[Message center] Cannot send message with a dot (eg "1.60 ft")

[+@rthur]

Hi !

 

A geocacher asked me yesterday for an other hint but I cannot answer him because the message center on the website or on the Android app does not let me send some of my messages.

I tried today and the problem was the same, so I looked for what kind of message is blocked.

 

According to my tests, all messages that contain a dot without space before and after are not sent.

Eg : 

- N 49° 25.194 E 000° 13.544

- 1.60 ft

- myusername@gmail.com

- x.x

etc...

Another user report the same bug here :

When sending this kind of message  to a user via the Message Center :
- On the Android App, a text appear saying the message had not been sent and invite to tap to retry.
- On the website, the [Send] button turn to grey and the label change to [Sending...] but nothing happen then.

 

If we look in the browser developer console, we can see that the Geocaching API server is responding with a "400 Bad Request"

[+sernikk]

This looks like a badly designed blocking of external links, but except blocking only them, it is looking for dots without spaces on either side.

[+@rthur]

Yes, it could be a too restrictive antispam rule... but this one is quite annoying and the error message is not understandable...

[+dprovan]

6 hours ago, sernikk said:

This looks like a badly designed blocking of external links, but except blocking only them, it is looking for dots without spaces on either side.

"badly designed" is a remarkably nice way to put it.

 

I wonder if this is new. I can't believe no one would have noticed if putting "p.s." at the end of a message blocked it from being sent, but since none of us trust the message center to reliably deliver messages to begin with, I guess there's no reason to think twice about a message not going through. Hmmmm.... Now that I think about it, I'll take that back. This may well *explain* why people have been complaining about message center reliability.

[+IceColdUK]

Just tested using Safari on an iPhone, and I’m seeing the same behaviour - the ‘Send’ button changes to ‘Sending‘ (in grey) but never sends the message.

 

I received a message three days ago (10 August) containing the following text:

 

I’m expecting to get a number like 19.xyz and 33.abc but I’m not getting close to that.

 

I tried sending the same message today, and it wouldn’t work until I added a space after each of those dots.

Edited August 13, 2020 by IceColdUK
Formatting

[+sernikk]

15 hours ago, dprovan said:

"badly designed" is a remarkably nice way to put it.

Yeah, I forgot about the word "extremely"

 

15 hours ago, dprovan said:

(...) This may well *explain* why people have been complaining about message center reliability.

When I think about it, I had problems with Message Center multiple times, and know it is obvious why.

 

I tested this "bug" in a way. I've sent a message to my friend from my friendslist. The message (like shown as an example in first post) went through, with no problem at all.

So i tested this with a different account. I've sent a message to an account which is not on my friendslist and the message went through.

But the other way around - This account couldn't reply to me with the same message (??)

 

[Luvot]

I experience the same problem. Sending a message with coordinates failed from the web UI and from the Android app. I removed all dots from the message and it was sent successfully.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Luvot

[+CAVinoGal]

On August 3 this year I sent a message to another cacher (not on my friend list - a random CO on a cache I found) and included coordinates - it sent, and I know that, because he replied!  So I am not seeing this behavior, and at this point I am not having any issues with the message center on the website or on my phone that I am aware of.  My messages appear to be sending, and I am getting replies as well as initial messages from other cachers.  I am not aware of any missed messages on my end.

 

WIndows 10, Chrome browser (Version 84.0.4147.125 (Official Build) (64-bit))

Phone: Google Pixel, Android 10, app v 8.29.0

 

 

[+Max and 99]

I just tested this out and I am having no problem sending and receiving messages with coordinates. Both on my Android and on the website.

[+IceColdUK]

8 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

I just tested this out and I am having no problem sending and receiving messages with coordinates. Both on my Android and on the website.

 

I wondered whether there'd been a fix, so I retested...

 

As before (iPhone/Safari), I attempted to send a message from my wife's account (IceColdToo - a Basic member) to my account (IceColdUK - a Premium member), including the following text:

• I’m expecting to get a number like 19.xyz and 33.abc but I’m not getting close to that.

Again, it failed to send.  It also failed on Windows/Chrome and Windows/Edge.

 

But guess what?  I then tried to send the same message from my account to my wife's, and it worked exactly as expected on all three platform/browsers.  Seems strange, but is the membership type a factor?

[+Max and 99]

7 minutes ago, IceColdUK said:

 

I wondered whether there'd been a fix, so I retested...

 

As before (iPhone/Safari), I attempted to send a message from my wife's account (IceColdToo - a Basic member) to my account (IceColdUK - a Premium member), including the following text:

• I’m expecting to get a number like 19.xyz and 33.abc but I’m not getting close to that.

Again, it failed to send.  It also failed on Windows/Chrome and Windows/Edge.

 

But guess what?  I then tried to send the same message from my account to my wife's, and it worked exactly as expected on all three platform/browsers.  Seems strange, but is the membership type a factor?

Good question. My test was from a PM to a non PM. It sent and received the coordinate.

[Frau Potter]

We are exploring ways to reduce spam to our community, sent through the Message Center. As of July 26, 2020, Basic Members are no longer allowed to send external links through the Message Center. We plan to add an error message so that Basic members know that they are not able to send external links. The fact that a Basic member also cannot send coordinates was an unintended result that we will investigate. Premium members are unaffected.

[+Max and 99]

13 minutes ago, Frau Potter said:

We are exploring ways to reduce spam to our community, sent through the Message Center. As of July 26, 2020, Basic Members are no longer allowed to send external links through the Message Center. We plan to add an error message so that Basic members know that they are not able to send external links. The fact that a Basic member also cannot send coordinates was an unintended result that we will investigate. Premium members are unaffected.

That is a logical explanation! Funny about the unintended coordinate issue. Thank you for explaining the situation to us. It all makes sense now.

[+CAVinoGal]

3 hours ago, Frau Potter said:

The fact that a Basic member also cannot send coordinates was an unintended result that we will investigate. Premium members are unaffected.

OK, so that explains why some of us noticed nothing, and others experienced the unintended result of xx.xx format (whether numbers, letters, or whatever) being blocked for basic members.  Kind of like my phone texting app that automatically converts anything in that format to a link, whether it is supposed to be or not!

Edited August 15, 2020 by CAVinoGal
Typo corrections

[+Viajero Perdido]

2 hours ago, Frau Potter said:

We plan to add an error message

 

Couldn't this be planned to be done at the same time, instead of later?

 

Couldn't you just decline to link-ify text that looks suspicious (assuming you linkify links), rather than just greying out the button until the night shift adds error handling?

 

PS, on reflection, I think an error message would be completely wrong here.  It's an interruption to legitimate messaging.  Simply don't linkify the text if there's any doubt, and be a smoothly functioning message system.

 

Error messages cause profanity.

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by Viajero Perdido

[+ecanderson]

15 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

That is a logical explanation! Funny about the unintended coordinate issue.

Not really very funny if you've ever been in the coding business.

[+lodgebarn]

6 hours ago, ecanderson said:

Not really very funny if you've ever been in the coding business.

I am and I do find it amusing, along with other similar unintended consequences I may have perpetrated during my career. Now the key measure of an organisation is how quickly it is resolved, not that it happened in the first place.

[+ecanderson]

Would have found it funny except for the fact that this entire enterprise is dependent upon just the sort of text that the poor parsing excluded.

 

[+Max and 99]

21 minutes ago, ecanderson said:

Would have found it funny except for the fact that this entire enterprise is dependent upon just the sort of text that the poor parsing excluded.

 

That's what's so funny! 

[+Optimist on the run]

This could explain why I'm badgering non premium members to send answers to my Virtual, when they may well have done so, and it's just been deleted by a spam filter. This makes me look incompetent, and is completely unacceptable.

[Frau Potter]

The issue identified in the original post is now resolved. All users should now be able to send coordinates within messages in the Message Center (as they could before).

[+Optimist on the run]

11 hours ago, Frau Potter said:

The issue identified in the original post is now resolved. All users should now be able to send coordinates within messages in the Message Center (as they could before).

 

What about websites? A genuine message might be "You can check you qualify for this at Project-GC.com" or (as a Virtual answer) "The website at the bottom of the plaque is..."

[+@rthur]

On 8/17/2020 at 9:44 PM, Frau Potter said:

The issue identified in the original post is now resolved. All users should now be able to send coordinates within messages in the Message Center (as they could before).

 

Sorry, but it is "partially" resolved : It still lacks an error message when the sending fails.
Right now on the website the button just say "Sending..." but silently fails and the message is never sent.

 

This is a bug.

You need to add an error message to tell the user that the message had not been sent.

[+Viajero Perdido]

7 hours ago, @rthur said:

You need to add an error message to tell the user that the message had not been sent.

 

Pessimal. It needs to send the message, simply as text.  Why should the user care that some text is illegal and disallowed? If something called Message Center doesn't send every legitimate message thrown at it...

 

What is this, Twitter? Facebook?

 

Speaking of which, I wonder if they ever fixed the bug I reported where it removed my cheery signoff from email replies, making me sound curt instead. Stuff like this destroys trust.

[Frau Potter]

7 hours ago, @rthur said:

 

Sorry, but it is "partially" resolved : It still lacks an error message when the sending fails.
Right now on the website the button just say "Sending..." but silently fails and the message is never sent.

 

This is a bug.

You need to add an error message to tell the user that the message had not been sent.

As I said before:

We plan to add an error message so that Basic members know that they are not able to send external links. 
We are still working out the details, since this involves both web and mobile Message Center experiences. 
 

Thank you for your patience. 
 

[+dprovan]

9 hours ago, @rthur said:

Sorry, but it is "partially" resolved : It still lacks an error message when the sending fails.

Frau Potter is capable of (and is) defending herself, so I'll just point out that the idea of the error message wasn't brought up in the OP, so she is correct that the original issue has been resolved...

 

Or is she? The fix she reports says people can send coordinates. Is that really all they did? Has anyone checked to see if other examples in the OP, like "1.60 ft", are still being blocked?

 

Also, before we get too carried away with "an error message", are we all OK with a message with the text "geocaching.com" in it being blocked? As Viajero Perdido suggested, would a sufficient guard be just not changing any text into a link? Or is the consensus that a basic member shouldn't even be able to send something that looks like a URL even when the system doesn't pass it on as an actual link the recipient can click on?

[+IceColdUK]

4 hours ago, dprovan said:

Has anyone checked to see if other examples in the OP, like "1.60 ft", are still being blocked?

This message will NOT send from a basic account:

 

More testing:
- N 49° 25.194 E 000° 13.544
- 1.60 ft
- myusername@gmail.com
- x.x

 

Not sure which of the dots is preventing it from being sent, but don’t understand why any of them should.

[+Viajero Perdido]

I'll be blunt.  This is sloppy logic.

 

I received a message - from a premium member - containing the text "fire...or".  Not perfect syntax, but humans type like that sometimes; it would've been Queen's English as "fire, or".  But we're human.

 

Anyway, the Message Center turned that into a link to "fire...or", which is of course meaningless.

 

Overly permissive for premiums, overly restrictive for peons? 

 

Edited August 20, 2020 by Viajero Perdido
Poofread *before* posting

[+@rthur]

19 hours ago, dprovan said:

Has anyone checked to see if other examples in the OP, like "1.60 ft", are still being blocked?

 

I checked with a basic member account and everything now seems to work normally (except url)
It seems also that they add a whitelist of allowed domain names. As far as I can tell, links to geocaching.com website or coord.info are working (but not project-GC)

 

 

14 hours ago, IceColdUK said:

This message will NOT send from a basic account:

 

More testing:
- N 49° 25.194 E 000° 13.544
- 1.60 ft
- myusername@gmail.com
- x.x

 

Not sure which of the dots is preventing it from being sent, but don’t understand why any of them should.

 

I checked yesterday and just right now with a basic member account : all these examples are working now.

 

 

19 hours ago, dprovan said:

Also, before we get too carried away with "an error message", are we all OK with a message with the text "geocaching.com" in it being blocked? As Viajero Perdido suggested, would a sufficient guard be just not changing any text into a link? Or is the consensus that a basic member shouldn't even be able to send something that looks like a URL even when the system doesn't pass it on as an actual link the recipient can click on?

 

Spam is a nightmare for everybody.
Sending links as text won't stop spam to be sent.

So I am OK with the actual solution if an error message is added soon. ;-)

[+IceColdUK]

18 minutes ago, @rthur said:

15 hours ago, IceColdUK said:

This message will NOT send from a basic account:

 

More testing:
- N 49° 25.194 E 000° 13.544
- 1.60 ft
- myusername@gmail.com
- x.x

 

Not sure which of the dots is preventing it from being sent, but don’t understand why any of them should.

 

I checked yesterday and just right now with a basic member account : all these examples are working now.

 

 

Very strange.  If I try to send that 5-line message from a basic account, it still fails.  If I add a space into the email address, i.e. 'myusername@gmail. com', it will send.  Interestingly though, if I just send the email address as a message on its own (without any added spacing) it works fine.  ?

[zoliasi]

Still have this issue with dots,if i leave space between dots than the message is sent.Basic member.

[+@rthur]

On 8/20/2020 at 4:40 PM, IceColdUK said:

 

Very strange.  If I try to send that 5-line message from a basic account, it still fails.  If I add a space into the email address, i.e. 'myusername@gmail. com', it will send.  Interestingly though, if I just send the email address as a message on its own (without any added spacing) it works fine.  ?

 

I just try from 2 different basic member accounts and it works on my side :

 

[+The Snowdog]

Well it used to be that any "dot" in a message turned into a hyperlink, no matter how silly, so this looks like a fix that didn't go quite right.

[IByteNL]

Believe me, the issue isn't fixed. I have been trying to send a message with coordinates in it for about a week, and kept receiving errors like "message failed to send" (which really doesn't tell you what the problem is). I just found this topic, added a space after every dot, and the message went through. As a software developer, I think that's some really poor coding, and an even worse process of bug fixing.

 

(For some technical context, I am a basic member.)

[+@rthur]

On 9/15/2020 at 2:31 PM, IByteNL said:

Believe me, the issue isn't fixed. I have been trying to send a message with coordinates in it for about a week, and kept receiving errors like "message failed to send" [...]

 

Can you give us the exact message you are tring to send which does not work.

We can try to reproduce it to confirm if it is the same problem, and it will help Groundspeak developers to fix it.