Posts Worse Code Mess (PLEASE HELP ASAP!!)

[Lady Warlock]

I'm in panic mode right now. 


I have two rps and both have pages with Character Skeletons which I removed all the bbcode from in order so that new people could join the rps without waiting. 


Both pages are now a mess of HTML code. They were not like this yesterday and no one manually put it in either. Why is this happening and how do I fix it!? This is a major problem and I'm highly concerned that whatever did this is going to destroy all of my posts on the site. 


Here is a link to one of the problem pages: https://www.rpnation.com/topic/210285-character-skeleton/. 


I don't even know code so I could not have possibly done that. 


HELP!! PLEASE!!! 

 

[SirBlazeALot]

My running theory is that the backend program converting the old bbc to... whatever it needs to be for the new editor to understand it has to convert it to HTML first. I'm guessing that in a couple of days, the HTML will go away and everything should be more legible, though there will probably still be a ton of inconsistencies. For instance, a lot of my threads that use spoilers got really wacked out despite the fact that spoilers are supposed to be functional by now.


I've been telling my players to just not mess around with their old posts. Don't go in and try to delete any of the bbc or the HTML and to just wait for the backend program to finish its job before we start fixing things. It may turn out that there's very little to fix when all is said and done but interrupting the process might be shooting yourself in the foot. So I'd say to put the RPs on hold and wait for the backend to finish before resuming.


However, in the words of MatPat, that's just a theory so any input from the mods on this would be helpful so we know exactly what to tell the players in our RPs. Sorry if you guys announced it somewhere already, but this is the first time I've seen anyone else bring it up. 

 

[Lady Warlock]

@SirBlazeALot I have actually had that theory as well. However, if that had been the case, I would think it would only affect the posts with bbcode. Neither of the two posts I first noticed this problem in had any bbcode. I had removed it. I also would like to think and hope that if something this extreme was going to happen, the site staff would have warned us. 

 

[SirBlazeALot]

@SirBlazeALot I have actually had that theory as well. However, if that had been the case, I would think it would only affect the posts with bbcode. Neither of the two posts I first noticed this problem in had any bbcode. I had removed it. I also would like to think and hope that if something this extreme was going to happen, the site staff would have warned us. 

There's two explanations I have for that, but again, more theories, and they might actually be a combo of the two. Also again, word from the mods on this would be much appreciated. But I think that essentially, everything on the old site was bbc, even if there were no visible tags, or colors, it was all kinda built on bbc as a foundation. That way if you wanted to add bbc to a post that didn't have any, that foundation would still be there for you to do so.


Perhaps this backend program is just plain incapable of targeting posts with actual hand-coded bbc in it only, and must target every post on the site. If my theory about every post essentially using bbc as a foundation is correct, then it would make sense that the backend has to target everything because it can't distinguish between one with none and one with some because to it, every post has bbc in it. 

 

[Lady Warlock]

@Meredith


I'm not sure if you can help or not but I noticed this was added as a bug to the Site Update Survival Guide so I figured asking would be worth a shot. Do you know if SirBlazeALot's theory is correct? Is the conversion to HTML part of the process for fixing the posts that previously contained BBcode? 


I'd really like to go in and fix it in the posts I have seen it in, but if it's just going to happen again as part of a normal process, I don't want to waste my time fixing it. I hope that makes sense. 


I'm not trying to be a bother and I hope it doesn't come off that way. 

 

[Meredith]

I'm not sure if it is or not - @The Dark Wizard might know, though. It's happened in a couple official site posts (the rules did it briefly) and was added to the Survival Guide.


Not sure how it's fixed/why it's happening myself. Stand by for more info, eh?


//the Canadian's coming through

 

[SirBlazeALot]

@The Dark Wizard When you have time, could you weigh in on this? Because I've heard that the backend program is done and however our posts are now is how they'll be until we fix them manually. But I haven't seen that in any of the recent announcements. 

 

[Corgi]

@The Dark Wizard I was wondering this too. A lot of my posts are a mess and specifically my workshop. I'd like some input on this.