Comic
156 - Eggs In Your Face: The Silence is Deafening - 2008-05-21
Ha. - August 23, 2008, 03:11:09 AM
BIG EDIT: I wrote a tool that took the invalid character sequences (which were actually 5-8 bytes long, each), and replaced them with real characters. All posts should be good now. If you see any posts with invalid characters still, and you know what those characters are supposed to be, please let me know.
Well, to those unaware, I upgraded the forum to the latest version the other day, and all hell broke loose.
But, after that was tamed, one thing remained broken... That's right, some posts were totally blank!
... Ok, fine, maybe that's not a "that's right, " thing, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, after performing some voodoo on the database, I coaxed it to regurgitate the missing posts. Like many things regurgitated, however, they were not in their original form.
Specifically, any character invented by Microsoft Word, MSN or any other Microsoft product that isn't a real character (i.e., the curly quotes and the single character ellipsis (...)) now looks like a bunch of garbled symbols.
New posts with those fake characters in them should be A-OK from now on. But, the old ones -- gone.
The reasons for this are arcane, but:
The fake characters were implemented as higher-numbered ascii characters (those in the 128 - 255) range, which is fine in the ISO-8859-1 codepage which is default on Windows. However, at some point (probably during the upgrade), the database went stupid, and decided that it was not holding ISO-whatever-1 data, and that it was holding UTF-8 data.
Now, converting from ISO- to UTF-8 is very possible, and the forum even includes a big, shiny button to do so. But, the data is not interchangeable. Conversion is necessary. So, the forum (thinking it was dealing with UTF-8) would go along, and then puke when it saw the invalid characters. Somewhere in the process, the invalid string would be turfed, in favour of "".
The method of fixing it was easy. Just run the big conversion button that I mentioned. However, because the forum thought it was converting FROM UTF-8 (since that's what the database thought it had), TO UTF-8, but pretending it was dealing with ISO-whatever... Anyway, I hardly understand this any more than you do.
Long story short, curly quotes and their ilk are gone. Short story long, anything by Charles Dickens.
BIG EDIT: I wrote a tool that took the invalid character sequences (which were actually 5-8 bytes long, each), and replaced them with real characters. All posts should be good now. If you see any posts with invalid characters still, and you know what those characters are supposed to be, please let me know.
Well, to those unaware, I upgraded the forum to the latest version the other day, and all hell broke loose.
But, after that was tamed, one thing remained broken... That's right, some posts were totally blank!
... Ok, fine, maybe that's not a "that's right, " thing, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, after performing some voodoo on the database, I coaxed it to regurgitate the missing posts. Like many things regurgitated, however, they were not in their original form.
Specifically, any character invented by Microsoft Word, MSN or any other Microsoft product that isn't a real character (i.e., the curly quotes and the single character ellipsis (...)) now looks like a bunch of garbled symbols.
New posts with those fake characters in them should be A-OK from now on. But, the old ones -- gone.
The reasons for this are arcane, but:
The fake characters were implemented as higher-numbered ascii characters (those in the 128 - 255) range, which is fine in the ISO-8859-1 codepage which is default on Windows. However, at some point (probably during the upgrade), the database went stupid, and decided that it was not holding ISO-whatever-1 data, and that it was holding UTF-8 data.
Now, converting from ISO- to UTF-8 is very possible, and the forum even includes a big, shiny button to do so. But, the data is not interchangeable. Conversion is necessary. So, the forum (thinking it was dealing with UTF-8) would go along, and then puke when it saw the invalid characters. Somewhere in the process, the invalid string would be turfed, in favour of "".
The method of fixing it was easy. Just run the big conversion button that I mentioned. However, because the forum thought it was converting FROM UTF-8 (since that's what the database thought it had), TO UTF-8, but pretending it was dealing with ISO-whatever... Anyway, I hardly understand this any more than you do.
Long story short, curly quotes and their ilk are gone. Short story long, anything by Charles Dickens.
Upgrade time again - August 20, 2008, 03:05:09 PM
I'm going to be upgrading the forums shortly, so things may be weird for a bit. I'll let you know when everything's done, and when to tell me about any further weirdness.
EDIT: Well, the upgrade is complete, including nearly two hours of upgrading the theme to be compatible and fixing all my mod packages to be compatible too.
I know that the forum... looks different. I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what, though. I do notice that the post text is smaller than it used to be. Anyone want it changed back?
Other than that, see any glitches?
Edit 2: ... I decided that it would easier to start the theme from scratch than try and fix the old one. The forum will be using the default theme for a while, whilst I create the new one.
I'm going to be upgrading the forums shortly, so things may be weird for a bit. I'll let you know when everything's done, and when to tell me about any further weirdness.
EDIT: Well, the upgrade is complete, including nearly two hours of upgrading the theme to be compatible and fixing all my mod packages to be compatible too.
I know that the forum... looks different. I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what, though. I do notice that the post text is smaller than it used to be. Anyone want it changed back?
Other than that, see any glitches?
Edit 2: ... I decided that it would easier to start the theme from scratch than try and fix the old one. The forum will be using the default theme for a while, whilst I create the new one.
I need your prayers - August 14, 2008, 01:30:45 PM
I am not a religious person. Anyone who knows me knows that.
However, sometimes things happen beyond our control. For example, the most important person on this forum, Fallen Angel, was admitted to hospital today. He has been experiencing health problems recently, and unfortunately, things have gotten bad.
So, everyone, I need you to pray for him tonight. Although the procedure he is undergoing is not dangerous, the doctors don't even know if it will help. I pray that it does.
I hope you do too.
Edited for non-cellphony formatting
I am not a religious person. Anyone who knows me knows that.
However, sometimes things happen beyond our control. For example, the most important person on this forum, Fallen Angel, was admitted to hospital today. He has been experiencing health problems recently, and unfortunately, things have gotten bad.
So, everyone, I need you to pray for him tonight. Although the procedure he is undergoing is not dangerous, the doctors don't even know if it will help. I pray that it does.
I hope you do too.
Edited for non-cellphony formatting