Posts getting rejected? Anyone know why?

[Saph]

Okay, I've got a really bizarre posting issue which has been causing me problems for a while now. The issue is this:

Sometimes, when I write a post, a certain sentence in the post will be rejected by the server. So I might write a 500 word post, and one particular sentence, somewhere in the middle, will cause the post to fail.

The infuriating bit? I don't know which sentence is causing the error. The forum won't tell me - all I'll get is a long wait and a "Forbidden" error. I have to go through the post line by line, deleting and replacing one sentence at a time on a trial and error basis, until the post goes through.

Has anybody else had this problem? Does anyone knows what causes it? It happens infrequently, but it's really really inconvenient when I've typed out a post for one of my PbP games and suddenly I find I have to go through it with a tooth-comb and delete bits out of the middle until I find whatever the forum was objecting to.

It's like certain sentences - or maybe just single characters, I don't know which - just cause the forum to lock up. Anyone have a clue how to deal with this?

- Saph

[Burley]

Your spoiler says you're in China. I've read/heard that even simple things like checking email can get you some wierd errors, thanks to their internet blockin'.

It's an extremely long shot, but it may just be regional.

[Winterwind]

I've never had any problems resembling that. Chances are it might be on your end, maybe for the reason Burley suggests. :smallfrown:

[AstralFire]

When my best friend was in China, she had a similar issue with emails. Chances are, that's it.

[Quincunx]

There's an alternate explanation (although not a solution): some board formatting, which you haven't even realized you included in your post, seizes up the forum software and blocks the post. The best I can recall is that URLs with % signs instead of proper spaces were among the culprits. If you think it's a problem on your end, try talking to dish, who's been based there for some time now.

[NerfTW]

When you say "forbidden" error, do you mean an error from the board software itself, or just the general "You do not have permission" generic white page that the browser displays? What is the full error message?

It can be one of two things, both mentioned in this thread. Either your ISP is actually blocking message board posts, or you have illegal characters in your text.

[Saph]

I'm quite certain it's not because I'm in China. The same thing has happened before, posting from England. (On a different computer, too.)

The message I get is, as far as I can remember, "403 Forbidden, you do not have permission to access this page". When it happens, I have to go back over the post and delete sentences one at a time until I find whichever sentence was causing it. As soon as I do, the post works instantly.

I'm fairly sure it's illegal characters, or some combination of characters, but I don't know what the combination is. I was hoping someone might have an idea.

- Saph

[Saph]

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. The following is from a PbP game I'm running on these forums:

Part 1
"The next demiplane is an aquatic one," Lilian says. "It's dark and shrouded, and contains pillars of air which block vision. There is a small entry area, however, which contains items that can help you - gems, waterheart gems. While one of the gems remains in contact with your skin you should have no fear of drowning. They have a secondary function, too, a freedom spell; it activates if you speak the word 'Unfettered' in Aquan. I can guarantee that the water breathing function works, at least; I've used it myself."

[NerfTW]

You could try finding the actual character that's causing the problem. Do a binary search. Cut out half the post. If it gets accepted, the error is in that half, otherwise, it's in the half you didn't delete. Keep cutting the section with the error in half until you find the character. Then you'll know what the actual character causing the problem is.

[Lord Herman]

I'm quite certain it's not because I'm in China. The same thing has happened before, posting from England. (On a different computer, too.)

That can only mean one thing. England has been taken over by the Chinese! :smalleek:

[Saph]

Part 2:
"As for the purpose of this cluster, I have little knowledge. It seems to be designed to test, rather than kill; all of the areas I've encountered have been dangerous, but all seem to have been constructed in such a way as not to be totally impassable. Beyond that, I'm afraid I have only guesses."

OOC - Jaya, Gladiator, I'm assuming you hang around Tina while she's doing her making-friends thing. You can have some food, if you like, though the chairs are too small for Gladiator. If you try any of the food (this applies to Tina, too) read below:

The food's nourishing, but a little tasteless. Those with any magical knowledge can recognise it as produced by the create food and water spell. Presumeably they don't have many other sources of supply here.

[AstralFire]

Wait, how are you posting them if that's an example of a post you couldn't get through?

Binary searchicide is your only option, I'd say.

[Saph]

With difficulty! It's taken me about half an hour's work to put up what you can see above.

The reason I'm multi-posting here is because when I tried to put up the entire post with the problematic bit highlighted, the same thing happened AGAIN! I've had to preview and rewrite about ten times just to tell you guys the problem. The only way I was able to do it was to cut what I was trying to say into lots of bits and keep previewing.

If I put those two halves together, and tried to post them, I'd get another error message. Can anyone figure out why?

- Saph

[AstralFire]

I'm getting yelled at to get back to housework, so I'll have to take a look in a few. Don't expect much from me, though.

[Douglas]

Like this?

"The next demiplane is an aquatic one," Lilian says. "It's dark and shrouded, and contains pillars of air which block vision. There is a small entry area, however, which contains items that can help you - gems, waterheart gems. While one of the gems remains in contact with your skin you should have no fear of drowning. They have a secondary function, too, a freedom spell; it activates if you speak the word 'Unfettered' in Aquan. I can guarantee that the water breathing function works, at least; I've used it myself."

"As for the purpose of this cluster, I have little knowledge. It seems to be designed to test, rather than kill; all of the areas I've encountered have been dangerous, but all seem to have been constructed in such a way as not to be totally impassable. Beyond that, I'm afraid I have only guesses."

OOC - Jaya, Gladiator, I'm assuming you hang around Tina while she's doing her making-friends thing. You can have some food, if you like, though the chairs are too small for Gladiator. If you try any of the food (this applies to Tina, too) read below:

The food's nourishing, but a little tasteless. Those with any magical knowledge can recognise it as produced by the create food and water spell. Presumeably they don't have many other sources of supply here.

[Saph]

Huh. So, it works for you. Now I need to figure out why it doesn't work for me.

[Douglas]

So if you quote that post and remove the quote tags, it won't let you post it? Odd. Does trying with a different browser or on a different computer make any difference, or do you not have another one available to test?

[Saph]

So if you quote that post and remove the quote tags, it won't let you post it?

With or without the quote tags, I can't post it.

Using a different browser doesn't help. A different computer might, but this laptop is the only one I can reliably use out here in China.

[Douglas]

Very strange. Right now I have no idea what the problem is. If you have the time and patience to do it, it might help if you cut down the post to the smallest piece of it that still gives the error, then post that piece in two parts because apparently that works. Knowing the exact problem section of the post might help in diagnosing it. I have doubts about my ability to figure this one out without access to a copy of the source code of the page that takes new post submissions, though, and I might need other data too to actually solve it. If it's specific to the computer you're using rather than your account, then I have no idea.

[AstralFire]

With or without the quote tags, I can't post it.

Using a different browser doesn't help. A different computer might, but this laptop is the only one I can reliably use out here in China.

Random thought - try a different language encoding? Switch from Unicode Western European to Windows or I dunno... that's the only thing that occurs to me.

[lesser_minion]

403 is an HTTP status code - If I understand it correctly, when it comes from this server it's effectively a blanket "no", and can't be changed by logging in or anything similar - most likely an IP ban, which seems rather unlikely, but not inconceivable depending on how your ISP works (although even then, it would be exceedingly odd).

I think servers also return 403s if they believe that they are under attack.

If the ISP has filtered whatever you're sending, you would get a 403 back in the UK, and presumably in countries where ISPs are actually required to censor pages as well.

Your antivirus software might also filter the content coming from giantitp (if someone hotlinks something from a site which has been blacklisted for some reason, for example), but if that happened, I'd expect the software to say something like "browser attempted to load content from dangerous site 'www.example.com'. Denied."

[Mando Knight]

Whitelist the Playground on your antivirus and security type stuff, then get a random Chinese hacker to show you how to use his proxy servers. How you do the second one, I have no idea.

[happyturtle]

Saph, I've had this happen to me too. In my case, it was the word 'lynx' that the forum didn't like. When I changed it to 'snow leopard', the post was accepted.

I don't even begin to have a theory why. I'm in the UK.

(Now let's see if the word is accepted in this post...)

Edit: And apparently it is allowed to talk about lynxes again. Weird. :smalltongue:

[lvl 1 fighter]

Hmmm. Words that are preventing you from posting but you don't know what they are.

Fnord?