extremely long random character strings as search terms in stats
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Lately I’ve been frequently finding long random character strings listed among the search terms in my stats. These are sometimes displayed across the entire screen and beyond, their full extent requiring using a horizontal scrollbar to display.
The one presently displayed in my WP-Admin stats is as follows:
cyznk6whmbqa4x_am9wlwywsc00qrghjclywrpvd7plulh7m1-kw2yz0dlp-i1gaak1n411lgust366eljwymcjoqbgd-rhzjizvgaen2yed3pwey-2yypg1dmk9xelkexg40hln2b7gzjquzzxymy9wspagjbi9ujlct-h_so7nftd7j4isthbflaoouico71vlgemuil9xdalqmmoly0jwon4zfy37feqtwo1ly1-blr3zp4j6zkvyyoqkskdqid7ub1qsnxmbunq0r9n_dx0c5ohdg9xgba5ekcx8ly2n2ctlfgtnzbienuxbsepenkh62vgbez9slr7lsuy5lw
I wonder if these are causing any issues. One disturbing issue that I’ve been encountering for the past week or so on my primary WordPress.com site, and not elsewhere* as far as I know, is extreme distortion of text on publicly displayed posts and page (including sidebars), but never in editors. Blocks of text will seemingly randomly become enlarged, blurred, and otherwise distorted. Running the mouse over such text often restores the font to normal size and appearance, temporarily. I’ve seen the same effects on the latest Firefox and Google Chrome browsers.
_____________________________* I haven’t checked other WordPress.com sites of mine. The effects described above haven’t occurred in the forums, on other members sites, or on any non-WordPress.com sites.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Heyo @musicdoc1. The stats question has me stumped, but I’m asking for help on that. It might be a bit since we’re heading into the weekend, but I’ll follow up when I hear back.
extreme distortion of text on publicly displayed posts and page (including sidebars), but never in editors. Blocks of text will seemingly randomly become enlarged, blurred, and otherwise distorted.
I’m not seeing that, so you happen to have any screenshots? And is it intermittent on those posts? Does it happen in multiple browsers?
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Hidey-ho @supernovia,
I haven’t made any screenshots yet, but I can do so next time it happens. I’m usually on Firefox, but I believe the same thing happened on Google Chrome one day recently. I’ll check that again next time it happens.
I thought it might be a mouse issue, so I changed the batteries on the remote mouse, and also tried a different mouse, without resolving the issue.
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Incidentally, I’ve been away from the forums for several months, and find a couple of small issues regarding topic tags. I now find that it is necessary to reload the page in order to see that a tag I’ve added. Additionally, I now find it impossible to remove a tag that I’ve added to a forum topic.
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Here’s the first screenshot I’ve taken showing the type of font distorion I refer to above: https://snag.gy/5cBEdf.jpg.
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Here are two more screenshots, https://snag.gy/svTMwD.jpg and https://snag.gy/dqLjzK.jpg. These were found this morning on the page https://songbook1.wordpress.com/fx/1910-1919-selected-standards-and-hits/when-youre-a-long-long-way-from-home/.
I also presently find three elongated random character strings in my stats. One extends to the furthest reach of the horizontal scrollbar while the other two extend almost as far.
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@musicdoc1 Welcome back. I get those random strings of characters in my search stats periodically. They manage to go off the righthand side of the screen. Beats me how someone finds my site by typing:
mf8wadgzth8rz0ng-zpxc8vhyomuxmgfyrok0sey5bmqadlgkualwe85gbblimckamrjv4ujokyormg80pbcck_-mjduhw2ymxcj-nbomt0nfqh1s-7gylzelykijlq4br5smq6ihbxl8q5db1vais3m7ntge0lz93ajppi_cxvqdssbcpnofm51ivprml9js0gcbwlwpq1jc1tfnteqerrw41ce9hr_vfmo9ensqaezcyfcugzhnln43wtxlyurgauklx4tpgtstqaagykbf04vepradwbtxmbchd6pw99kswddw9ksarmoutztumwkz2ud0cvhccuehdsaimckwa
Also there have been changes to the en.forums which sometimes cause “caching issues” whereby there is a delay in replies to threads appearing and then only showing the timestamp of the OP not the reply. (You can read about that in “Forums help”) Now it seems that tags can only be removed if you change your mind BEFORE a reply is submitted. Tags not “sticking” and requiring a refresh seems to happen sometimes but not always. -
Thanks buddy, for the informative response. My forum tags never display until I refresh anymore.
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Yeah, we updated the forum software and it’s had a few issues with caching / tags. Getting that figured out and fixed is on our to-do list. :)
The messed up text thing is likely unrelated to the weird strings in stats. I did get a few screenshots of those long screens (as well as a copy of the latest long string) and sent them to our data team for analysis. I’ll let you know what I find out there.
As for the weird chunks of messed up text:
Running the mouse over such text often restores the font to normal size and appearance, temporarily.
Well, this is just a stab in the dark because it’s been so long for me, but honestly this brings me back to my PC troubleshooting days. We used to fix this sort of thing by adjusting the hardware accelerator setting in the video card driver. The fact that the problem appears in “chunks” not respective to paragraphs or anything on the HTML really … and the fact that you can get it to go away by moving your mouse around over it points to a video card driver problem. Especially since it’s happening in multiple browsers.
I’m surprised you’re not seeing it on other sites, too, but if it is only happening on your site, it could be because a typical page load on your site takes a lot to render. I tried finding one of the pages from the screenshot, for example, and got this one. Lots of pictures, lots of videos, and text over a stippled background — I wasn’t able to find a great way to measure how much strain that would put on a system, but it’s certainly more than the average website. You might try paginating, trimming down the sidebar — or even something as simple as switching to a solid background color as a test, just to see if it helps at all.
Noting as well, this does not happen on my computer as far as I can duplicate. I just have seen this kind of thing before in the past. What kind of system are you using?
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And, noting as well, I’ve got a request in with our data team to see if we can figure out the weird long strings in your search terms stats. They’re involved in a big project right now and since this likely isn’t hurting anything it may be a bit before we resolve it, but know it’s listed as an issue.
The fact that themagicrobot has seen the same issue before — and that it went away on its own — is helpful.
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Thanks. I agree that these are likely two unrelated issues.
Regarding the string issue, thanks for the data team request. I’ll keep an eye on that. Haven’t seen one today. Regarding the scrambled font issue, I’d rather not provide any additional information about my system publicly. Can we continue this discussion privately, via email?
I’m surprised you’re not seeing it on other sites, too,
Yeah, that’s striking. Not a hint of it elsewhere, and I do a lot of web surfing.
but if it is only happening on your site, it could be because a typical page load on your site takes a lot to render. I tried finding one of the pages from the screenshot, for example, and got this one. Lots of pictures, lots of videos, and text over a stippled background
True, but the size and nature of the site and of a typical page hasn’t changed much in the past several years. Never saw this issue until maybe ten days ago.
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Can we continue this discussion privately, via email?
I was just going to google to see if there is a known issue with your graphics card / driver / hardware acceleration or whatever and point you to those resources, but you can do that on your end.
But as for the WordPress end of things on that, you might be able to help the problem by lightening the load on your graphics card / memory. Maybe you could try out the recommendations I gave.
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Also:
Never saw this issue until maybe ten days ago.
Nothing’s changed on your site really, and again the symptoms point more to your system struggling to render the page.
but the size and nature of the site and of a typical page hasn’t changed much in the past several years
The page I loaded was about 4MB without streaming any videos, which is quite large for a single webpage even now.
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Oh! One more thing I forgot to note… Our data team was able to implement a fix for you. Cheers!
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Oh! One more thing I forgot to note… Our data team was able to implement a fix for you. Cheers!
Thank you very much!
The page I loaded was about 4MB without streaming any videos, which is quite large for a single webpage even now.
Given that the site is using 51.11 MB (~2% of available space!) and there are 947 posts and pages (including drafts) I calculated that the average size of a page or post on the site is less than 54 kB = .054 MB, though published pages are probably a bit larger than that on average. The numbers suggest that page of 4 MB would be more than 70 times larger than an average page or post on the site. I wonder why that might be, and will look into it.
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The 10 images on that page account for about 1/1,000th of the number of images in the media library. However, there may be one or two of monstrous file size. I’ll have a look.
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Does WordPress.com provide information regarding the size of a pages and posts on a site somewhere?
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@musicdoc1 I just used webpagetest.org for that. It’ll calculate the entire page load (just not the strain it puts on system memory / graphics)
I’d recommend:
– paginating longer pages
– trimming down the sidebar
– temporarily switching to a solid background to see whether that helps at all -
Hey!,
– paginating longer pages
Okay.
– trimming down the sidebar
You mean make it shorter?
– temporarily switching to a solid background to see whether that helps at all
Why would a “stippled background” cause issues?
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