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Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

Penny
Superuser
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Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

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... the last 24 hours or so have been getting weird anomalies with page display - just in Firefox, not in IE (IE6, ancient PC, can't upgrade).
Sample page at http://www.happychild.org.uk/supercoolzone/pokemon/pokedex/index.htm .
On the hard drive here, the page is fine - but once it's uploaded to the server, I get question marks where all the é factors should be (in Pokémon).
Can't see how it's anything I've done here - and this has only happened since yesterday - is there any possibility it could be related to the upgrades on the homepages servers?

If other people could take a look and say whether they get Pokémon or Pok?mon, I would appreciate this 😕

Thanks,
Penny.
Penny Rollo * * * joined Force9 on 17/02/98 * * * with PlusNet from 2000 onwards * * * personal website at pennymidasrollo.plus.com
Project HappyChild website (free educational resources for kids and schools, plus directory of charities helping children) 1998 onwards
Superusers are not PlusNet staff but do have a direct line of communication into the business to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the Community.
39 REPLIES 39
pierre_pierre
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

OK on mine Win7 Firefox 3.6.13
Oldjim
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

OK on mine also Win 7 64 bit Firefox 3.6.13
jelv
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

Like this you mean?
Firefox 3.6.13 on Win 7/32
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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pierre_pierre
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

could it be to do with the default character sets?
my screen print below
Oldjim
Resting Legend
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

more like this  Grin
spraxyt
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

Pokémon displays OK for me using Firefox/3.6.13 with Vista.
David
Penny
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

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... thanks for all the replies Smiley
The one John posted comes the closest - just done a screenshot, not sure if this will load okay (not done that from the hard drive before) - hope it will show what I'm seeing here.
Have had this issue on occasions in the past (the odd character) but nothing like this.  Somewhat reassured that it shows okay in some browsers, but a bit concerned how the page may look to at least some of its visitors 😕
Regards,
Penny.
Penny Rollo * * * joined Force9 on 17/02/98 * * * with PlusNet from 2000 onwards * * * personal website at pennymidasrollo.plus.com
Project HappyChild website (free educational resources for kids and schools, plus directory of charities helping children) 1998 onwards
Superusers are not PlusNet staff but do have a direct line of communication into the business to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the Community.
Peter_Vaughan
Grafter
Posts: 14,469
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

This is a code page problem... When you see the diamond ? text the browser is using the UTF-8 character encoding. You can see what code page the browser is using by going to the page in question then click View -> Character Encoding which will identify the code page being used to show the text.. If it says UTF-8 try changing it to ether of the Western code pages (8859-1 is normally the default) and the page will show correctly.
The reason some people are seeing it and others not is what default the browser uses as the page itself does not specify the code page the browser should use. Also some browsers ignore the pages charset setting and just use their default, which can sometimes be UTF-8.
Try adding the following to the <HEAD> section
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
And see if that resolves the problem.
Oldjim
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

Mine shows Western
jelv
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

Mine shows Unicode (UTF-8).
If I manually select Western (ISO-8859-1) it displays correctly.
I'd be very surprised if Peter's solution didn't work.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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pierre_pierre
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

got a good list on mine
Gabe
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Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

Thanks for the heads up. To avoid editing lots of pages, can add
AddDefaultCharset On
to the .htaccess
Gabe
Penny
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Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

Quote from: Peter
You can see what code page the browser is using by going to the page in question then click View -> Character Encoding which will identify the code page being used to show the text.. If it says UTF-8 try changing it to ether of the Western code pages (8859-1 is normally the default) and the page will show correctly.

... yes, that works Smiley  and thank you.
However I don't understand why this has only just started happening, would there maybe have been a default setting on the homepages servers previously, which has recently changed?

Quote from: Peter
Try adding the following to the <HEAD> section
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
And see if that resolves the problem.

I will try that.  However, another question - if I put the character encoding on the browser, back on UTF-8 (so the RBY Pokédex page shows the oddities), then go to the home page at http://www.happychild.org.uk/ , the word POKÉMON in the navigation table (next to the Pokémon picture) displays correctly.  That page doesn't have a coding indicator on the html either, so why would it display differently?

Quote from: Gabe
To avoid editing lots of pages, can add
AddDefaultCharset On
to the .htaccess

... have had a few issues with .htaccess in the past 😕    wiped the entire site from view, the first time I tried it.  Have learned to use it since, but confined simply to
Quote
errordocument 404 http://www.happychild.org.uk/teleport.htm
errordocument 500 http://www.happychild.org.uk/teleport.htm

Would this line (AddDefaultCharset On) just go below the existing htaccess code lines?

In the past I have avoided adding factors like "charset=ISO-8859-1" (or whatever) to the html on pages, because a lot of the pages on the site include other languages, eg Russian (sample here) or Urdu (sample here).
A bit out of my depth with this one, as you'll have gathered 😕  Really don't want to do anything which will stuff up overall view-ability (if that's a word) of the site, but equally perhaps I need to get to grips with charset-type factors a little more than I have so far.

Regards,
Penny.
Penny Rollo * * * joined Force9 on 17/02/98 * * * with PlusNet from 2000 onwards * * * personal website at pennymidasrollo.plus.com
Project HappyChild website (free educational resources for kids and schools, plus directory of charities helping children) 1998 onwards
Superusers are not PlusNet staff but do have a direct line of communication into the business to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the Community.
Penny
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 1,309
Thanks: 809
Fixes: 8
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Weird Firefox issue ... server-related? (Force 9 homepages)

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footnote.
As a short-term measure I've added the charset coding to all the Pokémon pages - *but* the anomaly characters are now visible in both Firefox and IE, on pages without the charset added.
The anomalies aren't present in either Firefox or IE when called up from the hard drive here, *only* once they're uploaded to the server.
Therefore am left with the fairly inescapable conclusion that the change has arisen due to something that has been modified during the homepages server upgrades.
Is there any chance that someone could look at this?  I went to the W3 org site to read up about charsets on html pages, but it seems mainly concerned with the settings for servers, Apache etc. (all a bit over my head).
If there's any way the default charset setting on the homepages servers could be changed back to whatever it was before the upgrades, this would be very much appreciated 😕  because I've no way of knowing if all the foreign-language characters on the site here (particularly things like French accents) will display as they should, with the changed server settings.

Hope someone can help 😕
Regards,
Penny.
Penny Rollo * * * joined Force9 on 17/02/98 * * * with PlusNet from 2000 onwards * * * personal website at pennymidasrollo.plus.com
Project HappyChild website (free educational resources for kids and schools, plus directory of charities helping children) 1998 onwards
Superusers are not PlusNet staff but do have a direct line of communication into the business to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the Community.