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]

brittanie@ebay 

In my experience, copying and pasting ANY text that includes formatting will trigger this error.

Most eBay policy pages have formatting on the text, so do most websites. MS Word includes a huge amount of formatting that is included when text is copied, so copying from an MS Word document also triggers the error. 

If the quote the post that you are replying to, and then edit the quote (for example so that you can reply to one question from a longer post), that can also trigger the glitch. I don't recall experiencing this recently, so perhaps this has been addressed, or perhaps I have just gotten more skilled at avoiding the glitch as described below.

In order to avoid the glitch, I have been doing a plain text paste instead, and then reformatting the text manually to restore the formatting if that seems necessary. That confirms that the HTML glitch is caused by copying and pasting text that includes formatting (even if the formatting is not apparent or obvious).

Ways to do a plain text paste:

• in Chrome, right-click where you want the text and choose "Paste as plain text" from the drop-down list
• press [Ctrl]-[Shift]-V   (the keyboard shortcut)
• browser workaround:
  • copy the text,
  • open a new tab in your browser,
  • paste the text into the URL address box in the new tab, 
  • highlight and copy the text from the URL address box , 
  • go back to the browser where you want to paste the text,
  • put your cursor where you want the text
  • paste it there (press [Ctrl]-V as the keyboard shortcut)
• Notepad workaround (also works with Notepad++)
  • copy the text
  • open a new file in Notepad
  • paste the text into the new file
  • copy the text from the Notepad file
  • go back to the browser where you want the text
  • paste it there (press [Ctrl]-V as the keyboard shortcut)

[lacemaker3]

In this post, I'm going to try posting the HTML code that was generated after I tried to post the copied policy text. This is the code that was supposed to have been cleaned up when I got the red error message that said the "The invalid HTML has been removed."

HTML code copied from my Notepad++ file pasted below this line:

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

Item location policy

• What is the policy?
• Why does eBay have this policy?

Item location information must accurately state where the item will be shipped from.

To make sure buyers have a clear understanding of shipping charges and delivery times, sellers must provide accurate information in their listings about where their item will be shipped from.

What is the policy?

• Clear and accurate information about where the item is located, including the postal code, city and country where the item will ship from, must be included in listings
• Item location information must be consistent across all areas of the listing including title, description and item specifics
• A tracking number uploaded after an item has sold must match the shipping location provided in the listing

[lacemaker3]

OK, I don't want to edit Message 3, because that message posted the first time I tried.

So that shows that the updated code that was generated by the error message that said the invalid HTML had been removed, WAS clean code.

I guess that it should have been posted at that point, except that it triggered the Post Flooding error message instead.

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

brittanie@ebay   sheila@ebay 

I received the HTML error even though I was NOT copying any text

Windows 10 Chrome.  

@lacemaker3   I think that they want the code like in my second picture too when you get an error.  

[lacemaker3]

@comics-scifi-collectibles,

I have copies of the code from before and after. 🙂 As I understood it in yesterday's weekly chat, brittanie@ebay was going to reach out so I could send her the text file with the code in it by email. I think it would be more convenient for them to work with that, rather than trying to troubleshoot from a screenshot.

Also, I think it is very significant that the invalid HTML really has been corrected when it says "The invalid HTML has been removed", and we just can't post the corrected HTML because of the secondary post-flooding glitch (which is separate, but related).

Were you posting a macro when you got the HTML error you showed above? And, did you screenshot the  HTML before, or after you got the Invalid HTML glitch?

That HTML code is very simple, and I wouldn't think it would cause any issues, but I can't see all of the code in the screenshot. There might be an issue somewhere that I didn't spot, or can't see. 

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

@lacemaker3   I did not use a macro.  I didn't copy anything.   The system did a save part way through my slowpoke typing so I am GUESSING that is what triggered the error.

I only took a screenshot of the HTML after I got the error when I tried to submit the post.  

PM me which email you're using and I can send some HTML errors if when I get the error again.  

[lacemaker3]

---

@lacemaker3 wrote:

brittanie@ebay 

In my experience, copying and pasting ANY text that includes formatting will trigger this error.

...

---

I want to clarify that statement. 

It isn't ALL formatting that causes the "Invalid HTML" error. Some formatting is OK. It appears that relatively "simple" formatting is OK, but more advanced or complicated formatting is not OK.

In the example I used, at a quick glance, ONLY the [eBay Help search box] has been removed from the HTML code. So apparently, the rest of the formatting that was copied from the policy page was acceptable, and I would have been able to post it (after the Invalid HTML was removed) except for the secondary post-flooding error.

I haven't tmade a detailed comparison of the before and after HTML code, other than the removed search box, which was obvious. I could review the code and find all the differences, but I wouldn't be able to do anything to fix the problem, and in the past, eBay has not made use of the information when I have taken the time to do detailed trouble shooting for them. 

[lacemaker3]

---

@comics-scifi-collectibles wrote:

@lacemaker3   I did not use a macro.  I didn't copy anything.   The system did a save part way through my slowpoke typing so I am GUESSING that is what triggered the error.

I only took a screenshot of the HTML after I got the error when I tried to submit the post.  

PM me which email you're using and I can send some HTML errors if when I get the error again.  

---

That's interesting. Just typing? 

The trouble is, you would need to copy the HTML code before you get the error, because the invalid HTML is really being cleaned up. If you can get some "before" HTML code, you can send it to me with a PM in the community. 

I deliberately made a copy-and-paste that I was fairly confident would trigger the error, and copied the HTML code before I submimtted it, in order to get the "before" code that includes the invalid HTML. 

If people have just been capturing the "after" code, then that would explain why this has been so hard to trouble-shoot. And it's kind of hard to capture "before" code unless you can go back in time. 😃 Or accurately predict that there's going to be a problem before it happens.

[eburtonlab]

Here is a screenshot of the html portion of a message copied from an older post that I was reposting, that generated an html error. I had made sure to only copy text from the body of the message.

Deleting the <div class=> lines of the html allowed the post go through.

[lacemaker3]

@eburtonlab, thanks for sharing that.

I don't think the answer is quite that simple, though. It's not JUST the <div class> HTML that causes the problem, and sometimes code like that is OK.

For example, this is the cleaned-up "after" code that I posted after the line in Message 3. This code posted successfully that time.

Screenshot of the text file including all the HTML (except for the lines that are too long):

This is what it looks like in the community HTML Source code box:

[eburtonlab]

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]

Yes, that makes sense. Although, I just copied and pasted your message, to see how it would look. It doesn't appear to have anything except the paragraph HTML code, which is <p> and </p>.

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.

Let's see if this posts or not:

Edit: yes, everything above this line posted the first time I tried.

Possibly, they have already addressed some of the issues that were causing this glitch when it first appeared, and now they are chasing the causes that are harder to find.

[lacemaker3]

Using an actual desktop browser (rather than a mobile device), from one of the My eBay pages you should be able to reach your eBay profile page by clicking on your username. From there, select "edit profile" and look for a little pencil icon in the top corner of the profile picture that is shown.

It may be possible to do that using a mobile browser in desktop mode, but I have not actually done so to verify that it works.

Edit: @eburtonlab that's a reasonably short message, so I copied it to see if I could replicate the issue.

I think that this particular issue has been fixed, because I was able to post the message above without getting an Invalid HTML error, even including the <div class> codes.

[lacemaker3]

Using an actual desktop browser (rather than a mobile device), from one of the My eBay pages you should be able to reach your eBay profile page by clicking on your username. From there, select "edit profile" and look for a little pencil icon in the top corner of the profile picture that is shown.

It may be possible to do that using a mobile browser in desktop mode, but I have not actually done so to verify that it works.

Edit: @eburtonlab that's a reasonably short message, so I copied it to see if I could replicate the issue.

I think that this particular issue has been fixed, because I was able to post the message above without getting an Invalid HTML error, even including the <div class> codes.

[eburtonlab]

I tried copying and pasting several times from messages in this thread, and I seem to have trouble recreating the problem reliably now.

I encounter the problem when copying and pasting several paragraphs from a message by dragging the cursor to highlight the text.