Forums Feedback and Suggestions

Kirstie_H

Whether you’re experiencing technical issues or have a suggestion for our forums, this is the place to share your feedback and ideas. You can also contact our Customer Care team

We always appreciate your help in reporting technical issues or errors on the site you may come across.

When reporting a technical issue, it’s always helpful to have as much information as possible. Be sure to include the device, browser and operating system you’re experiencing the problem on as this can be useful in trying to diagnose the problem.

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driver100

I find that after I comment by doing a "quote" I have to go back in and "Hilight" it after or it doesn't have a gray background.

PF_Flyer

Not clear on what you mean by "Hilight" it after. Let me try to quote you here

PF_Flyer

driver100 said:

I find that after I comment by doing a "quote" I have to go back in and "Hilight" it after or it doesn't have a gray background.

OK, here I quoted you... let's see

PF_Flyer

Now a quote of a quote

PF_Flyer

PF_Flyer said:

driver100 said:

I find that after I comment by doing a "quote" I have to go back in and "Hilight" it after or it doesn't have a gray background.

OK, here I quoted you... let's see

And..

PF_Flyer

@driver100 I think I've seen a quote NOT in a gray box before, if that's what you mean. Doing any backspacing or anything?

kyfdx

driver100 said:

I find that after I comment by doing a "quote" I have to go back in and "Hilight" it after or it doesn't have a gray background.

After the third or fourth quote in a string, the prior post will drop out of the gray box. No getting around that.

ab348

kyfdx said:

driver100 said:

I find that after I comment by doing a "quote" I have to go back in and "Hilight" it after or it doesn't have a gray background.

After the third or fourth quote in a string, the prior post will drop out of the gray box. No getting around that.

So let's try another. I think the quote above ought to be in a shaded box.

Let's see if the one below is or isn't:

After the third or fourth quote in a string, the prior post will drop out of the gray box. No getting around that.

Ah ha! It isn't. The reason why is that it lacks the "class="Quote" rel="kyfdx"" text after the blockquote command. Without that, all "blockquote" does is indent.

ab348

I would sure be glad if the pull-downs for images, emojis, etc would work consistently. This morning the image command worked, but shortly thereafter I had a second post, tried to use the emojis, and they were frozen. My browser is Firefox which has become notoriously flaky the last while, but the incosistency is annoying,

PF_Flyer

kyfdx said:

driver100 said:

I find that after I comment by doing a "quote" I have to go back in and "Hilight" it after or it doesn't have a gray background.

After the third or fourth quote in a string, the prior post will drop out of the gray box. No getting around that.

Ah, this is actually something most of us don't bother to mess with, but IS a setting in your profile. I pointed it out in the new Welcome to the Forums thread, but here it is:

Quote Settings

This setting determines how many levels of quoted comments you would like to view within a comment. The default is set at 1 level, but you may choose up to 5 levels, or "Don't ever fold quotes."



But no matter how many levels you show, at some point the gray box eventually drops out of the way. One level seems to work for me.

PF_Flyer

ab348 said:

I would sure be glad if the pull-downs for images, emojis, etc would work consistently. This morning the image command worked, but shortly thereafter I had a second post, tried to use the emojis, and they were frozen. My browser is Firefox which has become notoriously flaky the last while, but the incosistency is annoying,

@ab348 Yep, we have the Vanilla folks looking into this. It's a very spotty thing and hard to reproduce on a consistent basis. With the number of combinations and permutations or devices, operating systems, and browser versions out there, sometimes I'm amazed the whole internet doesn't need a good set of tire chains

Firefox used to be my main browser, but it DID get flaky and I mostly use Chrome now. I need a new personal laptop so I can get Firefox back on my test list

PF_Flyer

BTW... really appreciate having all this tech stuff dropped in this discussion. MUCH easier to have it seen here into than in the middle of some active thread like Cars & Convos!

Gold stars all around!

ab348

PF_Flyer said:

Firefox used to be my main browser, but it DID get flaky and I mostly use Chrome now. I need a new personal laptop so I can get Firefox back on my test list

It was so bad this morning that I finally took the official advice from Firefox and did a Firefox Refresh. My advice: don't. It absolutely wrecked my bookmarks, making not only the toolbar disappear but also showing me with no bookmarks anywhere at all. It took me the better part of the morning doing searches and reading responses from other folks who had the same thing occur, before I found a fix that I could actually understand and perform. Plus all of your extensions and add-ons go away, and any customization of the look you did disappears too. I don't know what they are thinking there these days. I'm about done with it.

PF_Flyer

Yea, FF and I pretty much parted ways. I really DID like it, but then it was like, we're never really going to update this again. I was keeping it around on my now-dead personal laptop just to be able to try and replicate issues someone here might be having

ab348

PF_Flyer said:

@ab348 Yep, we have the Vanilla folks looking into this. It's a very spotty thing and hard to reproduce on a consistent basis. With the number of combinations and permutations or devices, operating systems, and browser versions out there, sometimes I'm amazed the whole internet doesn't need a good set of tire chains

Here's an update based on a single data point which may or may not mean anything.

Earlier this morning I made a post in the Project Cars forum and tried to post a picture. The icon was non-responsive again. I even exited FF entirely and then came back to try again, still no go.

Just now, 1 hour or more later, I made a post in the "I spotted an obscure classic car" forum. Lo and behold, posting a picture now worked there, so I did. Then I went back to the Project Car forum again to try to post the picture I wanted in there. No response, same as before.

Could the problem be specific to only certain discussions I wonder?

PF_Flyer

I don’t think so, but it never hurts to document the odd stuff. What device and operating system?

ab348

PF_Flyer said:

I don’t think so, but it never hurts to document the odd stuff. What device and operating system?

Dell Inspiron laptop w/ Intel I5, Win 10, Firefox latest version (67 I think).

I had the brainstorm that I could post the picture I wanted in the classic car spotter forum, copy the resultant code, and paste it in the project car forum. I tried to post the picture again there one last time and it still wouldn't respond, so I did the copy/paste of the line of code from the other forum and it worked.

PF_Flyer

Was the code for an image that was hosted somewhere? That would work, just like posting the code to a YouTube video works and displays the video here.

Still, every bit of information is welcome

ab348

No, it was a local image on my PC. So I posted it in the one group that allowed me to do so, immediately went back to that post in edit mode and copied the line of code with the IMG info in it, then went to the other board and pasted that line there, and finally deleted it from the first place I posted it.

sda

In the past month or so the Attach Image icon does not seem to work. Most of the pictures that I post I saved in my documents folder on my Microsoft Surface. When I click on the Attach Image icon nothing happens. If a picture is saved on my Samsung Galaxy S6, the Attach Image icon works fine. Is there a setting on my Surface that I need to address? Thanks

PF_Flyer

sda said:

In the past month or so the Attach Image icon does not seem to work. Most of the pictures that I post I saved in my documents folder on my Microsoft Surface. When I click on the Attach Image icon nothing happens. If a picture is saved on my Samsung Galaxy S6, the Attach Image icon works fine. Is there a setting on my Surface that I need to address? Thanks

A very elusive issue that's not affecting everyone, so it's frustrating and difficult to pin down, but documenting what's going on should help corner the beast. Really appreciate the feedback and "testing"!

sda

The Attach Image and other icons are still not working. Instead, I tried to copy and paste a picture from another site. I successfully pasted the picture to an email, it won't paste to the Edmund's site. I am working from my Microsoft Surface. Do you know if there may be a setting that I need to adjust? Sorry for the repeat question, but I am puzzled and looking for a work around. As always, I appreciate your help. Thanks

PF_Flyer

sda said:

The Attach Image and other icons are still not working. Instead, I tried to copy and paste a picture from another site. I successfully pasted the picture to an email, it won't paste to the Edmund's site. I am working from my Microsoft Surface. Do you know if there may be a setting that I need to adjust? Sorry for the repeat question, but I am puzzled and looking for a work around. As always, I appreciate your help. Thanks

Actually, we're very close to changing a setting on the comment box that should get us around those issues. The Attach Image and other icons not working for some has been very difficult to reproduce simply because it's not common and affecting most users. (Not that I wish it was, but that might make it easier to find and fix)

In any event, hang in there and we appreciate your patience on this. We just have a few items to be sure about before we change the setting. I'll be posting more about it soon, including a little tutorial about the functions of the new comment box. Basically the same functions plus new and improved emotorcons Just a bit of a different layout of where the icons and functions are found. So stay tuned!

IMPORTANT: This will not be a change of anything else in the forums or how you use them. If you're just clicking into the comment box, typing and clicking Post, there's really no change at all. The ONLY things that are going to move around will be the icons/functions and where you'll find them.

TEASER: there are actually TWO ways to add an image in the new editor. One that displays the image in your post just like now, and one that adds a clickable "box" in your posts that displays the image full screen for those big images

Thanks again for your patience and feedback.

ab348

Interesting that for me in Firefox, over the past week the image and emoticon function have started working properly again.

PF_Flyer

ab348 said:

Interesting that for me in Firefox, over the past week the image and emoticon function have started working properly again.

Yea, it has been hit or miss as to when it decides to work or not for a couple of folks. I haven't been able to recreate it, although I've had some lag on the buttons responding from time to time. Hard to tell if that was an issue with the forums or if my internet connection was being buggy.

But again, stayed tuned.

sda

TEASER: there are actually TWO ways to add an image in the new editor. One that displays the image in your post just like now, and one that adds a clickable "box" in your posts that displays the image full screen for those big images

Thanks again for your patience and feedback.



Thanks! I guess some maybe thankful that I couldn't bore them with the pictures I was going to post, lol.

PF_Flyer

I LOVE the pics that get posted around here. Especially older photos.

PF_Flyer

@ab348 @sda In preparation for, and to give you a heads up on the comment box changes, I've posted a guide to the new comment box. Check it out. I've covered everything, where you can find it, how to use it, and what it does. Any questions you might have can be posted here in this thread. Shouldn't be too big of an adjustment

Coming Attractions - Changes to the Comment Box

ab348

The only real potential problem I see is the quote editor/paragraph menu part which seems very cumbersome. If you just quote the entire post you are responding to, can you just delete the parts within the quote box that are extraneous without having to go through all that?

PF_Flyer

Let me check ...

PF_Flyer

Nope, if you quote the entire post, it gets put in that box and is not editable. But our current quote link isn't that much different. it pulls the whole post into the comment box where you have to delete anything you don't want to specifically respond to, like this:



But, you have to be careful about the html blockquote tags. I've even messed that up, especially quote something that quoted something else. The new editor keeps you away from the "nuts and bolts" and you can't mess up the html.

It looks a bit cumbersome, but from playing with it in the staging environment, it's not bad at all. Just took a time or two to get used to how to pull a partial quote.

I knew there would be questions, so I tried to make sure I tried everything that I've seen folks use

The feedback and questions are all good!

PF_Flyer

@ab348 When writing those instructions, I was trying to make it look as easy as it actually is, but I also wanted to illustrate what you'd be seeing when you go through the process. It's much easier than the "frame by frame" makes it look. Maybe I can record a video of it

ab348

Another question: if you want to post a picture that is hosted somewhere else, do you use the "insert media" function?

PF_Flyer

ab348 said:

Another question: if you want to post a picture that is hosted somewhere else, do you use the "insert media" function?

I'll give that a shot and let you know shortly.

One other announcement, the plan is to turn on the new editor Friday morning, so don't be surprised when you see it!

PF_Flyer

@ab348 Turns out to be easy. Just click the Embed icon, paste in the URL and the image will be added to your post. You can add your normal text by clicking below the image and typing. It will look like this

PF_Flyer

@ab348 Thanks for the questions BTW... they let me add how to insert an image using the Embed icon to the instructions.

We really appreciate all of you poking around the corners and helping us find things we otherwise might have overlooked!

ab348

Let's wait and see if you're still thanking me Friday.

PF_Flyer

ab348 said:

Let's wait and see if you're still thanking me Friday.

Also, adding an image hosted elsewhere with the Embed icon creates an image that opens full size in a new tab when you click on it. See? You helped find another aspect of the new editor!!

ab348

Aside from all of the other issues noted in Cars & Conversations, I am curious about how this new version operates. Over in that other board @henryn made the point yesterday that he was not finding it slower and attributed that to his high-speed connection and computer. I too have a high-speed connection and pretty powerful computer yet there has been considerable lag when typing a post using this editor at times which i never saw before. I attributed to Java or something else running locally that was getting bogged down.

But this AM while composing my response over in C&C I could not post it at all. The "Post Comment" button changed from a bright blue to a faded blue and was totally unresponsive. Then it came back to normal, so I was going to add a sentence about that happening, but before it finished, the entire screen disappeared and the message "The server at Edmunds.com is taking too long to respond" appeared instead. Well, to my knowledge I hadn't asked the server at Edmunds to do anything as I had not hit "Post" that time since I was in the middle of typing a sentence. I tried to get into the Forums using a new browser window but could not and it appeared the entire site was down temporarily, so I gave it a break. Now we're back!

It strikes my that maybe the reason I got that message, and maybe the reason I get lag when using the editor, is that each keystroke is being sent to Edmunds and not the entire post (coming from a local cache) as has been the case? Any insight/rationale on that?

PF_Flyer

There can be many things outside of the forums causing speed issues. About an hour ago, the forums were timing out and down for me, as well as a handful of other websites I tried to visit. So it sounds like you ran into the same thing. Yet, other forums mods who live in different geographical areas than I do had no problem at all. Had nothing at all to do with the editor.

Sometimes there are internet slowdowns that affect some of us and not others. There's not much to do about those. Things like that COULD affect how some sites operate. I never had the problem with the image icon not working until the day BEFORE we enabled the rich editor. Refreshing the page got it working. So perhaps an internet burp, at just the right moment, was involved. I've had icons in the new editor be unresponsive once or twice, and refreshing or going back and forward has set things right.

I'm on a high speed cable modem, but over the last week or so, even my TV picture will freeze and the sound go out momentarily. So SOMETHING is buggy somewhere along the connection trail. And what's affecting me or you, may or may not affect everyone, as evidence by the "outage" you and I had this morning while other people I work with here and were communicating with me were in the forums just fine while I couldn't even get in. Sometimes a page will hang up because an ad server that displays an ad on the page is slow. Again, an issue outside of the forums that is not completely under our control. I've worked online exclusively since 1994, and these things DO happen.

We are noting all the quirks and (what appear to be) glitches and are looking into solutions. Most of the differences with the new editor are "getting used to" kind of items. Flaky things like where images get inserted or why some get displayed sideways are tech concerns that I expect can be addressed.

(I just double-double spaced out of habit... gotta remember, no need to enter enter)

As always, we appreciate the input and feedback on unexpected behaviors. It helps us find potential issues, and gives us a chance to explain changes

kyfdx

PRO Tip:

Text showing above the quote, occasionally? That happens when you start scrolling down before the quote loads in the comment box.

I had assumed it came from clicking in the comment box, before loading was complete, but it is the scrolling that causes it.

PF_Flyer

Ah... that may also have something to do with text relative to images, which has been sort of erratic for me. Let me try adding an image and waiting a few seconds before typing, see if it's about image load finishing

PF_Flyer

We have flipped the switch back to the old html editor. Still investigating, but there was a problem with the ads that display NOT displaying, which might have been messing with our new editor, maybe even causing the problem with unresponsive icons in the old editor.

Keep letting us know when you run into issues like unresponsive icons and the like. Every bit of information helps!

This is sorta like tracing down why the dome light comes on and the headlights go off when you step on the brake

ab348

Noticed that I can no longer post a pic using Safari on the iPad by selecting one from the photo library. It supposedly allows you to use a URL but I did not have one to try. First time I had posting problems on that device.

EDIT: Tried to post a local photo on a PC using both Firefox and Chrome and had the same result. No locally-hosted pics can be uploaded.

PF_Flyer

Let me give it a shot... seeing the html editor on my iPad...

It was a bit slow and I almost thought it wasn’t working, but it did. There are some site speed issues we’re looking into, so it may just be a “timing out” thing.

Thanks for reporting

ab348

Trying on Firefox:

Nope. No response to the icon.

Now trying on Chrome:

Get the "Image URL" text only.

Trying on the iPad:

Get the “Image URL” text only, like Chrome.


Very flaky now.

PF_Flyer

Are you still seeing the new editor, or the old one? Your cache will remember and have the new one on any page you were on while the new editor was in place. Refreshing the page will load/restore the html editor.

I honestly don't recall if all of the icons worked on the cached version of the rich editor, I don't think they did, but I couldn't swear to it.

When you navigate around the forums, do you see ads, do the pages seem to load slowly? We're seeing some speed issues right now that seem to be affecting things. When I went to post an image from my ipad earlier it took a long time for the html to appear in the posting box. One of our other moderators had it not work for his ipad, then it did right after. So the slow page loads MAY be timing out things like that. It might even explain why icons are not responsive. If the page load is hung up, that MAY be stopping the editor from loading and thus, the icons are just images. That's just speculation on my part at the moment, but it makes a bit sense in my gut.

ab348

Old editor in all cases. Stuff seems to be loading fine, no delays I can see. Dumped all cookies and cache from Firefox earlier so it isn't that. I find it odd that there is no "Insert Image" prompt coming up in all 3 platforms right now. The icon responds (even this time in Firefox, wasn't doing that earlier), but not with that, just the "Image URL" label. It is a different problem.

I posted this the other day but I'll say it again in case it got overlooked. Prior to the changeover to the rich editor, the problem in Firefox was that the Emotorcon icon and the Image icon would be randomly (but usually) non-responsive. If I wanted to use them I could go to Chrome, or use the iPad. But I discovered that the pulldown for the user menu at the top of the Edmunds banner page was also nonresponsive in Firefox, and that didn't matter if you were in the Forums or not. I found that strange and wondered if the two things were connected, maybe due to some sitewide setting.

I do note that right now that banner pulldown is in fact working in Firefox while the ones in the old editor are responsive but the image one doesn't work correctly, so who knows.

sda

Me again, I am unable to post any pictures from my Samsung S10+. When I select the picture icon, a drop down box URL is shown yet there is no functionality. Is this unique to me or a known issue? Thanks

PF_Flyer

sda said:

Me again, I am unable to post any pictures from my Samsung S10+. When I select the picture icon, a drop down box URL is shown yet there is no functionality. Is this unique to me or a known issue? Thanks

Thanks for reporting this. It's not something that's happening across the board. I've only ever had it happen to me twice, and refreshing or backing out of the page and coming back has restored functionality. We're definitely looking into possible causes. There may be a page download speed issue that is possibly affect the functionality of icons in the comment box editor. The rich editor that we switch to (and back to the html editor) really seemed to feel the effects as well. We're not at a solution yet, but it really helps to hear from you all about the devices, operating systems, browsers and the like that are showing the behaviors.

We appreciate your patience while we chase down the gremlin!