Forum issues

Post by **Chamberly** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:00 am

Feralidragon wrote:Have you tried to click it while the console was open to check if it outputs any error?
What could be happening is that selectCode is not defined at runtime for some reason (like a JS resource not being loaded where this function resides, judging from the other errors there), and it breaks the JS execution and ends up not returning anything, so the browser just proceeds as it's meant to in this case, sending you to the top.

https://i.gyazo.com/f07d76352f54694218f ... cd53ed.png
Ok so the first red error came from the top of the page select all,
the second error box came from the 2nd (on the next post down) gave that,
the 3rd one is what came up when I select your's (as seen in the image with your select all-code is visible. So that is what I see.

For the active topics, I check for it every once in awhile, depending on the on-going activity like the UT99.org mapping contest or some other. My most common selected link is the New posts...

Post by **Feralidragon** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:18 am

Back when I tested I was in a Linux PC with Firefox, and now I am in a Windows 10 PC with Firefox (the latest version) and I can reproduce the same problem now.
It is a JS code error, but not over the lack or failing to load a resource, but an actual error of the JS code itself in the newest browser versions.

I can investigate a little bit further myself later (no time now), but this means that the select code or the forum overall needs to be updated (not sure if the code tag with "select all" comes with the forum or was added later by an admin or so), so it can be compatible with the newest browsers.

Post by **Barbie** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 6:58 am

The issue occurs in file styles/prosilver/template/forum_fn.js, function selectCode(), statement "if(s.setBaseAndExtent)" in line 203: older versions of Firefox (tested with ESR 45.5.1) do not support "setBaseAndExtent" and so code execution proceeds in the ELSE part. With newer versions (tested with version 58) the wrong part of the IF statement (line 203) is executed.

Maybe a newer version of the forum software fixes that.

joker-seqartist.bsky.social · Post by **papercoffee** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 5:28 pm

is it really that important to have this "select-All" function available, so it's worth an update of the forum software?
I remember that Shade mentioned that this forum is heavily customised and updating it, will be troublesome.

Post by **RocketJedi** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 6:10 pm

papercoffee wrote:is it really that important to have this "select-All" function available, so it's worth an update of the forum software?
I remember that Shade mentioned that this forum is heavily customised and updating it, will be troublesome.

well it should be updated for security reasons. You guys have a huge resource of admins who can help as well. I Agree its not a big deal, but the forums should be updated regardless.

joker-seqartist.bsky.social · Post by **papercoffee** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 6:38 pm

Qwerty wrote:
papercoffee wrote:is it really that important to have this "select-All" function available, so it's worth an update of the forum software?
I remember that Shade mentioned that this forum is heavily customised and updating it, will be troublesome.

well it should be updated for security reasons. You guys have a huge resource of admins who can help as well. I Agree its not a big deal, but the forums should be updated regardless.

That's something only Shade can do ...He is the Root Admin.

Post by **Feralidragon** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 1:45 pm

Yeah, only Shade can do anything about it, but it's best if you don't actually expect for it to happen, even because that's not the only currently broken thing in this forum, and not even the worse one.

The very first visit you make to this forum through any mobile device (smartphone, tablet or other), gets blocked and redirected to a non-functional page, therefore anyone using such a device and not knowing anything about ut99.org at first will get the vibe that this is either a malware-ridden site or that is simply broken. So I am not sure how many legit users this forum is actively preventing from checking the forums and registering, which could be negligible, or could be a lot in this day and age.
And in the past this forum was down for around a full month or more, which was one of the reasons that led me to leave the place back then.

Therefore, if such an important thing to fix is left broken, then little things like this will remain broken, let alone forum updates due to security concerns.
Although it's a fact that this forum existed for a long time with almost no issues, which is cool, it's another fact that its future and maintenance is still volatile at best over this, unfortunately.

Sorry for the mild rant, but it is how it is.

joker-seqartist.bsky.social · Post by **papercoffee** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 3:06 pm

Feralidragon wrote: The very first visit you make to this forum through any mobile device (smartphone, tablet or other), gets blocked and redirected to a non-functional page, therefore anyone using such a device and not knowing anything about ut99.org at first will get the vibe that this is either a malware-ridden site or that is simply broken. So I am not sure how many legit users this forum is actively preventing from checking the forums and registering, which could be negligible, or could be a lot in this day and age.
And in the past this forum was down for around a full month or more, which was one of the reasons that led me to leave the place back then.

Therefore, if such an important thing to fix is left broken, then little things like this will remain broken, let alone forum updates due to security concerns.
Although it's a fact that this forum existed for a long time with almost no issues, which is cool, it's another fact that its future and maintenance is still volatile at best over this, unfortunately.

Sorry for the mild rant, but it is how it is.

I looked into it and all I can do as it seems is changing the splash screen from Tapatalk. Can someone try to achieve the page from a mobile device? But you have to delete the cookies from ut99.org.

Post by **Shade** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:49 pm

I have removed Tapatalk. If you still see it in mobile devices, let me know.

About the Select All: It seems to be a problem Chrome users have. It's a function in forum_fn.js, called setBaseAndExtent. I yet have to find a fix for it. If someone finds the correct phpBB patch, let me know, then I can copy paste this specific fix.

I won't update UT99.org's software anymore. It has been modified so many times over the years, that I lost track of all changes. Trying to upgrade this would overwrite manual changes I will not be aware of, resulting in a broken software. Trying to fix this mess would take a lot of time and work.

I know the software is getting old and is not in a perfect shape. The only acceptable solution would be setting up a new vanilla phpBB, importing the database, checking every single option in the admin control panel, testing the permissions and then starting to implement needed/suggested mods step by step. Still, this would take a lot of time and work (and testing!), too. And there I am asking: Is it worth it? The forum is running good mostly. I don't expect this community to grow significantly in the future, and I really don't feel motivated to put so much energy in this project anymore. Of course we can discuss this matter. Maybe we will get some good aspects/ideas here.

Post by **RocketJedi** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 7:06 pm

Shade wrote:I have removed Tapatalk. If you still see it in mobile devices, let me know.

About the Select All: It seems to be a problem Chrome users have. It's a function in forum_fn.js, called setBaseAndExtent. I yet have to find a fix for it. If someone finds the correct phpBB patch, let me know, then I can copy paste this specific fix.

I won't update UT99.org's software anymore. It has been modified so many times over the years, that I lost track of all changes. Trying to upgrade this would overwrite manual changes I will not be aware of, resulting in a broken software. Trying to fix this mess would take a lot of time and work.

I know the software is getting old and is not in a perfect shape. The only acceptable solution would be setting up a new vanilla phpBB, importing the database, checking every single option in the admin control panel, testing the permissions and then starting to implement needed/suggested mods step by step. Still, this would take a lot of time and work (and testing!), too. And there I am asking: Is it worth it? The forum is running good mostly. I don't expect this community to grow significantly in the future, and I really don't feel motivated to put so much energy in this project anymore. Of course we can discuss this matter. Maybe we will get some good aspects/ideas here.

yes the add-ons might be annoying, but you dont run anything really special. I see custom banner links. its quite as simple as copying over the current forum files. Then installing the new forum files minus the config.php and some folders like downloads. then importing the database and running the install.php which upgrades the files and DB really not that hard.

glad to assist if you ever wish to partake in this upgrade.

Post by **Feralidragon** » Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:58 pm

Wow, if I knew that a rant would be this effective, I would have ranted a lot sooner.

(I guess someone finally called Shade into looking into this, and he decided to really intervene this time, cool)
For what it is worth, the mobile issue has been fixed, thanks.

The "Select All" is not only an issue for Chrome users though, as I have been able to reproduce it in the newest version of Firefox as well.

As for the potential upgrade, I would suggest that anything which can be set up and handled by another admin/mod, to be handled by such a person.
And while it's true that other than a few problems and limitations here and there it doesn't have any critical problems for now, it's also true that the forum software will keep deteriorating over time, with more and more things getting broken until it becomes a pain to actually use the forum.

So it would be best to start a clean vanilla install, and only install/migrate the kind of things phpBB is already prepared for: attachments, icons, smiles, tags, custom logo, that sort of thing.
I would strongly advice however to do this in a separate environment, such as setting up everything nicely and all, and only in the end actually migrate the database and replace the current environment by the new one.
You could perhaps create a separate dev.ut99.org for that with a clean database at first, and then in the end just migrate the data and switch over.

As for captcha, you can probably use Google's recaptcha, which seems to work fairly well these days unlike a few years ago.
From there, anything that means modifying the phpBB code directly: don't.
That way, should a critical vulnerability be found or something like these kinds of bugs, you would probably be able to do a seamless update without any additional pain.

Post by **RocketJedi** » Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:38 pm

Feralidragon wrote:Wow, if I knew that a rant would be this effective, I would have ranted a lot sooner. (I guess someone finally called Shade into looking into this, and he decided to really intervene this time, cool)
For what it is worth, the mobile issue has been fixed, thanks.

The "Select All" is not only an issue for Chrome users though, as I have been able to reproduce it in the newest version of Firefox as well.

As for the potential upgrade, I would suggest that anything which can be set up and handled by another admin/mod, to be handled by such a person.
And while it's true that other than a few problems and limitations here and there it doesn't have any critical problems for now, it's also true that the forum software will keep deteriorating over time, with more and more things getting broken until it becomes a pain to actually use the forum.

So it would be best to start a clean vanilla install, and only install/migrate the kind of things phpBB is already prepared for: attachments, icons, smiles, tags, custom logo, that sort of thing.
I would strongly advice however to do this in a separate environment, such as setting up everything nicely and all, and only in the end actually migrate the database and replace the current environment by the new one.
You could perhaps create a separate dev.ut99.org for that with a clean database at first, and then in the end just migrate the data and switch over.

As for captcha, you can probably use Google's recaptcha, which seems to work fairly well these days unlike a few years ago.
From there, anything that means modifying the phpBB code directly: don't.
That way, should a critical vulnerability be found or something like these kinds of bugs, you would probably be able to do a seamless update without any additional pain.

we use an extension called "stopforumspam" along with the new captcha. The stop forum spam checks ips against a database and is nearly 100% effective. We haven't had a spam ever. WE use another extension but forge the name.

Post by **Barbie** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 10:22 pm

Shade wrote:About the Select All: It seems to be a problem Chrome users have. It's a function in forum_fn.js, called setBaseAndExtent. I yet have to find a fix for it.

As I wrote above, the problem also occurs with the last Firefox version.

Shade wrote:I yet have to find a fix for it. If someone finds the correct phpBB patch, let me know, then I can copy paste this specific fix.

Why don't you take the code from the current version of phpbb? Here is the actual version of function selectCode (at 03 Feb 2018):

Code: Select all

function selectCode(a) {
	'use strict';

	// Get ID of code block
	var e = a.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('CODE')[0];
	var s, r;

	// Not IE and IE9+
	if (window.getSelection) {
		s = window.getSelection();
		// Safari and Chrome
		if (s.setBaseAndExtent) {
			var l = (e.innerText.length > 1) ? e.innerText.length - 1 : 1;
			try {
				s.setBaseAndExtent(e, 0, e, l);
			} catch (error) {
				r = document.createRange();
				r.selectNodeContents(e);
				s.removeAllRanges();
				s.addRange(r);
			}
		}
		// Firefox and Opera
		else {
			// workaround for bug # 42885
			if (window.opera && e.innerHTML.substring(e.innerHTML.length - 4) === '<BR>') {
				e.innerHTML = e.innerHTML + '&nbsp;';
			}

			r = document.createRange();
			r.selectNodeContents(e);
			s.removeAllRanges();
			s.addRange(r);
		}
	}
	// Some older browsers
	else if (document.getSelection) {
		s = document.getSelection();
		r = document.createRange();
		r.selectNodeContents(e);
		s.removeAllRanges();
		s.addRange(r);
	}
	// IE
	else if (document.selection) {
		r = document.body.createTextRange();
		r.moveToElementText(e);
		r.select();
	}
}

For your convenience the diff from the forum's function with the above function:

Spoiler

Code: Select all

1,2c1,3
< function selectCode(a)
< {
---
> function selectCode(a) {
> 	'use strict';
> 
4a6
> 	var s, r;
6,13c8,21
< 	// Not IE
< 	if (window.getSelection)
< 	{
< 		var s = window.getSelection();
< 		// Safari
< 		if (s.setBaseAndExtent)
< 		{
< 			s.setBaseAndExtent(e, 0, e, e.innerText.length - 1);
---
> 	// Not IE and IE9+
> 	if (window.getSelection) {
> 		s = window.getSelection();
> 		// Safari and Chrome
> 		if (s.setBaseAndExtent) {
> 			var l = (e.innerText.length > 1) ? e.innerText.length - 1 : 1;
> 			try {
> 				s.setBaseAndExtent(e, 0, e, l);
> 			} catch (error) {
> 				r = document.createRange();
> 				r.selectNodeContents(e);
> 				s.removeAllRanges();
> 				s.addRange(r);
> 			}
16,17c24
< 		else
< 		{
---
> 		else {
19,20c26
< 			if (window.opera && e.innerHTML.substring(e.innerHTML.length - 4) == '<BR>')
< 			{
---
> 			if (window.opera && e.innerHTML.substring(e.innerHTML.length - 4) === '<BR>') {
24c30
< 			var r = document.createRange();
---
> 			r = document.createRange();
31,34c37,39
< 	else if (document.getSelection)
< 	{
< 		var s = document.getSelection();
< 		var r = document.createRange();
---
> 	else if (document.getSelection) {
> 		s = document.getSelection();
> 		r = document.createRange();
40,42c45,46
< 	else if (document.selection)
< 	{
< 		var r = document.body.createTextRange();
---
> 	else if (document.selection) {
> 		r = document.body.createTextRange();

Post by **Barbie** » Mon Feb 05, 2018 1:02 pm

Shade wrote:I won't update UT99.org's software anymore.

Just as a note: I tried an update from phpbb-3.1.5 to 3.2.2 and wasted two days with solving the installer timeouts updating the database (some hundreds entries only). I gave up and restored 3.1.5 finally.

Post by **Feralidragon** » Mon Feb 05, 2018 10:14 pm

Well, phpBB is not exactly a masterpiece, both code and user experience-wise, just looking at the source of that thing breaks my heart, and all those confusing settings break my head.

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