Blank posts

KennyMan666:

is in the group Global Moderator.

registered on 2004-02-28 08:24:37 am.

Gender: male

Location: Otokojuku

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KennyMan666

2008-04-08 06:29:28 pm

Viking

Avatar!

When reading through topics created before the switch of forum software, you may encounter posts that are completely blank. The contents of the post still exist, but it's not displaying.

This is due to a few different bugs that were introduced with SMF.

First of all, any posts longer than 20000 characters were eaten. This is because SMF had a default character limit of 20000, and posts longer than that became blank. This limit has been removed, but the posts affected stay blank.

Also, posts with certain special characters disappeared. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what kind of characters that does this, but I know I've fixed posts with it.

I'm not sure if there was anything else that ate posts, those two are the only ones I've confirmed myself.

The posts can easily be brought back by simply hitting modify and then posting without doing any changes, so if you find a post of your own that this happened to, you can fix it yourself. Otherwise, post in this thread with a link to the blank post in question, and someone will take care of it.

Thread title:

When reading through topics created before the switch of forum software, you may encounter posts that are completely blank. The contents of the post still exist, but it's not displaying.

This is due to a few different bugs that were introduced with SMF.

First of all, any posts [i]longer than 20000 characters[/i] were eaten. This is because SMF had a default character limit of 20000, and posts longer than that became blank. This limit has been removed, but the posts affected stay blank.

Also, posts with certain special characters disappeared. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what kind of characters that does this, but I know I've fixed posts with it.

I'm not sure if there was anything else that ate posts, those two are the only ones I've confirmed myself.

The posts can easily be brought back by simply hitting modify and then posting without doing any changes, so if you find a post of your own that this happened to, you can fix it yourself. Otherwise, post in this thread with a link to the blank post in question, and someone will take care of it.

JaggerG:

is in the group Global Moderator.

registered on 2004-03-31 07:12:40 pm.

Gender: male

Location: #metroid

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JaggerG

2008-04-16 03:37:56 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

:^\ Ek's post hasn't been mentioned here yet? You people have been slacking off around here in my absence!

Or maybe people are just too lazy to find the link. Like me.

tomatobob:

registered on 2004-03-27 12:44:30 am.

Gender: male

Location: O'er yon hill

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tomatobob

2008-04-16 04:42:14 pm

Never stressed

I honestly thought about it, but I don't like to screw around with topics on the serious business board.
I guess it's worth posting the link for those who missed it though.

I had to search through 40 pages of his posts to find this beauty, there were five or six blanks along the way just to make it harder.

KennyMan666:

is in the group Global Moderator.

registered on 2004-02-28 08:24:37 am.

Gender: male

Location: Otokojuku

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KennyMan666

2008-04-16 04:53:22 pm

Viking

Avatar!

You should have snagged the links to the blanks so they could be fixed... >__>

tomatobob:

registered on 2004-03-27 12:44:30 am.

Gender: male

Location: O'er yon hill

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tomatobob

2008-04-16 05:05:06 pm

Never stressed

Most of them were image links and one was visible once I clicked the topic, it was just spoiler tagged.

I could go back and find them if it's really that important to you though. :-)

BioSpark:

is in the group Global Moderator.

registered on 2005-08-07 09:14:49 pm.

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Location: urbana, il, usa

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BioSpark

2008-04-16 08:18:20 pm

hʌŋ laɪk

ə hɔːrs

I'm going through the entire forum whenever I have time. So far I've gotten the rules forum fixed.

tomatobob:

registered on 2004-03-27 12:44:30 am.

Gender: male

Location: O'er yon hill

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tomatobob

2008-04-16 08:51:23 pm

Never stressed

Alright, I went back through the forty pages I looked at earlier and got the blank posts I saw.

http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2645.msg71386.html#msg71386
http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,216.msg71324.html#msg71324
http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2778.msg72520.html#msg72520
http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2906.msg78441.html#msg78441
http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,3487.msg94637.html#msg94637

This one shows up as blank in the post history, but it appears fine in the original topic.

Alright, I went back through the forty pages I looked at earlier and got the blank posts I saw.

[url=http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2645.msg71386.html#msg71386]http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2645.msg71386.html#msg71386[/url]
[url=http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,216.msg71324.html#msg71324]http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,216.msg71324.html#msg71324[/url]
[url=http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2778.msg72520.html#msg72520]http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2778.msg72520.html#msg72520[/url]
[url=http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2906.msg78441.html#msg78441]http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,2906.msg78441.html#msg78441[/url]
[url=http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,3487.msg94637.html#msg94637]http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,3487.msg94637.html#msg94637[/url]

[url=http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,3986.msg108631.html#msg108631]This one shows up as blank in the post history, but it appears fine in the original topic.[/url]

arkarian:

is in the group Administrator.

registered on 2004-09-01 04:15:32 pm.

Gender: male

Location: ellicott city, md, usa

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arkarian

2008-04-16 09:00:50 pm

mindfulness

fully erect

Fixed all those. Well, "fixed"... most were just links to images that no longer exist.

Gamma_Metroid:

registered on 2007-10-01 04:21:50 pm.

Gender: male

Location: United States

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Gamma_Metroid

2008-04-22 09:02:00 pm

eeeeyyaaghhh!

Quote from KennyMan666:

First of all, any posts longer than 20000 characters were eaten. This is because SMF had a default character limit of 20000, and posts longer than that became blank. This limit has been removed, but the posts affected stay blank.

I'm just curious, do you mean characters visible in the displayed post, or characters in the post including code, and stuff. Does this also count attachment characters? What about the subject title?