
I used to left justify (out of laziness I think) but decided to center them because they look better. Damed stylistic sense!

I'm not a computer guy at all, but I'm old enough to remember that before the Magic Age Of WiFi, there were always big headaches involved in installing any new software or hardware into any kind of computer. My '90s memories are filled with desperate university hours of trying to put new shit on my desktop computer, waiting hours for it to load, and then having to troubleshoot for what felt like days afterward.

Even now, I'm amazed every single time a new app just... opens. And then works. Properly.

But I think that attitude characterizes my approach to typing for Lit: I've always been pretty sure the whole interface is rickety, meaning I expect it to fail like my college computer did. I think that's why I try to keep things as simple as I can. I'll put italics in stories, but sparingly. Nothing fancy for me, thanks.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I wonder if this is working as intended?



The story games listed above are far from being the most commented. They are also not the most recent ones either. So it's not the case that the most commented recent story games are being displayed. Back to Secret Agent School is the very first story game that was published, if I'm not mistaken.

I think we should make a dedicated thread for all the things that aren't working the way they should. Maybe one day, Laurel and Manu will take a look at it and decide to do something about it.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

https://www.literotica.com/faq/miscellaneous/report-bugs

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Naw. We need something for us, something public. Fuck knows if the bugs we report are being looked at or not. This way, all would be in one place.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I'm not against such a thread, but I would still go ahead and report bugs I find (and I do that, more often than any of us would like).

 

[MillieDynamite]

I had a new bug this morning, but Cat ate it very, very quickly, and now we are bug-free again.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I had a new bug this morning, but Cat ate it very, very quickly, and now we are bug-free again.

You named your cat "Cat?"

 

[MillieDynamite]

If Columbo can name his dog 'Dog,' I sure as sweet peas are named correctly can name my cat 'Cat.' It was more that we didn't name her, but called her Cat until we got her vaccinated, and the vet asked what her name was. We looked at each other and said, Cat, at the same moment.

You named your cat "Cat?"

 

[RocketGrunt]

OK, I got a comment on one of my stories condemning me for not marking enough of the scene transitions in a story that used "=/=" to mark scene transitions.

Sure enough, some of them were hidden on page transition. Some were not, but I can now confirm that the bug DOES apply to = as well as * and #. Doesn't seem like there are any characters that can consistently be center aligned for scene breaks on stories with more than one page.

The bug is consistent in the sense that the scene breaks that are hidden or not hidden on page shift are the same each time, and the hidden scene breaks come back when you refresh the page, but I have NOT found a common thread of what makes a scene break vanish or not when the bug kicks in.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Putting a title of some kind, centered or not, such as Later that Day: Erstwhile: Meanwhile: or such, might work.

OK, I got a comment on one of my stories condemning me for not marking enough of the scene transitions in a story that used "=/=" to mark scene transitions.

Sure enough, some of them were hidden on page transition. Some were not, but I can now confirm that the bug DOES apply to = as well as * and #. Doesn't seem like there are any characters that can consistently be center aligned for scene breaks on stories with more than one page.

The bug is consistent in the sense that the scene breaks that are hidden or not hidden on page shift are the same each time, and the hidden scene breaks come back when you refresh the page, but I have NOT found a common thread of what makes a scene break vanish or not when the bug kicks in.

 

[TheRedLantern]

Question for the people who have been researching this bug (I'm gonna tag @iwatchus since I know he's been looking at it). Am I at risk of experiencing this problem with the following scene break (notice the centered Korean characters followed by bolded text):



We made love many more times that night in every room of my new home, and snatched moments of exhausted, spent sleep in each other’s arms.

보고 싶어​

NEW YORK CITY, My Love on the Hudson

Diary Day, January 14th

Dear Diary,

You are proof that this is going to be my best year

 

[nice90sguy]

You named your cat "Cat?"

I did too. It sounds better in Russian, in the diminuative: "Koshka".

 

[RocketGrunt]

Question for the people who have been researching this bug (I'm gonna tag @iwatchus since I know he's been looking at it). Am I at risk of experiencing this problem with the following scene break (notice the centered Korean characters followed by bolded text):



We made love many more times that night in every room of my new home, and snatched moments of exhausted, spent sleep in each other’s arms.

보고 싶어​

NEW YORK CITY, My Love on the Hudson

Diary Day, January 14th

Dear Diary,

You are proof that this is going to be my best year

You are at risk, yes. The Korean text may (or may not) be undisplayed when readers use either the page number links or the forward and backward links. It doesn't hit every center text line, but no characters seem to be immune. If it becomes undisplayed, the entire line would vanish and what the reader would see is this:

We made love many more times that night in every room of my new home, and snatched moments of exhausted, spent sleep in each other’s arms.

​

NEW YORK CITY, My Love on the Hudson

 

[TheRedLantern]

Is it the centering that triggers the problem? @RocketGrunt

 

[iwatchus]

Is it the centering that triggers the problem? @RocketGrunt

Yes, if it happens right now, it's from the <center> tag. It does not seem to be impacted by ascii alphabetic characters inside the centering (as far as I can tell). The only cases I have check are either english words or punctuation (I have seen multiple variations of punctuation fail). I have no idea whether the buggy code tests for the text being alphabetic or just punctuation. Depending on how the test is done (I have to assume poorly), my guess is that your Korean text will not count as alphabetic.

It's also currently guaranteed to work if it's on the first page.

 

[SugarStorm]

Maybe I'm at risk of jinxing myself, but the problem seems to have disappeared from my end. (I used <center> for older stories and <p align="center"> for newer works.)

 

[onehitwanda]

Definitely still a problem; just seen it on several of my stories.

sigh.

 

[SugarStorm]

Definitely still a problem; just seen it on several of my stories.

But do you want it enough? I recommend praying naked at the altar, tin-foil hat on, chanting web-dev incantations from early 2000s. I'm sure the rendering gods appreciate the effort.

I've been blessed with Internal 500 errors when visiting the site today. Is that a new thing?