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Lord_Sauron
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on: April 13, 2019 12:25
Our Realm, of Vairë the has become VairÃ
Gandolorin
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on: April 13, 2019 01:24
Aw, that't probably just a switch from West Saxon to Mercian dialect of Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon).
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Evil~Shieldmaiden
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on: April 13, 2019 03:55
Lord_Sauron said:Our Realm, of Vairë the has become VairÃ
Poor nol couldn't log on because the accented letters weren't working properly.
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Rivka
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on: April 15, 2019 06:01
So it looks like some of the special characters had issues during the import from the backup. I'll start working on cleaning these up over the next week, starting with the user table.

Can those of you with some time see what sections/areas of the site are having this issue? From what I can see so far:

- user names (I'll try to have this resolved in the next day or so)
- some forum titles

If you're seeing any other sections having this issue, please post here. I'll post updates as I work on them over the next week.
"We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
tarcolan
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on: April 15, 2019 06:20
I've corrected Malinornë's name. I think this is the original ~nólemë~ for you nol. Can anyone contact her and ask?
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~nólemë~
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on: April 15, 2019 06:36
I'm back, thanks for the fix! It's a relief to be able to return. ^ ^
There are still users with weird symbols still in their their usernames, as I have noticed when fixing the special characters in the fanfiction character list (e.g. the user who wrote the last fic on the first page of the Silmarillion category; I can only guess what their original username could be). I have no idea if it can be done systemically.
I'll take a look at Humor and Gallery tomorrow to check, but I don't have as much admin access to these sections as I do with fanfic.
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
tarcolan
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on: April 15, 2019 06:37
The Realm names are corrupted in the forums, not in actual Realms.
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~nólemë~
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on: April 15, 2019 07:27
My sig quote and image has changed to someone else's on its own, what on Earth? O_o And I experienced a page with an error message (internal server error or something is what it said) when posting today, but when I refreshed the page my post showed up alright.
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
Gandolorin
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on: April 16, 2019 03:22
I have this strange feeling I've had this problem before: my avatar has disappeared (my siggy ava is still visible). Now I'm certain that I chose it from among the Gandalf selection in CoE's gallery, but I have not been able to find it there anymore. And besides that, when I try to edit my profile / account, I don’t see any place where I could enter the necessary info for my avatar (or my siggy for that matter). It seems to me that I'm missing at least two options from my profile page.

Any suggestions? (I've been through some other threads but didn't find anything relevant to my current problem)
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Gandolorin
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on: April 16, 2019 03:42
While I’m at it – and I just switched my browser from Firefox to Edge – I constantly get the following error message when logging in to CoE:

“ERROR: Cookies are blocked or not supported by your browser. You must enable cookies to use WordPress.”

Now I had the people at my computer store check the Firefox settings relevant to cookies recently, and they did some adjustments. I have some additional modules active in Firefox (like a script-blocker), so that could have been one of my restrictive settings there. But since I switched my notebook from Win7 to Win10, I have not touched any of the standard settings for Edge, and I simply can’t imagine that Edge would have a cookie-blocker as a default (I need Edge for the approximately once-a-month Vairë Realm chat, as Firefox is no longer able to open or access a chatroom). When I phoned in to my computer store about this continuing error message despite their adjustments, and in Edge as well as Firefox, they were of the opinion that this must be caused by the CoE site and not by the browsers.

Just thought I’d mention this, as Rivka asked for us to notify her about all oddities.
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Dolwen
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on: April 16, 2019 04:01
You are correct Gando, the space to add your avatar info and your signature info on the Edit Profile seems to be missing.

[Edited on 04/16/2019 by Dolwen]
tarcolan
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on: April 16, 2019 04:33
^^ Not in Dashboard either.
Various avatars missing, looks random except all staff seem to have kept theirs.
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tarcolan
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on: April 16, 2019 04:49
Gando, the cookie error has been happening for a long time. Ignore it, you still get logged in.

Noleme, I'm not working my way through 100,000 names to correct them. Not today anyway.
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Lady_of_Darkness
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on: April 16, 2019 07:43
Mine's missing too, and no place to upload a new one in my profile either (either to the site or by a URL to the image). I uploaded my latest one from Fan Pop, not from the site, though I noticed my avvy was converted back to my old one just prior to this happening (which was saved from the site).
In the darkness you could hear the crying of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men. Some prayed for help. Others wished for death. But still more imagined that there were no Gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness. - Pliny the Younger, A.D. 79.
~nólemë~
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on: April 16, 2019 05:31
tarcolan said:
Noleme, I'm not working my way through 100,000 names to correct them. Not today anyway.


I beg your pardon? I was not asking you to. I was informing Rivka of an issue that is likely to prevent some members from logging into CoE.

-----

About the sig/avatar issue, I now recall I possibly had this new sig several years back, and it switched back to it on its own during the recent malfuction. The edit avatar/sig section seems to be missing from the profile page for everyone.

-----

Gando, but you can log in after several attempts, no? This is what I get when using my old WinXP PC with old Firefox (aka practically all the time), I just got used to getting this message but being able to log in eventually.

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ETA: the weird accent thing is in the Encyclopedia as well, but only disabling search for some accented 'related' items, it's not in the entry names themselves, nor in the definition texts, fortunately. Can that be resolved systemically? If not, who has access to the CoE encyclopedia's admin module? I think it was cirdaneth, but I haven't seen her around for ages, and I think she had some login problems before...?
If the fix cannot be done throughout CoE overall, and the weird characters in the Enc. would have to be fixed by hand, maybe with the current low numbers of staffers all admins could get (temporary) access to the Enc and fix whenever they stumble upon a weird character word in the 'related' line? Just an idea.

[Edited on 04/17/2019 by ~nólemë~]
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
Gandolorin
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on: April 17, 2019 02:00
~nólemë~ said:... Gando, but you can log in after several attempts, no? This is what I get when using my old WinXP PC with old Firefox (aka practically all the time), I just got used to getting this message but being able to log in eventually. ...

Actually, I simply click on "Forum" in the top banner and get in without problems, with Firefox and Edge, I don't need several attempts, thankfully. I just wasn't sure I'd ever mentioned that cookie silliness here.
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tarcolan
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on: April 17, 2019 02:59
Sorry nol, I was joking as usual. At first I thought the encyclopedia had escaped, but no.
An example from the encyclopedia -
http://www.councilofelrond.com/encyclopedia/pukel-men/
Only the 'Related items' is affected, not the main text. Looks like the 'fields' have been corrupted but not content. Was there always a 'HoME information' volume in the encyclopedia, I don't remember seeing it before.
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Rivka
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on: April 18, 2019 02:33
So...yeah. This is not going to be an easy fix, from what I can see.

Part of the issue is that a lot of your usernames are from the old (non-WordPress) site which allowed special characters, and WordPress doesn't (so it's having some issues). Part of it's various encoding issues from going back and forth from different site types, databases, etc. Part of it's because issues occurred during the backup import.

This is all kind of a mess. I can see a few different options to go from here:

1) Live with it and fix issues as they crop up.

2) I can try re-importing the backup from a few days ago, and try to prevent these issues from happening during the import. Downside is we lose anything from the last few days (not sure if that's even an issue/concern)

3) We can just say eff it, and put the site into static mode (no more updates, log-ins, etc), and leave it up as-is for whoever cares to look at this site anymore. That's really up to you guys and if you're still using this place; I'll put the effort into trying to fix this if you guys care enough.

Additionally, our server is having some sort of major issue right now (that may be tied into these issues). Support may need to take things offline for a while today, just a heads up.

Anyway, that's where we are right now. Sorry guys - it's an old site with a mongo huge database, and stuff like this happens.
"We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
NenyaGold
Legend of Lothlórien & Head Chocolate Thingywidget of Yavanna
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on: April 18, 2019 05:13
Rivka, if the site was more active, I'd vote for #1. But it's not. We tried to revive the realms but those in Yavanna who were active years ago have moved on. It also seems that few of the people who sign up are active.

#3 would make me very sad, but I would completely understand. I am honored to have been involved from nearly the beginning and have met some awesome people over the years, many in person. Maybe the time for CoE is over...

Thank you for all of these years! It's been a wonderful ride!

"He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." ~ from The Hobbit
~nólemë~
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on: April 18, 2019 06:01
I vote for #2.
I am not sure how #1 would look like so I cannot comment on that.
I would hate for #3 to happen, I enjoy returning here and speak to like-minded folk, plus it's so tame here, it's refreshing. I am not convinced this is 'it' for CoE. It's in the same position as other Tolkien forums and sites, from what I can assess. With the Amazon series and maybe something Silmarillion-based in the future, I am more or less sure CoE would experience a renaissance of sorts. However, it all comes down to how much this site is a burden on Rivka's time. I'd love to help out, but alas, I am not tech savvy at all, and would never figure out how to fix things like a non-functional PM box.

[Edited on 04/18/2019 by ~nólemë~]
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
Gandolorin
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on: April 19, 2019 01:03
Like NenyaGold, #3 would make me very sad. But like ~nólemë~, I am also not tech savvy at all and have no idea how much time and effort Rivka would have to put into options 1 or 2. After more than 16 (or is it 17 by now?) years of keeping the site running, I could understand a certain fatigue creeping in as to continuing to do so for what is by now a small hard core. I only joined more than 11 years after the site was launched, so besides Menegilda Brandybuck I’m the “youngest” regular poster in terms of membership time (we had a handful of newbies who joined maybe a year or two ago, and were quite active, but who seem to have given up when we had some serious issues shortly after they joined).

My vote goes to whatever is the least drain on Rivka’s time and effort necessary to avoid option 3 – with the perhaps vague hope of a sort of revival coming into effect with the Amazon series. When I joined, with the Hobbit movies 2 and 3 still due out, there was much more action here. Did those movies also lead to a sort of revival after a dip in interest after the third LoTR EE came out in 2004?
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Dolwen
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on: April 19, 2019 04:38
I would say #2 is worth a shot at least, a few days lost won't matter much. I would hate to see #3 happen for the same reasons as nol. I've been here nearly everyday for almost 15 years and it would be heart breaking to see it go.
But in the end I believe it is whatever is best for Rivka as she's the one that has to keep fixing everything and its not fair to burden her with these constant problems for only a handful of us who still come here regularly. I will accept whatever decision Rivka makes.
We really do appreciate all the time and effort you have put into CoE Rivka. Thank you for a wonderful site and years of great memories.

[Edited on 04/19/2019 by Dolwen]
Dolwen
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on: May 06, 2019 10:59
Has anyone else been experiencing a problem posting or with private messages over the last couple weeks? I had an issue where I tried to insert a smiley in my post and got an error message "Stop Spammers" with a form to fill out and submit to be allowed to post and when I didn't fill out that form I wasn't allowed to post on CoE or send a pm for several hours. Every time I did try to post after, I got that same message. I'm not exactly sure how long it took to clear up, I didn't try again until the next day. I'm only guessing that it was the image that caused the issue, I haven't tried it again. But I got an e-mail for ~noleme~ that she is now getting that message and isn't being allowed to post either.
~nólemë~
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on: May 07, 2019 03:37
Dolwen said:Has anyone else been experiencing a problem posting or with private messages over the last couple weeks? I had an issue where I tried to insert a smiley in my post and got an error message "Stop Spammers" with a form to fill out and submit to be allowed to post and when I didn't fill out that form I wasn't allowed to post on CoE or send a pm for several hours. Every time I did try to post after, I got that same message. I'm not exactly sure how long it took to clear up, I didn't try again until the next day. I'm only guessing that it was the image that caused the issue, I haven't tried it again. But I got an e-mail for ~noleme~ that she is now getting that message and isn't being allowed to post either.


I don't think I even used the basic CoE smileys, and definitely wasn't attaching any outside image. It just wouldn't let me send either a PM, or a post.
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
~nólemë~
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on: May 07, 2019 03:38
Now it appears to be working again, several hours after I had to give up due to stop spammers messages, but wow, weird.
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
NenyaGold
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on: May 07, 2019 04:40
Dolwen, I just sent you a PM and I didn't have the problem...

Although, a couple of weeks ago I got a message that said I had to ask permission to post in a thread or send a PM. At the time I thought it was spam but the third time I filled in the form and I haven't had a problem since posting or PMing. It must be a posting/PMing safeguard that Rivka has installed? I'm only guessing.

"He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." ~ from The Hobbit
Gandolorin
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on: May 07, 2019 05:34
I think I know the "stop spammers" form being discussed here. I forget what I did when it happened the first time, but perhaps the second time around I found something a bit lower on the page which asked me to "prove [I'm] not a bot" by solving a totally simple arithmetical question, like "what is 5 plus 9", entered the answer 14 (or whatever it has been on recent occasions, it happens sporadically), clicked on a "continue" button or something of the sort, and that was it. I did not fill in anything else in the form. I have no idea when and why this form pops up; as I mentioned, it happens sporadically, so perhaps it does this as a random sample.
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NenyaGold
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on: May 07, 2019 08:12
Here's a screen-cap of the form that I PM'd to tarc just after I filled it in and it allowed me to continue. I was concerned "it" was a scam of some sort since I'd never seen it before.

Image

EDIT: And it JUST made me do it again! Maybe because I included the screen-cap?

[Edited on 05/07/2019 by NenyaGold]

"He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." ~ from The Hobbit
Gandolorin
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on: May 07, 2019 12:33
Bingo. That's what I've had maybe four times, too. And what I meant above is that part about "Enter the SUM of these two numbers: 1 + 9".
Enter 10 (in this case) in the entry field directly below, click on the button "Press to continue" - and that's it, I was able to continue normally in every case I did it.

and the thing made me do exactly that just now again. I was wondering if it would ...

[Edited on 05/08/2019 by Gandolorin]
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Dolwen
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on: May 07, 2019 11:17
Yep that is the form I got as well after I tried to insert a smiley using the image tag, except for me it wouldn't allow me to post answering just the I'm not a bot math problem, I had to also include my e-mail address or it wouldn't go through. When I refused to enter my e-mail the first time it happened (since I had no idea what was going on), it wouldn't let me post or pm at all for several hours. It happened to me twice in the last couple weeks. For me, both times were when I used the image option.
Gandolorin
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on: May 08, 2019 06:56
In in CoE using MS Edge now, instead of my regular browser Mozilla Firefox Quantum (I normally only need Edge for the chatroom function, which Firefox apparently does no support anymore – possibly something to do with (Java?) scripts). Following Dolwen’s lead, I’ll try to post with one of Evil~Shieldmaiden’s smileys from her thread and the image function …
http://i.imgur.com/IT4E9ba.gif

EDIT

OK, I didn't even have to try out the "Image" button, as soon as I copied the above link into the “Quick Reply” field, that thing popped up – actually, it was the second link I had copied in, the first one https://e.deviantart.net/emoticons/c/confuse.gif did not elicit any reaction (I deleted it and then entered the one above … maybe that was the cause? Speculation).

But the point is, I carefully checked all entry fields in case that form had somehow “remembered” my e-mail address as a default for some reason. No, I definitely only entered the solution 9 for the posed question 6 + 3. So now I can say that this simple solution works with both of my browsers, Edge and Firefox, without entering a e-mail address or anything else, for whatever reason.

One thing that remains unclear to me, though: does anyone know what causes this annoyance? Is this a (new) function of CoE that Rivka knows about, or is it something that she should know about and perhaps do something about?

[Edited on 05/08/2019 by Gandolorin]
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Gandolorin
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on: May 08, 2019 07:19
Back with Firefox. Image

EDIT

Meh. This form seems to pop up quite at random. No complaints about my use of the smiley above. Strange.

[Edited on 05/08/2019 by Gandolorin]
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Evil~Shieldmaiden
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on: May 09, 2019 07:25
I've been having the same issue, and I will send a message to Rivka on Facebook.
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NenyaGold
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on: June 03, 2019 07:33
Today I had to do an arithmetic problem before each of my three replies in the realm...

JaimeLouise says she's getting a request to have her IP address added to a list...

Just in case anyone needs some levity:

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"He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." ~ from The Hobbit
Dolwen
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on: June 03, 2019 10:56
It does request you add an e-mail address and says it is required but it is not, she only needs to do the math problem to post. It's been happening randomly for about 2 months now.
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