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[Bug] Message Center: link detection broken?


Rampensau

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Hello everyone!

 

Today I'd "discovered" a little problem in the Message Center of the Geocaching website. At this time I am a basic member and the sending o third party links is not allowed within messages. (no problem) Some hours before, in a conversation for a geocache adoption, I could send the coord link (https://coord.info/GCXXXXX) a few hours before. Now I tried to send a message with a link to the GC Help Center (https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=54 - not a third party, I think), that wasn't possible.

 

But this is not the only curious thing. After rejection of sending I tried a link of help page of the german reviewers team (only for testing - https://www.gc-reviewer.de/hrf_faq/wie-kann-ich-einen-cache-oder-travelbug-adoptieren/), no sending possible. (no problem) So I tried to replace the help center link with text. I tried

  • geocaching[Punkt]com / help / index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=54
  • geocaching (Punkt) com / help / index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=54
  • gc-reviewer (Punkt) de / hrf_faq / wie-kann-ich-einen-cache-oder-travelbug-adoptieren/
  • Help Center → Hide a cache → 7. Ownership after publication → 7.14 Adopt or transfer a geocache
  • Help Center -> Hide a cache -> 7. Ownership after publication -> 7.14 Adopt or transfer a geocache
  • Help Center - Hide a cache - 7. Ownership after publication - 7.14 Adopt or transfer a geocache
  • Help Center Punkt 7.14 Adopt or transfer a geocache
  • Help Center 7-14 Adopt or transfer a geocache

-> nothing solves the problem, sending wasn't possible. So I tried without the Help Center Info, but no success. I've closed the browser and then tried again, but no success. So I gave up and had sent a mail to my correspondent. 

 

Now I have pondered for a short time, but I can not find or solve the problem. Probably, there is an error in link detection or something else. The error message has been showed without using a link aswell.  So I decided to report my problem here as it seems that there's something "broken". 

 

The message I tried to send is attached below. I think, German special characters are not the problem, nor the ASCII emoji, too. Ideas? Proposals for solution? Thanks in advance!

 

(I hope I have expressed myself clearly, unfortunately I am not a native English speaker.)

 

Quote

Hallöchen!

 

Das ging ja fix. :-) Ich habe das auch noch nie gemacht, kenne das Vorgehen nur in der Theorie und würde mich an das Vorgehen beschrieben im Hilfebereich halten (https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=54).

 

Ich werde das Verfahren dann gleich mal auf der Adoptions-Seite anstoßen und dann müssten wir jeweils eine Mail erhalten, für Euch sollte darin ein Aktivierungslink vorhanden sein. Das Listing kann dann frei nach Euren Wünschen bearbeitet werden, ggf. könnt Ihr auch das Versteck selbst ändern. Lediglich der GC-Code und die Fundhistorie mit allem Drum und Dran bleiben erhalten und laufen weiter, als wäre nix passiert, darum ging es mir ja nur. Da Ihr die neuen Owner werdet, kann ich dann auch nicht mehr auf den Cache zugreifen oder habe sonst irgendwelche "Rechte" daran. Ich denke, selbst alle bisherigen Fav.-Punkte wandern auf Euer "Konto", aber das weiß ich nicht mit Sicherheit.

 

Wenn alles klappt: Viel Spaß mit Eurem neuen (alten) Cache! Leider muss ich noch dazu vermelden, dass das Logbuch wohl voll ist und ersetzt werden muss. 

 

Danke und schöne Grüße,
die Rampensau

 

Edited by Rampensau
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16 minutes ago, niraD said:

It's good to see that you found the solution after all... ;)

 

Should this be meant funny? This was platform-breaking of necessity, in the middle of a gc related conversation `- this is not a solution.. Seems, there's a bug and this is the place to report it.

Edited by Rampensau
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14 minutes ago, Rampensau said:

Should this be meant funny?

I would say it's intended to be humorous, but there is a serious point behind it.

 

14 minutes ago, Rampensau said:

This was platform-breaking of necessity, in the middle of a gc related conversation `- this is not a solution.. Seems, there's a bug and this is the place to report it.

I find email to be a much better tool than Groundspeak's Message Center. This is just one of many issues with it.

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4 hours ago, Rampensau said:

So I tried to replace the help center link with text. I tried

  • geocaching[Punkt]com / help / index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=54
  • geocaching (Punkt) com / help / index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=54
  • gc-reviewer (Punkt) de / hrf_faq / wie-kann-ich-einen-cache-oder-travelbug-adoptieren/
  • Help Center → Hide a cache → 7. Ownership after publication → 7.14 Adopt or transfer a geocache
  • Help Center -> Hide a cache -> 7. Ownership after publication -> 7.14 Adopt or transfer a geocache
  • Help Center - Hide a cache - 7. Ownership after publication - 7.14 Adopt or transfer a geocache
  • Help Center Punkt 7.14 Adopt or transfer a geocache
  • Help Center 7-14 Adopt or transfer a geocache

 

Anything with a decimal point that's not followed by a space (such as 7.14) will be interpreted as a link by Message Centre so that's probably why most of those didn't work. Your third one should have been okay though, but maybe the final slash immediately after adoptieren also set its link detector off.

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8 minutes ago, Keystone said:

A basic member's ability to send clickable links was restricted severely in response to spammer attacks using the message center. 

 

That's fine, but it really shouldn't be converting anything that contains a decimal point not followed by a space into a clickable link. Geocaching is a game that's full of decimal points that aren't part of URLs. I really don't understand why it has to convert anything into a clickable link, just leave real URLs as plain text and the recipient can copy and paste that into their browser if they want to open it.

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14 hours ago, Keystone said:

A basic member's ability to send clickable links was restricted severely in response to spammer attacks using the message center. 

 

That wasn't the point of my report, I have no problem with this restriction. The reported bug is, that the Message Center detects links, where no links are. 'barefootjeff' figured out, what could be a/the possible reason for the trouble. And that would be caused by bad coding.

 

18 hours ago, niraD said:

I find email to be a much better tool than Groundspeak's Message Center. This is just one of many issues with it.

 

Some people don't want mailings via geocaching (spamming) - the Message Center is much more unobtrusive.

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16 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Anything with a decimal point that's not followed by a space (such as 7.14) will be interpreted as a link by Message Centre so that's probably why most of those didn't work. Your third one should have been okay though, but maybe the final slash immediately after adoptieren also set its link detector off.

 

Thanks for your helpful posts. "Help Center 7-14 Adopt or transfer a geocache" shouldn't trigger a link detection, but was rejected, too. Also a slash alone shouldn't cause an error message. It seems a bit as a programmer has gone into overdrive without any regard for losses, don't knowing the standardized URI syntax (RFC 3986).

Edited by Rampensau
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On 8/2/2021 at 1:50 AM, Keystone said:

A basic member's ability to send clickable links was restricted severely in response to spammer attacks using the message center. 

 

Another small addendum: I can send links to coord.info within the Message Centre. Apparently there are also exceptions in the detection rule. But the fact that I can't link the geocaching homepage itself (in my case the Help Centre) is a bit strange. In any case, I would not consider the website I am currently using as a "third party". This also makes it difficult for users to help each other. Especially if I can't even refer to the Help Centre and its descriptions without links, because I can't even use the numbering of the regulations.

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