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Sphinn Beta: Known Bugs
We're open, but we're in beta -- and that means there are some bugs. This page tells you what we already know about. Find something new? Then add it to this discussion!
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Comments
We know about these things:
+ IE7 Issues: The Inbox pop-up window might not close. This is a known issue with the software we're using, and we're trying for a fix.
[FIXED] + Sphinn Button Doesn't Change: You cast a vote, the number updates, but the button still says Sphinn It until you reload the page. NOTE: The button does not control voting - you must click on the text that says "Sphinn It!" to vote.
+ Submit Button on Register Page is disabled on error (i.e. Passwords do not Match Clicked Try Again Unable to Submit).
+ Mistyping profile URL generates errors
+ Registration errors: *Parse error* might appear. Reload and you'll be fine, until we fix it. And if you get sent back by the script to start again, the "Create user" button will go missing.
+ Can't Stalk Or Friend People With Punctuation In Their Names: No, you can't. Eventually, you will be able to. But for now, at registration users are requested not to use these characters in their usernames
Now you know too! Got something different? Post below, and we'll update the list if we can't kill it immediately.
A couple of things I noticed:
[FIXED] -The All Categories > What's New list claims to have 2 pages, but when I try to go to the second page, it gives me a this is not the page you are looking for error.
[FIXED] -If you navigate into a story from All Categories > What's New, there doesn't seem to be a way to get back to that list except via the Back button, or by clicking on all Categories (which takes you to the What's Hot page), then on What's New again.
-There aren't enough stories that have been submitted about my cats. Can you look into that?
[FIXED] Now that you have enough users to build a page 2 the link is broke
http://sphinn.com/network/page/2/
Ah, gray, as you see I mentioned that on the topics list too, but now I see we have both apparently just ignore whatever Danny writes, as he seems to have noted that as a bug. Heh.
[FIXED] Work Blog URL
if you use a url like: http://www.seofox.com/blog it shows incorrectly in the profile page
its displaying as http://http//www.seofox.com/blog
however if you use a domain only it shows properly ie: http://www.semtutor.com/
[FIXED] Having an issue adding for SES San Jose. I think the link's wrong on it, it keeps linking back to the sphinn.com homepage.
BTW.. I'm stalking you now vanessa :P
[FIXED] NEXT buttons not working well throughout the site. Expanded stories per above to 100 to tide us over. Graywolf, kicked network page to show 500 at once which I hope will get us through an hour or two. Actually, I'd hope not :)
[FIXED] Will see if there's a workaround for categories or better, just fix the broken nexting.
[FIXED] Calendar area seems to be having all types of odd things -- not just wrong links but events pages not loading up right. Plus, wrong dates for PubCon. Will check.
[FIXED] Also character escaping on blog names is not being handled properly in profiles.
IE: Personal Blog: Caydel\'s Blog
Submit Button on Register Page is disabled on error
i.e.
Passwords do not Match
Clicked Try Again
Unable to Submit
Browser: Firefox
[FIXED] Regarding my profile: On my personal blog, I have an apostrophe as in "Jason Bartholme's SEO Blog and it comes as the following:
Jason Bartholme\\\\\\\'s SEO Blog
Danny, neat site you've got here. I just need a few more hours in the day now!
Anyway, just to add to the list of bugs, I see that some error pages aren't being handled very gracefully. For example, I was trying to see if our friend Philipp Lenssen had a profile yet. Since I couldn't find anywhere to quickly search users, I just guessed the URL:
http://sphinn.com/user/view/profile/philipplenssen
Which returns a load of MySQL / PHP errors... :-S
(BTW, I was getting the apostrophe error too. It seems to add another one every time you save the page.)
[Not a bug - see help file] I'm adding friends left and right, but only 5 of them are on my FRIENDS list. Everyone is added to my PEOPLE I'M STALKING list.
Also, on a user's profile, can we get an ADD AS FRIEND link? (Maybe next to the STALK THIS PERSON link?) Or am I missing such a link? Only way I can see to find an ADD FRIEND button is to search by username first.
Matt, I think that they are people you are stalking unless they are also stalking you. If you stalk either other, you become friends. It's like a sweet romantic comedy with John Cusack or possibly Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, you know, now that Cusack is mostly doing horror movies.
Matt - adding friends cannot be done automatically - it has to be a reciprocal relationship. If you see someone is stalking you, from within your profile, select "add" and that person will now show up on your friends list (and vice versa - you stalk someone, they have to add you). I think Danny covered this in his help file but I'd have to review it again. The language in the UI is a bit misleading though, so we're cleaning that up.
[FIXED] Comment Counts are still off - I commented on your "Common Sense Rules" post (making 3 total comments) and it still reads 2 on the home page. Not a big deal at all really, but worth mentioning.
Vanessa - seems I cant get away from Romantic Comedies. My wife loves them (as do most I'm sure), but I'd rather wait in the car :)
Thanks Vanessa and Michelle. :-)
Michelle -- I did read the Help, but missed the detailed explanation of Friends vs Stalkers. What I read made it seem like two unrelated things. My bad.
I added the sphinn button over at the SEOrefugee blog but I'd prefer it to open a new window rather than sending the user off (perhaps never to return). Can you make that happen.
And, BTW, your own spell check should flag sphinn as a typo!
Great site Danny.
Just signed up, and I'm not able to edit my profile at present - created fine, but unable to update any of the details... Is it just me? or...
[FIXED] I clicked on the title from your topics list. After clicking "Sphinn it" nothing happened. I clicked on the Title to read the article then back to the story on Sphinn. Still the number of Shpinns was unchanged.
Upon refreshing the page the following error...
Parse error: parse error, unexpected $, expecting ')' in /var/www/html/sp/sphinn.com/templates_c/c_ef20b2b5fff08f636a080a9108ff9329.php on line 136
Updated the list above. Thanks, everyone! Aside from that...
"If you navigate into a story from All Categories > What's New, there doesn't seem to be a way to get back to that list except via the Back button, or by clicking on all Categories (which takes you to the What's Hot page), then on What's New again."
Yes, this is correct -- but it's not a bug. I mean, how else would you get back? Me gets it not!
LeighH & WesleyLong, can you both try again and if you still can't, leave another comment.
[FIXED] I was surprised to see that www hasn't been redirected to the non, which is what it appears you are using for canonical.
Finally figured out that clicking the Sphinn logo/count next to the article just takes you to the article, put you have to actually click on the "Sphinn It!" text to, um, Sphinn it...
but might just be me... it's been a long week.
I had to register in IE, as I couldn't get the register and verify buttons to be clickable in Firefox.
Username I tried to enter (with an underscore), got an OK when I used the Verify key, but produced an error message when I registered.
PS... You mean, I'm going to see my own name as "you" after I post? ;-)
[FIXED] The title of the Danny's Welcome post is clicking, oddly, to Barry's article on Google Acquires Postini, a Security Company, for $625 Million.
Ooops. Strange.
Yep, look up at the list of known bugs. Discussion headline links currently are screwed up that way.
Sorry, Danny, my eye must have gone right over that when I first read the list.
Thanks, and good luck with all the Mr. Fixit stuff you must be having to do right now. I am sincerely excited about this new site!
Miriam
Related to the weird apostrophe thing, I can't seem to add friends who use a hyphen in their user name, SEO-Honolulu, for example. I like Matt Webb. I want to be friends with Matt Webb. But each time I try and friend him Sphinn yells at me.
It hurts my feelings. It probably hurts Matt's feelings too.
There are some odd formatting problems in FF 2.0:
[FIXED] http://sphinn.com/live_published - page specific tabs and headings overwrite each other.
[FIXED] http://sphinn.com/comments - Long names (like dannysullivan) overwrite the time column.
However, I love the new site! Congratulations!!
Just tried replacing my profile picture, however the old image remains stubbornly in-place. Also, I clicked save by mistake instead of upload and got an error message "Only these file types are allowed : jpeg, gif, png" but it was located above your site header.
EDIT: It appears that the image was in fact changed, but the new image was not displayed on the page. When I moved away from the page to my Info page the new image was displayed.
Sometimes when I click a headline, I get an error like this:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /var/www/html/sp/sphinn.com/templates_c/c_ef20b2b5fff08f636a080a9108ff9329.php on line 392
But then if I click back and on the headline again, it's fine.
Danny, but, but. See, I'm skimming through the new list. I find something I want to read and click on it. But then I want an easy way to get back to the list. And the back button shouldn't really be the only way to easily do that (or you know, maybe it should). I guess I'd like either the hot/new tabs not to disappear within a thread or I'd like the tab for the one that you are currently in to still be there. Or a "back to x" link with "x" being where you came from. Or maybe having either a breadcrumb (I know you did away with those though) or some visual way in the current tabbing system to see exactly where you are (for instance, other > water cooler > what's new somehow highlighted when you're within a thread).
@0thelisa - thanks for reporting this - this is actually a new bug (wheee)
@Red5 - known issue about the header on that one live page, thanks for the image upload error report
@vanessa - known error re: the template cache. that's being seen in a variety of odd places; adding breadcrumb back to the story pages seems reasonable.
bugs...why does it always have to be bugs....
Related to what Othelisa said about hyphens in usernames, the same seems to be true of periods in usernames.
so that means that I can have some friends now Michelle? ;) LOL
if I need to change my name, please go ahead and feel free to drop the hyphen. I will alter my very identity just for some friends!
[FIXED] If you submit a story that has already been submitted, it gives you a warning that the url already exists and link to find the story on sphinn. This searches and for the story I submitted it wasn't listed in the results. It seems like it would be pretty easy to be able to just pull up the story so I can Sphinn It.
Just fyi, I've been getting this error every so often today when I load the home page:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /var/www/html/sp/sphinn.com/templates_c/c_ef20b2b5fff08f636a080a9108ff9329.php on line 392
Yes, this is really starting to bother me too....no need to report any other errors like this one - even if the "on line..." changes - as this specific type is known and I'm seeing them too (in a variety of places). It's on the hit list.
[FIXED] I'm going to vote for this bug too:
+ Work Blog URL field on profile page might be adding http:// to URLs entered automatically
Hi Danny,
I can't sphinn something no matter how many times I try. I try refreshing ... nothing. I've even tried logging out, and back on with a different browser ... nothing. I want to spread my Sphinn love but ...
I'm either implementing the sphinn button not quite right... or the sphinn button is not quite right.
I put it on my post here:
http://www.vanessafoxnude.com/2007/07/17/how-offline-businesses-can-improve-their-web-sites-at-least-according-to-me/
The simplier javascript for the button looks like it grabs the current URL, which means that it would grab the right one if the person were on the permalink page, but the wrong one (the domain only) if the person were on the home page). (Which logically is what happened with the first button I tried.) So, I went with this version of the code:
submit_url = 'http://www.vanessafoxnude.com/2007/07/17/how-offline-businesses-can-improve-their-web-sites-at-least-according-to-me/';
http://sphinn.com/evb/button.php">
That works right if I visit the post on my home page after I've sphunn the post. But if I visit the page and I haven't sphunn the post, I still get the url of the current page (the home page, the category page), rather than what I've specified as the submit url.
Hmm. So actually. If I'm on the permalink page the button shows up with the # of spins. But if I'm on the post on another page (like the home page), the button shows "sphinn this" instead and still grabs the current page url.
[FIXED] Unsphinn doesn't work, the unvote script doesn't change the counter and doesn't trigger an event on the live page. NOTE: this action will not trigger on the live page - not a bug.
And by the way ... I'm on your "friends" list but you appear on my "folks I'm stalking" list. I can't figure out how to move you to my "friends" list :)
Vanessa, probably that`s a problem with your quoting. When you say print '$variable'; that ends up in print nil, and your browser sees that as a relative link to the current page. When you say echo "$variable"; or print $variable it should output the value of $variable, e.g. print "submit_url='$variable';"; or print "submit_url=" ."'" .$variable ."';"; should do the trick.
Hmm. Weird. I added you as a friend, which should take me off your stalking list right?
And I wanted to mention that Sebastian helped me fix this problem offline. And by offline, I of course mean via IM. The code listed on the tools page that you copy and paste into your site uses single quotes for the URL, but WordPress seems to be mangling that, so when I switched the single quotes to double quotes, it worked fine!
Thanks Vanessa :) The problem with friends/stalkers appears with Danny. I stalked him when I joined, then he added me as friend, but he's still on my stalking list.
Danny, the tools page needs an update telling that WordPress escapes the single quotes when one copies+pastes the JS code into a post and replaces the yourdomain.com example with the post's permalink. Or just switch the single quotes in the code provided there to double quotes.
Thanks for helping out Vanessa, Sebastian - I think I just might like user generated support as much as user generated content - or more actually :-) I'll update the tools page for WordPress users. Be sure to keep an eye out though - we've had some great Sphinn tools for WordPress developed by the community already, with more to come. And are updating the Tools page as they come online.
I'll add the friends/stalking problem to the list. Is this something you both notice with all your contacts? Or just specific contacts?
Vanessa & Sebastian - I've added both of you to my stalking list, but to try to recreate the behavior you're seeing, did so via different method for each. Please add me to your lists so that I can see if that kicks either or both of you to my friends list. Thanks!
Michelle, I added you as friend and that works. I don't think Vanessa has that problem, somehow different topics got mixed.
1. http://sphinn.com/story/124#c1123
The problem with friends/stalkers appears with Danny. I stalked him when I joined, then he added me as friend, but he's still on my stalking list and I'm on his friends list. That happened a few days ago, perhaps you've fixed this bug already and there are just a few IDs left in the wrong attributes. You can check it with those two profiles and scan the database for other occurences of this pattern.
2. http://sphinn.com/story/124#c1083
I've unsphunn http://sphinn.com/story/808 but that didn't work.
I never had a problem with that, Sebastian is right. I added you back, Michelle. Seemed to work fine. Tried to send you a message, but wasn't able to from your profile, only my friends list. (Known bug perhaps?) But then when I hit send, I got this:
there was an error. error number 1
which was kind of poetic and lyrical, actually.
Thanks Vanessa and Sebastian - I'll get the cross linking sorted out for you, I think it is related to when you added Danny as we pretty much dumped the db, for the most part, after the closed beta. Please confirm your friends/stalkers/stalking is working fine now (with the exception of Danny in the list).
V - I do like 'error no 1' - it is beautiful in its simplicity. but I'm thinking perhaps of swapping that for a smileycon with a look of horror instead ;-) though I reckon, we should probably just sort out the errors...
My friend/stalker stuff seems to be working just fine. I can stalk all kinds of people! Speaking of that though, there's no way to tell if someone is stalking you unless you remember to go into your stalkers list and check. It might be nice to have an option to alert you so that you can see if you want to friend them or whatever.
Danny - the move of a post from youmoz to seomoz main blog means that your system hasn't picked up a dup submission - just thought that I would mention it.
Cheers
Thanks Vanessa - that's a great suggestion. We'll add it to the features wish list. Send an alert to your inbox (or SphInnbox anyone???) when someone stalks you. Oooohhh and perhaps call it an APB! Maybe issue a restraining order if you'd like to block someone? Or this a bridge too far??
I had problems submitting an apparently fine URL. Sphinn said the URL was either malformed or blocked.
It's documented here: http://blog.arhg.net/2007/07/blocked-or-bugs.html
Just confirming what I wrote re the Sphinn buttons not working. It isn't just that the button does not change. As I said the vote was not recorded in the Sphinn Live! when that was available and the votes have not been recorded in the Who Voted section. I tried both three times and have tried others and it's not just buggy, it doesn't work.
Following up here as well:
Barry and Miriam, The button/text does seem to be confusing for some users, as the two actually do separate things. The button links to the story page, and also displays the current vote count. The link below it is what allows users to 'Sphinn' a story, and increase the vote count.
Afer having sphunn a story, the text is grayed out, changes and is no longer actionable. The button shows an increased vote count, and is still clickable, to take users to the story page from one of the archive pages (Hot Topics, What's New and Greatest Hits). What we are seeing with some users, and is a bug, is that the text below the button does not change unless the page is refreshed. Some users will then try clicking multiple times on the link (though the vote count does update right away) and will get an error warning them that they've already voted. It's on our list to sort out.
[FIXED] A Sphinn submission link that has previously been submitted results in a page telling you that the story has been submitted, and a way to search. Unfortunately the way to search doesn't bring up the existing story. This is unnatural behaviour which makes most of the submission buttons or even a text link effectively useless unless they are using the official javascript code. It also breaks the bookmarklet option
Sphinn staff,
I'm with jeffquipp, I'm unable to Sphinn any stories either in FF or in IE. Tried refershing, logging out, etc... and no dice.
I had been using this as a way to track stories I wanted to read again, but now I can't. Any clues?
@Natasha - are you clicking on the text that says "Sphinn it!"? If you are clicking on the gear itself, it will not increase the vote. This issue does seem to be one that confuses some users, so it's on my list to change sooner rather than later. Going forward, from the Sphinn site pages, clicking will be disabled on the button itself and the only clickable item will be the text. Hopefully, that will lessen the confusion for people. But to vote on a story - clicking on "Sphinn It!" should be working.
[FIXED] Had some general calendar bugs that I mentioned here: http://sphinn.com/story/1270
BUT then I found this article and it looks like you're on top of those, please disregard my comments. Thanks
Michelle,
THANKS!!! I was clicking on the Gear itself... I've been spoiled by Digg I guess into thinking that the gear is the click point... especially since the page reloads when you do. Thanks... I'm now happily Sphinning away... and stalking you ;)
Hi, I've no idea if this is a 'bug' or not (it could be a 'feature'). I had a story pulled for being too old just now, and the comments for it are still shown in http://sphinn.com/comments
Yeah, eventually you won't see comments like that. Right now, we're leaving them visible as a way to kind of educate everyone.
[FIXED] I've turned off comment voting because at least one person has down voted many comments, which by default makes them not visible. I think this was an accident, as covered here:
http://sphinn.com/story/1558#c2463
I think we'll look to set the default for showing comments to be -1 or -2 votes, so that more accidents like this don't cause comments to go unseen. But I can't fix that tonight, so I just disabled voting as a stopgap.
Copied over from http://sphinn.com/story/1558 to keep comments in right thread...
.
A URL with a space in it... not sure you wanted to do that...
http://sphinn.com/category/AllCategories/parent_name/All%20Categories
.
Another "bug" for you. Profiles and some other pages can be accessed both with or without a trailing "/" on the URL. I am guessing you'll want to supress that source of potential Duplicate Content soon.
Also, http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:sphinn.com is interesting to watch from day to day, to see what gets picked up next. I guess you'll be more interested in looking for inconsistencies as to which URLs are presented to search engines. :-)
[FIXED] All of my profile info has disappeared (the links to forums, social networking sites, etc.). Is this a known issue already?
@Vanessa - No, not a known issue at all. Has not been previously reported either. I took a look at a number of other user profiles, and everything is intact. Were you updating your info? Or did you just view your profile and see everything gone?
@Vanessa - I'm going to assume you went to modify your profile and this happened, as it happened to me right now when I just went to modify mine to replicate what you're seeing. Thanks for reporting - this is new and possilby related to some upgrades done at the ISP this weekend. Looking into it getting it resolved.
[FIXED] The :: spinn live :: link in the green navbar is spelled 'spinn' , not 'sphinn'. Is this intentional or a typo?
@MattC - Nice catch. Just a typo. Fixed now!
[FIXED] "chrisbartow 24 days ago said: If you submit a story that has already been submitted, it gives you a warning that the url already exists and link to find the story on sphinn. This searches and for the story I submitted it wasn't listed in the results. That's what I came here to say, but Chris already said it. It is a bummer when you want to vote on some story you found but you can't because it has already been submitted. But then the system won't tell you where to go to vote on it so...