Question Hash tags no longer submitting as links with Google Chrome or IE (only with Firefox)

[zfx]

Well, I got to experimenting with the hash tags this morning... they don't get used very often. Our forum is small and there's not much inclination among its members to use hash tags. But I would nonetheless like them to work properly. They used to work fine with each of the browsers named above. I have changed nothing about the AUT Pro installation.

I am testing the hash tags on each browser with the default forum font (no custom fonts or colors). The tags will no longer activate upon submission from Chrome or Internet Explorer. Submission works fine from Firefox, though. Chrome is currently v50.0.2661.102 m, IE is currently v10.0.9200.17609, and Firefox is currently v46.0. Why would the system begin ignoring hash tag submissions from Chrome and IE?

 

[Fillip H.]

Are the hash tags using non-ASCII characters such as UTF-8 symbols?

 

[zfx]

I'll check to confirm. But the forum default character set is used regardless of the accessing browser, isn't it? And FF works with whatever that is. If each browser can force another character set, that could be an issue I suppose. Again, I'll have a look and report back. Or maybe I'm missing something??

 

[zfx]

The forum is using ISO-8859-1, Chrome is set on UTF-8, and IE is set on Western European (ISO). Don't the browsers auto-negotiate on character sets?

 

[Fillip H.]

Sorry, I meant the actual words that people are trying to use with hash tags

 

[zfx]

I'm using only the tag word #test



EDIT:
Is there a reason why my hash symbol-prefaced word "#test" doesn't create tag link here upon submission either? Have you perhaps disabled that functionality on this forum site?

 

[zfx]

This post is from Firefox 43.0.1 for a follow-up #test



EDIT:
Okay then. You must have it disabled here.

 

[Fillip H.]

Could you please create and PM me with a temporary FTP and AdminCP account?

For security reasons, we recommend you create a new FTP account only for DBTech support, then disable or delete it after we have both confirmed the issue has been solved and there are no further issues.

The same applies to AdminCP accounts; they should ideally be temporary accounts created for us only. If we have created an account on your site already, you can optionally boost that account to Administrator and then de-admin this account once the issue has been solved.

If you use a .htaccess password protection for your AdminCP directory, it is recommended that you create a new authorised user for DBTech and remove this user once the issue has been solved.

Please test any temporary accounts you create to ensure that the FTP account has access to the forum files, and that the AdminCP account can access the administrative controls for the product we are assisting you with.

Ensuring this is all in order before submitting the information will significantly speed up the process of assisting you. We will alert you via PM if there's any issues with the login information you have provided.

When sending the PM, for your security you should also un-tick the "Save a copy in my Sent Items folder" checkbox. When the access details have been received, we will delete the PM from our inbox. Ensuring you have not kept a copy of the PM reduces the risk of security breaches.

Thank you for helping us debug our products and allowing us to assist you, we appreciate it

 

[zfx]

Before I do that, will you please attempt to duplicate this issue within your testing environment utilizing the browser versions I've given to you? The hash tags are detected and linked perfectly when submitted from Firefox. The newest FF version I've tested is 46.0.0. There has been no change in initial functionality in that regard; the hash tags work fully as expected. The problem only manifests on hash tags (always exclusively containing ASCII characters) submitted from Google Chrome versions 50.x.x.x and 51.x.x.x, as well as from Internet Explorer version 10.0.9200.17609. If this failure condition were the result of a broken element in the AUT Pro installation on our vB site, I expect that it should not be working correctly with the newer versions of Firefox either. But it does work correctly with Firefox. As such, I am quite curious to first learn whether you can duplicate the problem with Chrome and/or IE on your test bed environment. Thanks much.



EDIT:
To me, it almost seems that it has to be that the hash symbol character as it is sent from Chrome and IE is not being seen by our vB website as the same character that it sees when it is sent from Firefox. So when submitting posts that contain "#" followed by one or more characters via Chrome and IE, the hash symbol parsing mechanism on the site simply does nothing. Therefore, the problem must be specifically related to what Chrome and IE are doing with/for the "#" character, in conjunction with what the hash symbol parser in AUT Pro actually looks for. At least that's my theory.

 

[zfx]

Please relegate this matter to a nonissue. I had created a private usergroup for certain members. My testing accounts were each members of this new usergroup. Somehow the new usergroup's AUT permission for hash tags had been set to "yes". So it was working correctly by disallowing hash tag parsing for the usergroup's members. Changing the permission to "no" resolved the problem.

I apologize for not realizing what was going on sooner. Thanks kindly for your time.

 

[Fillip H.]

Ah, no problem, thank you for letting me know