Broken links or forum issue?

[ilko_t]

I've just noticed today the link in my signature no longer works, redirecting me to the msfn.org home page:

http://www.msfn.org/board/WinSetupFromUSB-...UI-t120444.html

The correct link now is:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157

Many links to topics in that forum do not work as well, for example:

http://www.msfn.org/board/FAQs-t116766.html

I have received an email with notice about a new PM. Opening the link inside the email, to go straight to the PM, opened msfn.org start page as well.

Would someone have a look?

[Guest]

They have turned off the search engine optimization function. Don't know if it's a temporary thing or not.

[jaclaz]

I've just noticed today the link in my signature no longer works, redirecting me to the msfn.org home page:

http://www.msfn.org/board/WinSetupFromUSB-...UI-t120444.html

The correct link now is:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157

Not really.

The correct link is now:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=120444

The link:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157

links to the "Install XP from USB forum"

The "correct" link is:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=120444

Just in case it is relatively easy to translate from this (so called "friendly names") - NOT working right now:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/WinSetupFromUSB-with-GUI-t120444.html

to this always working:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=120444

The number of the thread with friendly names is after the "t" and before the .html, you just get it and add it after:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=

I quickly fixed the links in the FAQ's:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=116766

as they are (hopefully) the most used ones.

jaclaz

Edited August 18, 2009 by jaclaz

[xper]

Yes, SEO links turned off after license expired. To expensive to renew right now.

Sorry for trouble caused by this.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Thanks for the excellent explanation Jaclaz.

For those using Opera, if you have bookmarks/favorites to the MSFN site you will need to edit the file called Opera6.adr which on my systems is found under the Opera directory in a subfolder called \Profile. This is a plain text file that can be easily edited (but probably only while Opera is not running). ASCII search for a simple string like msfn.org/ to be sure to catch all possible variations.

If you save a lot of Sessions like me, you will also need to venture into another subfolder another level down called \Profile\Sessions. Do a Windows FIND in there and look for the msfn.org string to catch all the files (sessions) which saved tabs pointing to MSFN. Then proceed to edit these files as above (they are also ASCII but in UTF-8, UltraEdit works fine).

The details are found above in Post #3, but to summarize, replace the links with the appropriate lines:

h--p://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=xx

h--p://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=xxxxxx

All of the 'x' need to be replaced with the correct identifiers (and of course the http)!

Edited August 19, 2009 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[xper]

OK, i think it's fixed now. SEO installed and working. Post any issue here. Thank you.

[jaclaz]

OK, i think it's fixed now. SEO installed and working. Post any issue here. Thank you.

Everything seems fine.

jaclaz

[GrofLuigi]

Post any issue here.

"Go to first unread" doesn't work (goes to top of the page). Opera browser.

Kind of deja vu...

GL

Edit: I found it.

Edited August 18, 2009 by GrofLuigi

[GrofLuigi]

Post any issue here.

"Go to first unread" doesn't work (goes to top of the page). Opera browser.

I see other people reported it, so I was not dreaming.

It's fixed now.

GL

[ilko_t]

OK, i think it's fixed now. SEO installed and working. Post any issue here. Thank you.

Thank you

[jaclaz]

Has something been changed again?

Direct link to post don't work anymore properly.

The result is that instead of pointing to the actual post they point to the page (nothing/10/20/30/40/50/...etc) where the post is.

Example:

the link to the previous post by ilko_t given in the copy and paste popup is this one:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&showtopic=137119&view=findpost&p=878576

which once "resolved" by the board becomes:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/broken-links-forum-issue-t137119-pid-878576.html

but the result is that the first post on the page is shown, not the pointed to one.

Even the "other" old syntax:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?act=findpost&pid=878576

resolves to:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/broken-links-forum-issue-t137119-pid-878576.html

with the same result

Using "post offset within thread" it should be (with the"new" "page" definition):

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/broken-links-forum-issue-t137119-page-9.html

or, with the good ol' "&st=" one:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&showtopic=137119&st=9

which BTW is now resolved as:

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/broken-links-forum-issue-t137119-page-9.html&s=

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

Using the different link formats are a license issue for us. As noted, a period of time we had to go back to using the forum/topic format. This was an unfortunate lag period between the license expiry/renewal and being able to install the new license (and verify it is ok) in order to get the "preview" type of format. Yes it does play an issue with some posts, such as older ones with quotes and such, but there is really no easy way to fix it without taking the forum down for a long time and doing a ton of work. That time isn't really worth it so we just hope that you (and me too even ) can handle that period of time when it is different.

[jaclaz]

That time isn't really worth it so we just hope that you (and me too even ) can handle that period of time when it is different.

No prob about that, but I must have failed to explain the issue at hand NOW.

If you try to make a link to a specific post through the board the result is NOT a link to the post, but rather a link to the PAGE where the specific post is.

This has nothing to do with the different "syntax" used, it's the board software that FAILS to resolve a link (that was generated by the Board itself) to a post and returns a page.

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

EDIT:

I am not having a problem at all. Using your post link

hxxp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&showtopic=137119&view=findpost&p=878576

on paste becomes:

http://www.msfn.org/board/broken-links-forum-issue-t137119-pid-878576.html#entry878576

but copy the #10 gives this:

http://www.msfn.org/board/broken-links-forum-issue-t137119-pid-878576.html&view=findpost

and translates to

http://www.msfn.org/board/broken-links-forum-issue-t137119-pid-884506.html#entry884506

Which is my post. OK I see what you are saying.

[jaclaz]

It seems like everything is working now.

jaclaz