We've just pushed a large overhaul public. Please report complaints, comments and concerns here. When reporting bugs, please make sure you include which browser(s) and platform(s) you have encountered the issue with.
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
- Why did we do this? This update has been in development for over a year. It replaces a vast amount of messy code on the back-end, gives us a new modernized design, updates us to https, and creates a platform that we can more easily build on for future updates.
- Can we go back to the old design? This isn't happening. We'll make the new one work.
- Why are there so many bugs? As with any major overhaul, some problems will occur. The developers are working full-time on fixing stuff.
Frequently Reported Issues
This isn't everything, just the most common problems.Status Values
- Being logged in as someone else, sort of. [FIXED]
- Where'd the "Folders Open" toggle go? Not a bug, it's in your profile.
- Multiple issues with the new site search feature. [Logged]
- No sorting options.
- Forum poster search is gone. [FIXED]
- Can't search specifically by thread title, making results unhelpful.
- Pagination doesn't work correctly — the last page displays as if there were no search results.
- Line breaks don't work in some areas. (Ask The Tropers, Trope Launch Pad, forum previews) [Patched]
- ATT, TLP, forum previews fixed. Some more line breaking issues were identified and are being worked on.
- The Cut List does not work.
- Cannot approve or deny requests. [FIXED]
- Line breaks don't work. [FIXED]
- Cut request reasons don't appear. [FIXED]
- Additional cutlist issues noted here
.
- Note, subscript, and superscript formatting are broken in various places. [FIXED]
- Night vision has significant readability problems. [Patched]
- Namespace index is broken. [Logged]
- Articles may become locked when edited, or when backing out of editing without clicking Cancel. Moderators can remove the locks but can't fix the underlying problem. [Patched]
- Remaining issue: the lock system still doesn't distinguish between an article that's locked and one that's checked out for editing.
- Edits won't save when "<" or ">" characters are present in the markup. [Patched]
- HTML detection was disabled for the time being. We're working on a more robust system.
- Edits won't save when the [norreallife] tag is present in the markup. [FIXED]
- Redirects are broken. [Patched]
- This is at least partially fixed. We need to know if there are any remaining problems.
- Indexing is broken. [In Progress]
- Images on wiki articles are rendered smaller than in the previous design. [Patched]
- Resizing images with [quoteright] tags is still broken.
- The "Following" list (formerly called the Watchlist) doesn't distinguish visually between viewed and unviewed articles. [In Progress]
- Custom titles are no longer appearing in all places where they should. [FIXED]
- In-line icons for Flame Bait, Trivia, and YMMV wicks are intended, but sometimes overlap preceding text. [Patched]
- Trivia icons should not appear in-line. (Design issue, logged)
- In second-level bullets, icons overlap preceding text. [Logged]
- The [invoked] tag no longer suppresses the aforementioned icons. [Logged]
- [quoteblock] markup causes everything inside to appear italic and squashed together. [FIXED]
- Line breaking for external links doesn't work correctly. [FIXED]
- Post numbering is no longer visible, although you can retrieve it from the hard-link. [Logged]
- "Delete all posts by user" mod feature now causes posts to be completely hidden instead of replaced with "Troll Post". [Logged]
- "Mark all as read" forum feature doesn't work. [Logged]
- "Save Draft" feature doesn't work as expected. [Logged]
- Forum post preview doesn't show all markup. [FIXED]
- Unread indicators on individual forums (topics.php) seem to have nothing to do with whether you actually have any unread posts. [Logged]
- Avatar upload is broken. [In Progress]
- Avatar galleries aren't formatted properly. [Logged]
- Crowners are broken. [Logged]
- Namespace configurator (mod tool) is missing some auto page type options, and the namespace locking feature doesn't work. [Logged]
Previously compiled lists of problems:
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Edited by Fighteer on Jul 13th 2018 at 3:56:59 PM
Meito Anizawa, Anime Tenchou
So... another new browser/login (Win 7, Firefox) and once again had "share avatars" turned off here despite it being on in my other logins/browsers/devices. Again, is this intentional or not (because... if it is, I just have to wonder why), and how would that affect stuff if it's on in one browser you use - say, on in PC and off in mobile browser or vice versa - but not the other? (Don't know if this might be related but I've heard some users mention having problems sharing avatars even through both had avatar sharing turned on?)
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
yeah, that's what I assumed - just gonna wait for it to be fixed I guess
Edited by Zanreo on Jul 14th 2018 at 6:22:45 PM
"Leftover items still have value!"
Lost in Space
Some of those profile controls seem to be stored in local cookies rather than on the server, which would explain why they reset when you change browsers. Avatar sharing issues are on the list to be checked out.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I can understand why the tabs are added for using Trivia/YMMV/etc tropes on main pages, but is there a way to remove this feature for the Word of God trivia trope? I know it's trivia, but it's used often when referring to the creator of the medium, including admittance of other tropes. Or even them lampshading something.
Lost in Space
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Threads with post collisions got renumbered. The fact that hard links to those topics go to the wrong posts is an unavoidable side-effect.
Already on the list.
Another display problem summary post. Also tell me if something has been fixed but I don't have it noted:
- Folders (progress has been made)
- The folder buttons could still stand being a little darker. A little more contrast won't hurt.
- I still believe the folder names should be centered like how they were in the previous version.
- I'd be happy with them being about the same size as the old ones, as well as the name centering.
- Can we have the older folders' blue and centeredness back? The current look is hard on the eyes and awkward-looking.
- Quote spacing
- Also, as an addendum to my statement about the Quotes, now I also notice that they suddenly start to take up way more space than they used to. This is especially an issue for wordier ones. From what I can tell, they have more than doubled the space they take. And that mostly seem to be due to just unused empty space between rows. While this isn't so much an issue on Quotes pages where there is enough space to go around, on Trope and Works pages it causes issues even for quotes that aren't even that long.
- Bullet spacing
- Image sizes. The original maximum size has been restored, but width settings in [quoteright] and [caption-width-right] markup don't work.
- Line breaks don't work properly in folders
- Weird alphabetization on related pages
- (mobile Chrome) the first few options on the main menu are gargantuan and take up about an eighth of the screen each
- The before and after boxes in History are way to near each other, some text I've seen also goes outside the box as well, they need to be expanded a bit.
- (Firefox) Using the find function (CTRL+F) on a page with folders will find text inside the folders even if they are closed, making it difficult to find anything.
- I also find the massive editing space unwieldy, as it requires scrolling through two spaces, with the editing bar getting in the way now that it's laying directly over where I'm trying to type.
- The last entry of a bulleted list has little spacing compared to the rest, while in the source code, there is a line break. I guess a second level heading (!!) has something to do with it. (Win 10/Chrome)
- The WMG Headings are now in plain text format (same size as the normal text, and no longer in bold) (Win 10/Chrome)
- On forum search results, the titles are way oversized, they could stand being a smaller font to make the search results a bit better searchable.
- The followed threads page has a lot of unnecessary white space, something that seems to be a general design feature now.
- Dunno if its been brought up before but some of the drop down selections, like opening the relationship status in the profile section, appear as a white box with pale pink text that's impossible to see. It makes it hard to select things. Same thing happens when a new post is first made.
- The blue highlight for a new post overrides mod hat red.
- Forums:
- Forum posts are no longer numbered.
- Post boxes should come back.
- Big forum badges create a lot of unnecessary white space under a short post (there aren't many people this applies to, even among the minority with badges, but still worth mentioning).
- I don't mind the new design (in some places, it doesn't look that different from the previous one) but some color choices are ugly. Gotta agree about that cold dark blue-grey.
- I don't like that YMMV pages have the exact same color scheme and font as the main page. Doesn't have to be huge, but having a slightly different header color or something would help to keep people confusing the two areas (which we definitely don't want).
- Also, can the Tearjerker pages back to a blue and a the YMMV pages back to yellow-orange?
- Edit window's too wide on mobile (using Safari on an iPhone 6). Since there's little side space, it's extremely difficult to scroll down the page to get to the edit reason box.
- Another minor design/color nitpick: Links are now blue on Nightmare Fuel pages. I can't say whether I dislike it because it's different from the old blood-red or if it kills the scary mood they're trying to convey (much like how hot pink doesn't go with Tear Jerker.)
- AC text (AC: text ]] ) is too large and messes with the formatting of many pages
- Outbound links with long display text break the bullet spacing. Depends on how long the text is in comparison to screen size.
- Some places here feel a bit cramped with the new design changes. Like the New Edits, list. Everything is just grouped so close together that it looks ugly.
- Can we have a note as to how the following page is not fit for purpose? The old watchlist had red dots that immediately caught your eye. The following page on the other hand is extremely ugly, too cluttered and too close together.
- I wouldn't mind the speech bubbles if they stood out a little more. The new design is a bit lacking in accessibility for the visually impaired.
- One thing I'm noticing is that there are small dot lines separating bullet points, but not every paragraph is separated. Take the YMMV for Hairspray as an example, with there being lines in between most paragraphs but not between Broken Base and Designated Hero
- Looking through some character pages, links to Trivia items have a ? box before them, even if they're not listed as a trope but just mentioned in the description of one. Plus, when this ? box appears inside a nested list, it receives "margin-left: -22px" and overlaps the text before it. (former is intended, latter is supposed to be fixed but still has problems)
- TLP entries are very tightly packed, making them hard to read. Suggesting something like: .comment-title { margin-bottom: 1em; } .footer { margin-top: 1em; padding: 9px; }
- When Left-Handed Sidebar is enabled, the top bar's "Follow TV Tropes" and "Page Actions" no longer line up with the content they're related to. Could they be coded to switch positions when this option is on?
- On the Followed Pages list, it could be made clearer which of the pages you're following have been recently updated. Currently, recently updated pages just show up as slightly darker than the default background, which—since the list already has an alternating dark-light background scheme—makes it a bit hard to tell at a glance which updated pages you haven't yet accessed.
- Visual bug: Spacing between folder and header still not fixed.
- Visual bug: Spacing between the ! header and text above/below isn't consistent, where some times the previous section's text would be right on top of the header, while other sections would be evenly spaced out.
- Change logs are all smushed together so there's no return lines, making it hard to read.
- I still haven’t seen any direct response to my concerns about the forum interface. Everything is still very crowded and unreadable on safari/mobile, from the cluttered forum listings to the weird avatar/username/post display in individual threads. Everything is smushed together and indistinguishable; avatars and usernames aren’t coherently aligned with the text of posts, and the posts themselves are aligned weird. Plus, the new page number display is really hard to see/not distinct. And the forum watchlist is still useless. Showing all threads but making updated ones bold is overwhelming and indistinguishable.
- A step back design flaw: the thread watchlist does not appear in mobile view. Also, NONE of the four display toggles can be changed in mobile view.
- I can't find the "cancel/back" button or the "image" button on my smartphone. Also, on the same phone, the text on the "edit" button appears on top on the icon, not next to it as on the other buttons.
- A few Night Mode issues I noticed (Chrome, Windows 10).
- The post box is unusable in Night Mode◊. Seriously, it's not.
- The highlighted posts are barely readable.
- Coloured text should probably have a transparent background, rather than a white background. The contrast is uncomfortable when on Night Mode.
- The post box is unusable in Night Mode
- It seems you can no longer edit your own posts on the discussion pages for works and tropes. Not to mention that typing in a quotation mark or an apostrophe will always leave behind a little "/" with it.
- Windows 10, Chrome; there are bullet points missing on TLP drafts. Specifically, it seems first level bullets aren't displaying, while second and third line bullets are fine.
- Putting a folder in a forum post creates a lot of unnecessary white space (see this post for an example)
- Looks like the headers for the YMMV tropes is back to a guy shrugging instead of a scale.
- Also, just noticed that the search icon is missing when on the front page on mobile. If I want to search something, I have to go to another page and use the search function there. Is it supposed to be like that? The previous design showed the search icon even on mobile.
- I can't figure out how to make the Invoked tag for in-universe YMMV tropes invisible. Am I doing something wrong, or is that a glitch?
- Can you at least fix the Thread Watch by having an option to sort the order posts are shown by having the most recently responded to watched posts appear on top and having the ones with no new responses appear on the bottom?
- I'm not a fan of how the TLP no longer tells you when a draft was last edited/commented on and by who. It's frustrating when a draft with an active discussion is at the top of the list because unless I remember how many comments were there last time I checked I have to look again to see if anything changed. Also, it's a bit annoying how the only difference between read and unread drafts is that the font is bold on unread drafts. I miss the "new" marker.
- My personal recommendation for the spacing is to add back the subtle gray dotted lines between examples (see random wayback machine page). The current spacing isn't terrible, but I still think that will help.
- Subtle vertical lines have been added instead of horizontal ones; opinions are mixed.
- Wiki discussion visual bug: The "Hide/Show Replies" button obscures part of the starting post.
- Minor visual bug, LG K10, Chrome. Titles on ATT overlap with the timestamp. Here's a screenshot where it's evident.
- Commented-out notes leave a space on the page. See here, between Every Episode Ending and Evil Is Petty (source for comparison).
- On a history page, the pencil icon on the Edit button doesn't change to a lock, but if you click it a popup claiming the page is under edit lock with the editor's name is shown as on the old site. Meanwhile, on the main page of a work/trope the lock icon will be present, but not the popup. Can we have it both ways on both main page and history? Lock icon with the popup? Windows 10 Home - Firefox 61.0 64-bit
- Another display issue: the Condensed Forums option only works for, well, the forums; I can replicate this both on my laptop (Win 10, Chrome 67) and my phone (Chrome for iOS, version 67). It doesn't do anything at all on Ask The Tropers, Trope Finder, You Know That Show, or TLP- avatars still show up in those spaces in full size. I have Condensed Forums turned on on my phone so that the avatars aren't taking up a bunch of horizontal space on my teeny-tiny iPhone 5S, and I'm pretty sure that the "Forum Gingerbread" option worked for those other sections of the site that displayed avatars.
- The little icon that showed (and linked) to TRS discussions on relevant pages is gone (example: Stock Shoujo Bullying Tactics). That was really useful, both for going back and forth between the page and relevant thread, and for raising awareness of the Repair Shop and potential problems with pages. This is what got me involved in the forums in the first place. Please bring this back!!! Firefox on a Mac.
- Quote indents (FIXED!)
- Bullet indents (FIXED!)
- No spoiler toggle on the sidebar (FIXED!)
- Note tags are plain text (FIXED!)
- Subscript and superscript formatting (FIXED!)
- The arrows you press to navigate a thread only appear at the bottom of the page (previously they appeared at the top as well). (FIXED!)
- Indentation of numbered bullets is inconsistent with regular ones, and how much indentation there is seems to depend on a number of factors (FIXED!)
- (Firefox) Cursor disappears in text box for PMs and editing. (FIXED!)
- Another display issue found: when Night Vision is turned on, the white text and light bars for "Header" and "WMG" headings, as well as newly posted forum comments I've made, make them practically unreadable. (FIXED!)
- Check the Quotes tab, first level ("Songs") and second level ("English Vocals") headings have the exact same text formatting. (Granblue Fantasy, Win 10/Chrome) (FIXED!)
- For some reason, in here, the "open / close all folders" control appears in the middle of the page, just beside the sixth folder. (Win 10/Chrome) (FIXED!)
- No longer an edit button on the history tab. (FIXED!)
- A minor display issue: The new "This is a YMMV/Trivia entry" icons on the main page overlap the surrounding text. For that matter, I don't think the icons should be right in front of the pothole; they should replace the bullet point, as they did in the previous version. Looked nicer that way. (FIXED!)
- Forums:
- The number of the last page on a given forum thread no longer shows up. (FIXED!)
- The page select options are no longer at the top of the page as well as the bottom. (FIXED!)
- Quoteblocks:
- Quoteblocks are italicized, which serves no purpose except to make impossible to italicize quoted text. (FIXED!)
- Quoteblock text is too small and too close together. If anything with more than one line is highlighted, it immediately becomes unreadable. (FIXED!)
- Line breaks and indents don't work properly in quoteblocks. (FIXED!)
- Win 7, Firefox. Visual bug: The last folder of a section practically sits on top of the header in the next section, as in there's no spacing in between. (FIXED!)
- History entries don't display code in a monospace font - they have a "monospace-font" class applied, but no such class exists. (FIXED!)
- Three bullet indents seem to randomly indent more than they should (FIXED!)
- Visual bug: Just what the HECK happened to the images? Consistent size visually, yes, but not when the pixels are at different ranges. Now the taller pictures take up more space than usual. Also, that border/box still looks redundant/unnecessary. (Win 7, Firefox) (FIXED!)
- If you go to TLP Reform Statistics (look at page source too), you'll see that the colon indentation method is broken. If you use two colons at the start of a line, it's supposed to indent the line. More colons, a greater indent. But it looks like the indentation is like a line break no matter what. ("FIXED!')
- Quote indentation is broken again; quotes are indented one line less than the number of dashes. So two dashes (which is what is supposed to go under one bullet) is the same level as one bullet. Looks terrible. (FIXED!)
- The markup that used to decrease font size isn't working. See the first sentence on TLP Crash Rescue Tallies, which should be decreased by two sizes. The page loads the font as the smaller size and then resizes it half-a-second later to match the normal font size. (Desktop, Windows 10, Chrome) (FIXED!)
- Can't holler your own post. (FIXED!)
- Line breaks don't work properly (especially bad on quotes pages) (FIXED!)
Anything else? And try to include your browser and OS. Especially if I have something labeled "fixed" but it's not fixed for you.
Is it just me, or the site is almost always displaying the "This page isn’t working" / tvtropes.org didn’t send any data. / ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE on Chrome? It's been like this for the past three days, and I can barely submit any edits. Some edits get saved however, only after a dozen retries / clicking the Back button of the browser and attempting to save.
And I don't think my personal Internet connection is at fault here because all other sites load up fine, it's just that TV Tropes disconnects most of the time if I try to make changes to any page. Are the servers too busy at this point?
Edited by DanteVin on Jul 15th 2018 at 1:04:52 AM
With Great Power, Comes Great Motivation
The Wanderer
After this post in the Doctor Who thread (Which shouldn't be the last post on the page since it's supposed to be 25 posts per page), I get a "Too many redirects" error when I try going to the next pages.
(And I already cleared all my TVT cookies like it said so I know the problem's not on my end)
Edited by rmctagg09 on Jul 14th 2018 at 1:07:54 PM
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
Lost in Space
my browser just accidentally removed all TV Tropes data (I was telling it to remove a page from history, and it went overboard), and I noticed something odd when I logged back in. I have lefthand sidebar selected, and it had forgotten this. This makes it seem like something stored in local cookies, however it remembers (or had done yesterday) the lefthand sidebar setting when I log in on a device I haven't used before. Is there something going on here? It seems strange that it would forget that setting when it was attached to account, not device.
OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!Also, in relation to the "constant disconnections when saving edits" issue I mentioned above, I am also getting redirect issues even when viewing my Watchlist / Followed Pages. There are times when opening the watchlist via a browser bookmark would display "The site is unreachable" or "Too many redirects" error messages... only for the page to automatically reload itself a few seconds later.
Just in case, I believe these issues seem to be on the server-side instead of client-side (i.e. our devices and browsers) as I've also tried using data on a smartphone (forgot to mention that originally I encountered the previous issue on a Wi-Fi connected laptop) and I am still getting these issues where the TV Tropes site automatically disconnects itself when editing, or automatically reloads itself when opening pages or the watchlist.
With Great Power, Comes Great Motivation
Lost in Space
The "too many redirects" error viewing certain pages of forum threads should be fixed.
I'll report this and see what the devs say.
The King Without a Kingdom
I've only seen this on the video game discussion but when I look at it, there seems to be a jumble of threads. For example, while the threads recently updated are at the top, suddenly a locked thread from three years ago pops up.
It's been 3000 years…
I'm seeing it on other threads as well. Right now Live Action TV has castle at the top even though the last post was in 2016.
Edited by jjjj2 on Jul 14th 2018 at 2:53:58 PM
You can only write so much in your forum signature. It's not fair that I want to write a piece of writing yet it will cut me off in the mid
The Unknown
I'm also seeing it.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
That issue with old threads showing up at the top should now be fixed
The Wanderer
(Windows 10, Chrome)
The redirect issue is gone, but now it's not showing up on my Thread Watchlist despite being marked as a Followed thread, even after I unfollow and follow again.
Also, there appears to be a minor glitch where some threads in Followed Threads don't show the last poster
, though posts made after don't seem to have that problem.
Edited by rmctagg09 on Jul 14th 2018 at 5:28:35 AM
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
@rmctagg09, it should be fixed for you now. Sorry about that. We had to re-index a lot of forum posts due to long running threads with duplicate sequence numbers and deleted posts. We are trying to clean it all up and ran into some issues. Let me know if you see any other issues with the forum
"Threads with post collisions got renumbered. The fact that hard links to those topics go to the wrong posts is an unavoidable side-effect."
I see... outta curiosity, is there any way y'all could fix this side-effect?
The Wanderer
The Doctor Who thread still isn't showing up in Followed Threads, even after another cookie purge to rule out that problem.
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
In the Internet Backdraft page, for some reason, the folders don't open, even after reloading the page.
The Wanderer
Not having that problem on my end.
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
They do open in my PC (Windows 7, Chrome) and cell phone (Android, Chrome).
About the visibility of links: You could test the monochrome representation (by taking the Y of an YUV/YIQ conversion) of potential color-combinations. (if the result is, for example, black-on-black, gray-on-gray or white-on-white, then it's safe to assume that it has zero contrast)