Thread to report the HTML glitch that prevents posting

[lacemaker3]

brittanie@ebay 

I'm trying to paste some text copied from an eBay policy page. This frequently (normally) causes the HTML glitch.

From: https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/item-location-misrepresentation-policy?id=4244

First attempt, it looked like this screenshot before I clicked Preview which triggered the HTML error. I have the HTML code for both of these pages (before and after attempting to post the copied text) in a text file. Please contact me so I can send you the file.

After clicking the Preview button, the page looked like this. The search box has been removed. (Normaly, I would have cleaned this up and removed text that wasn't necessary for my reply, to try to avoid the glitch, but in this case, I am trying to cause the glitch and record data for trouble-shooting).

I repeated the copy-and-paste a couple of times because I needed to take screenshots and copy the HTML code to document this. when I tried clicking the Post button instead of the Preview button. I got a slightly different error message:

After copying the HTML code that had been changed to my text file, I tried to post this again. This time, I got the post flooding error message, and the message was not posted, as you can see (it's not on this thread).

[lacemaker3]

@eburtonlab, I decided to see if I could recreate what you are getting.

I noticed that the first <div class> code in the screenshot in your Message 15 starts with "date info" so I thought maybe you were copying some of the date-stamp info at the top of the message as well as just the text. So, to try to recreate it, I took my cursor up above the text, almost to where it was copying the date stamp as well (but not actually highlighting the date stamp itself).

That worked. I got the Invalid HTML error message. Here's what it looks like. It seems to have the same two <div class> codes at the beginning as you show in Message 15.

I tried to post that twice, and got the same error message, and the same HTML code. So doing it this way, it DIDN"T actually fix the invalid HTML, even though it says it did.

[lacemaker3]

I did copy the HTML code from that attempt as shown in Message 16.

Now I'm going to try removing the <div class> codes one at a time, and see if I can get the message to post without an error.

Attempt 1. Including all of the HTML code:

HTML code posted below this line: 

Attempt 1 did not work. Got the Invalid HTML error code. Looked like this:

I had to try a couple of times to get rid of the <div class> codes before I could this to post with just the screenshot.

[lacemaker3]

Attempt 2. I'm going to remove just the first line of the <div class> HTML code, which is the "date-info-wrapper" with the </div> code at the end of the line:

HTML code posted below this line: 

Attempt 2. Also created the Invalid HTML warning. It looked like this:

[lacemaker3]

Attempt 3. I'm going to remove the second line <div id="bodyDisplay...> AND the associated </div> code from the end of the message (not visible in the screenshot).

HTML code posted below this line: 

I agree, the situation is complex, particularly when you are cutting and pasting code from Help pages, or other sources.

My intent was to show that even when copying from a previously posted message that does not contain any links or other overt formatting beyond paragraph breaks -- just plain text that I wrote myself -- the copied and pasted text can actually contain formatting information that may need to be removed.

[lacemaker3]

I agree, the situation is complex, particularly when you are cutting and pasting code from Help pages, or other sources.

My intent was to show that even when copying from a previously posted message that does not contain any links or other overt formatting beyond paragraph breaks -- just plain text that I wrote myself -- the copied and pasted text can actually contain formatting information that may need to be removed.

[lacemaker3]

Attempt 3 worked, this was what it looked like before I posted it:

Here is the code that I copied from @eburtonlab's message, when I dragged the cursor above the text almost to (but not including) the date-stamp line above the text. This code generates the Invalid HTML error message:

<div class="date-info-wrapper">&nbsp;</div>
<div id="bodyDisplay_10" class="lia-message-body lia-component-message-view-widget-body lia-component-body-signature-highlight-escalation lia-component-message-view-widget-body-signature-highlight-escalation">
<div class="lia-message-body-content">
<p>I agree, the situation is complex, particularly when you are cutting and pasting code from Help pages, or other sources.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>My intent was to show that even when copying from a previously posted message that does not contain any links or other overt formatting beyond paragraph breaks -- just plain text that I wrote myself -- the copied and pasted text can actually contain formatting information that may need to be removed.</p>
</div>
</div>

brittanie@ebay: for your trouble-shooting:

In order to get that to post without errors I had to remove the first two sets of HTML <div ...> codes (the third set of <div ...> and </div> code was OK):

1. The <div class="date-info-wrapper ...> with the </div> end code at the end of the line.
   
   
2. The <div id="bodyDisplay_10... and everything on those 3 lines up to the closing > (angle bracket) AND the corresponding </div> end code on the last line of text.

So, the code that was posted successfully was this:

<div class="lia-message-body-content">
<p>I agree, the situation is complex, particularly when you are cutting and pasting code from Help pages, or other sources.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>My intent was to show that even when copying from a previously posted message that does not contain any links or other overt formatting beyond paragraph breaks -- just plain text that I wrote myself -- the copied and pasted text can actually contain formatting information that may need to be removed.</p>
</div>

[brittanie@ebay]

Hey everyone - I really appreciate you getting us this information. Khoros has requested this information in a different format. I'll be doing some pro-active outreach on this. Please keep an eye out for an e-mail from me.

[lacemaker3]

brittanie@ebay, any update on this issue? 

brian@ebay, tyler@ebay, sheila@ebay 

Here's another example for you, because I just ran into the issue again while trying to respond on another thread. The HTML code is very short so I'm going to post it here, and you can just copy and paste the text-format code to submit to Khoros.

The issue is in the text that was quoted from the post I was responding to, and it is the style code that was put there by Khoros' programming when the previous message was edited (to delete all but the link that I was referring to). The style code was not there when the message was quoted in the first place, but it was there after I edited it.

Before code that triggered the Invalid HTML error:

<p>A good lead, but unfortunately, the link is to an auction that is several years old and that appears to be the only remnant that is still available. Only the single pic is still online, so there are no pictures of the mark on that piece.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, the discussion says that the piece of jewelry is marked 950, which is high-grade silver, a bit more pure than sterling silver, and the seller says that they were only able to identify one maker that used an MB mark, but they didn't really think their piece was by that jewelry maker:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote><hr />
<p><a style="font-family: inherit; background-color: #ffffff;" href="https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Art-Nouveau-Style-Silver-Gilt-Enamel-332641729105.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Art-Nouveau-Style-Silver-Gilt-Enamel-332641729105.html</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>"To the back of the piece it is marked '950 MB' which is the only mark it seems to carry - I've seen this mark being suggested by some as being that of the Anglo-German manufacturer Murrle Bennett and that it might be an 'early mark'.<br />"I would exercise extreme caution with making this attribution - the mark on this piece is unlike any other Murrle Bennett mark I've personally seen or is known from records - and it also simple doesn't look like one of their pieces!"</p>
<hr /></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Murle Bennett &amp; Co. made jewelry only as far as I can tell, and although I'm not sure what this piece is for, it doesn't appear to be jewelry. They also worked in high-end materials, silver and gold, and their pieces were always marked for the metal content, and your piece is not mared. And, the mark on your piece does not match any Murle Bennett mark as far as I can see:</p>
<p>https://www.langantiques.com/university/mark/murrle-bennet-co/</p>

To fix it, I scanned the HTML for anything that wasn't absolutely required to post the visible characters and text, and removed it. There was only one thing that had to be deleted: the style = "..." code  in the third paragraph, which was the link to the piece that was similar to the piece the OP was asking about.

The red outlining shows the style code that I deleted. So, the href code is "Valid" but the style code was "Invalid" HTML>

After code that posted successfully:

<p>A good lead, but unfortunately, the link is to an auction that is several years old and that appears to be the only remnant that is still available. Only the single pic is still online, so there are no pictures of the mark on that piece.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, the discussion says that the piece of jewelry is marked 950, which is high-grade silver, a bit more pure than sterling silver, and the seller says that they were only able to identify one maker that used an MB mark, but they didn't really think their piece was by that jewelry maker:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote><hr />
<p><a href="https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Art-Nouveau-Style-Silver-Gilt-Enamel-332641729105.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Art-Nouveau-Style-Silver-Gilt-Enamel-332641729105.html</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>"To the back of the piece it is marked '950 MB' which is the only mark it seems to carry - I've seen this mark being suggested by some as being that of the Anglo-German manufacturer Murrle Bennett and that it might be an 'early mark'.<br />"I would exercise extreme caution with making this attribution - the mark on this piece is unlike any other Murrle Bennett mark I've personally seen or is known from records - and it also simple doesn't look like one of their pieces!"</p>
<hr /></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Murle Bennett &amp; Co. made jewelry only as far as I can tell, and although I'm not sure what this piece is for, it doesn't appear to be jewelry. They also worked in high-end materials, silver and gold, and their pieces were always marked for the metal content, and your piece is not mared. And, the mark on your piece does not match any Murle Bennett mark as far as I can see:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.langantiques.com/university/mark/murrle-bennet-co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.langantiques.com/university/mark/murrle-bennet-co/</a></p>

Here's a link to the post:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Collectibles-Art/Anyone-know-this-insignia-Do-you-think-it-s-sterling-...

[lacemaker3]

Everytime I edited that message, it added extra blank lines before and after the blocks of HTML code.

Very frustrating and unnecessary.

Khoros needs to change their programming so it stops adding code to the message that the author of the message did not write.

[brian@ebay]

---

@lacemaker3 wrote:

brittanie@ebay, any update on this issue? 

brian@ebay, tyler@ebay, sheila@ebay 

Here's another example for you, because I just ran into the issue again while trying to respond on another thread. The HTML code is very short so I'm going to post it here, and you can just copy and paste the text-format code to submit to Khoros.

The issue is in the text that was quoted from the post I was responding to, and it is the style code that was put there by Khoros' programming when the previous message was edited (to delete all but the link that I was referring to). The style code was not there when the message was quoted in the first place, but it was there after I edited it.

Before code that triggered the Invalid HTML error:

<p>A good lead, but unfortunately, the link is to an auction that is several years old and that appears to be the only remnant that is still available. Only the single pic is still online, so there are no pictures of the mark on that piece.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, the discussion says that the piece of jewelry is marked 950, which is high-grade silver, a bit more pure than sterling silver, and the seller says that they were only able to identify one maker that used an MB mark, but they didn't really think their piece was by that jewelry maker:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote><hr />
<p><a style="font-family: inherit; background-color: #ffffff;" href="https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Art-Nouveau-Style-Silver-Gilt-Enamel-332641729105.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Art-Nouveau-Style-Silver-Gilt-Enamel-332641729105.html</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>"To the back of the piece it is marked '950 MB' which is the only mark it seems to carry - I've seen this mark being suggested by some as being that of the Anglo-German manufacturer Murrle Bennett and that it might be an 'early mark'.<br />"I would exercise extreme caution with making this attribution - the mark on this piece is unlike any other Murrle Bennett mark I've personally seen or is known from records - and it also simple doesn't look like one of their pieces!"</p>
<hr /></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Murle Bennett &amp; Co. made jewelry only as far as I can tell, and although I'm not sure what this piece is for, it doesn't appear to be jewelry. They also worked in high-end materials, silver and gold, and their pieces were always marked for the metal content, and your piece is not mared. And, the mark on your piece does not match any Murle Bennett mark as far as I can see:</p>
<p>https://www.langantiques.com/university/mark/murrle-bennet-co/</p>

To fix it, I scanned the HTML for anything that wasn't absolutely required to post the visible characters and text, and removed it. There was only one thing that had to be deleted: the style = "..." code  in the third paragraph, which was the link to the piece that was similar to the piece the OP was asking about.

The red outlining shows the style code that I deleted. So, the href code is "Valid" but the style code was "Invalid" HTML>

After code that posted successfully:

<p>A good lead, but unfortunately, the link is to an auction that is several years old and that appears to be the only remnant that is still available. Only the single pic is still online, so there are no pictures of the mark on that piece.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, the discussion says that the piece of jewelry is marked 950, which is high-grade silver, a bit more pure than sterling silver, and the seller says that they were only able to identify one maker that used an MB mark, but they didn't really think their piece was by that jewelry maker:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote><hr />
<p><a href="https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Art-Nouveau-Style-Silver-Gilt-Enamel-332641729105.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Art-Nouveau-Style-Silver-Gilt-Enamel-332641729105.html</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>"To the back of the piece it is marked '950 MB' which is the only mark it seems to carry - I've seen this mark being suggested by some as being that of the Anglo-German manufacturer Murrle Bennett and that it might be an 'early mark'.<br />"I would exercise extreme caution with making this attribution - the mark on this piece is unlike any other Murrle Bennett mark I've personally seen or is known from records - and it also simple doesn't look like one of their pieces!"</p>
<hr /></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Murle Bennett &amp; Co. made jewelry only as far as I can tell, and although I'm not sure what this piece is for, it doesn't appear to be jewelry. They also worked in high-end materials, silver and gold, and their pieces were always marked for the metal content, and your piece is not mared. And, the mark on your piece does not match any Murle Bennett mark as far as I can see:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.langantiques.com/university/mark/murrle-bennet-co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.langantiques.com/university/mark/murrle-bennet-co/</a></p>

Here's a link to the post:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Collectibles-Art/Anyone-know-this-insignia-Do-you-think-it-s-sterling-...

---

Thanks @lacemaker3. From what Khoros is telling me there are some HTML tags that are not allowed. Here is a list of allowed HTML tags:

Default permissions

HTML Tag	Allowed HTML Tag Attributes	Description
<a>	href, target	Creates a hyperlink
<b>	none	Bold
<blockquote>	dir	Creates an indented block of text
<br>	none	Line break
<center>	none	Centers text
<div>	align, class	Surrounds a block of content to be formatted together
<em>	none	Italicize
<font>	face, size, color	Controls font size, face and color
<hr>	none	Horizontal line
<i>	none	Italics
<li>	none	List items (used with <ol> or <ul>)
<ol>		Ordered list
<p>	align	A paragraph of text
<pre>	none	Pre-formatted text. Typically using a monospace font
<span>	class	Groups text to be formatted together
<strike>	none	Strikethrough
<strong>	none	Bold
<table>	cellspacing, cellpadding, border, width, height	Table
<td>	width, height	Table column
<tr>	width, height	Table row
<u>	none	Underline
<ul>		Unordered list

[brian@ebay]

The thing that I'm trying to get more info about is the auto removal of HTML that Khoros doesn't allow. The message that members get states that the HTML should be automatically removed, but that isn't happening. This has been going on for a long time. Far to long. We are still working with Khoros to see how we can get this resolved. I wish I had more answers right now 😞

[donsdetour]

One method I use is to copy to notepad first, and then copy/ past from there: it seems to remove a lot of the problem.

[lacemaker3]

---

brian@ebay wrote:

The thing that I'm trying to get more info about is the auto removal of HTML that Khoros doesn't allow. The message that members get states that the HTML should be automatically removed, but that isn't happening. This has been going on for a long time. Far to long. We are still working with Khoros to see how we can get this resolved. I wish I had more answers right now 😞

---

The auto removal used to work, it worked correctly for years. Then it stopped working and this glitch was born.

Khoros changed something and the auto removal didn't work anymore. It seems that they ought to be able to review what they changed and figure out what caused the problem. I know, I know, if the programmer wasn't extremely careful to document changes, and make changes sequentially instead of multi-tasking, then they shoot themselves in the foot (feet). But if I can remember to log changes and work sequentially, then why can't the Khoros programmers?

However, in addition to not automatically removing the invalid HTML code after it was detected, in this case, the Khoros programming automatically added the invalid HTML that caused the issue in the first place. This is consistent with other scenarios that have been reported as well. Maybe they should be concentrating on not adding invalid code any more.

[lacemaker3]

---

@donsdetour wrote:

One method I use is to copy to notepad first, and then copy/ past from there: it seems to remove a lot of the problem.

---

Yes, that process removes all of the HTML code, valid or invalid, so it definitely solves the problem. Then when the message is posted (or previewed) a minimal amount of essential code is added to give paragraphs where you put line breaks. Or you can add formatting using the tools in the tool bar.

The problem is when invalid code gets copied from the eBay Help pages, for example. Or when Khoros adds invalid code along with the minimum essential code that has to be added.

[tyler@ebay]

@lacemaker3 - these examples seem to have helped Khoros a lot. They sent an email today saying that they rolled out a fix and are looking for members to try it again. 

Would you mind trying again and letting me know if you get the HTML/Flooding errors and grab me screenshots if you do so I can take that back to them?

Thanks!

[nobody*s_perfect]

---

tyler@ebay wrote: ...

Would you mind trying again and letting me know if you get the HTML/Flooding errors and grab me screenshots if you do so I can take that back to them?

Thanks!

---

I've still been having problems, and it's so annoying! So  I'd be delighted if there's a solution. So here's my attempt.

ETA: Yay!   

Moving onward:

So, the above is a screen shot of my failed attempt to post a quote from the USPS Domestic Mail Manual.