Ampersand in category name breaks up the category
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When I try to change an existing blog category’s name into something that includes an ampersand (&-mark), such as “this & that”, the whole blog category becomes “unusable”: It remains in the category list, but when I try to edit it again I receive an error “You were trying to edit an ARTICLE that is not existing”.
Please advise. Thanks!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there,
I see this post is a few weeks old. Did you only “modlook” it now?
I had a look at the categories on your site and I am able to edit the ones containing ampersands. Were you trying to edit them from here?
https://scrumwell.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit-tags.php?taxonomy=category
It would be helpful if you can give me the exact steps you followed, and also a screen shot of the error including the URL appearing in your browser when it appears. If you upload the screen shot to your media library I can view it there.
Thanks.
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Kokkieh,
1. Follow the link you sent me above.
2. Click “Dokumentit” category name (a category that does not have an ampersand character YET)
3. Click Update.
4. You will see an error message described in my first post.The bug is not critical, since the ampersand is still added in the category name after the error message. Just very annoying.
Hope this helps,
Lare -
Thanks for the steps. I don’t see any error message if I do that, however, via neither the Category name, Edit nor Quick Edit links. If I click Update it just shows a Category Updated message.
Can you please try clearing your browser cache and see if you still see the error after doing that?
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Sorry, missed the obvious step above “2.5 Add an ampersand character in the category name” :)
Actually I can now repeat the error message (after clearing my browser cache) just by editing the category name in any way.
Please see this screen recording: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a880dj0yer7yyll/Category-edit-issue.mov?dl=0
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The error message in English: “You tried to edit an ARTICLE that does not exist. Has it perhaps been removed?”
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Thank you for the screen recording.
That type of error occurs when there is a connection problem between your computer and our servers, which explains why I don’t see it. It appears that when you try to save the category the instruction is not coming through to us correctly.
Can you please try resetting your modem/router, and if possible see if you have the same error if you use a different internet connection? If you’re using a firewall, perhaps also try temporarily disabling that to see if it makes any difference.
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Thanks kokkieh,
Just reset my Time Capsule, and also tested using iPhone as my MacBook’s connection. No joy there.
It seems quite extraordinary that this 100mbps fibre connection, that works 100% with every other wordpress.com admin page, link, and button (plus every other website in the World), would just happen to (persistently) “not come through” when updating the category names of my blog articles?
I recently trashed about 20 old blog articles, as part of updating my website. Since the error refers to “editing missing articles” (although category names should have nothing to do with “missing” articles), I wonder if there is some kind of database failure going on in my blog.
As a professional (ex.) web developer, I just have hard time buying the hypothesis of a failing Internet connection.
Thanks!
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As a professional (ex.) web developer, I just have hard time buying the hypothesis of a failing Internet connection.
I understand this. However, given that I’m unable to reproduce the issue on your site using the exact same steps as you rules out an error on the site’s database. All else being equal, the only differences are the connections and browsers we are using.
Have you tried using an incognito window in Chrome to rule out browser extensions?
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Agree, quite strange.
I have now tested this issue with 2 different computers (both new MacBooks), 2 different web browsers (latest Chrome and Safari versions), and 2 different web connections (100Mbps fibre and a shared iPhone’s 4G Wi-Fi). They all (also via incognito window) reproduce the “Missing Article” error message when editing my blog’s Article Category names in any way (no ampersand needed).
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Right. Thanks for trying that.
To add to the strangeness, it’s suddenly happening for me where I couldn’t get it to happen no matter what I tried a couple of weeks ago.
I did some more digging and it appears this might be a known issue, related to some changes in the Core WordPress software a few versions ago. It looks like our developers are still working on figuring out the exact cause and the best way to fix it, so for now we’ll need to live with it. At least the changes do actually update, in spite of the error message.
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That’s good news. Thank you Kokkieh for solving the mystery :-) Looking forward to a WordPress update later. Thankfully the error message is only slightly annoying.
Have a good springtime!
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I’m still curious why it did work for me for a month before I was able to reproduce this, as the actual issue appears to be older than a month. But I guess I’ll ascribe that one to the ghost in the machine :)
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No worries, it happens :) That reminds me how do you know that computers run on smoke? -When the smoke comes out, they do not run anymore…
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