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My links/ jumps to points on another page suddenly often do not work

  1. ingridcc
    Member

    This may be hard to demonstrate, as sometimes the links DO work! It's only those links/jumps to anchor points on another page or post that aren't working reliably, jumps to points on the same post seem to be working fine.

    All of a sudden the last couple weeks my links/ jumps to points on other pages or posts will bring me to the correct post/page but often NOT to the correct point on that page. Instead to some much higher/ earlier point in the post. Often there will be a little "jiggle" to the page as it settles into this wrong point. Sometimes if I hit refresh, or click "back" and then hit the link again, it will then go to the correct point, but often it still goes to the same wrong place. This has been happening for at least the last week or two, all over my blog. It is embarrassing, readers won't know to do this kind of tweaking and sometimes even the tweaking doesn't work...These are all links/ jumps that used to work fine!

    (Except for one period a few weeks or couple months ago when all the jumps/ anchor points weren't working due to some wp bug that was later fixed...could this be related?)

    My blog is loopbraider.com.

    The blog I need help with is loopbraider.com.

  2. timethief
    Member

    Hi there,
    Will you please provide URLs for the posts or pages we can examine examples of this in?

  3. ingridcc
    Member

    Hi Timethief--I had a feeling this would happen! The problem is sporadic-fortunately or unfortunately the jumps seem to be working right now. So I don't know if it's worth your time to check it. From recent experience, though, I suspect the problem will recur.

    This has happened before--the problem will seem to be over, but then later it happens again. That's why I haven't asked about it til now--first I kept thinking it was over, then I doubted I could show it.

    Here is an example that wasn't working yesterday and several days ago (but did work at some point in between): in the following page, near the end, in the sentence: "I commented on the Letterbraid monograph (Part II) here. " The link here should (and now does) lead to a footnote on another post that starts like this : ** European Loop Braiding:....

    http://loopbraider.com/about/old-english-pattern-books-for-loop-braiding/

    When the jump wasn't working correctly, it took the reader to a point far above the footnote on the other post, where the footnote is not visible at all.
    2 jumps that I just tested are now working, I'll go back and try a few more that often haven't worked in the last week or two...

  4. zandyring
    Happiness Engineer

    Hi there,

    I'm sorry you were experiencing this issue. It's great that you've brought it up, even though it appears to have resolved; we can keep an eye open for it now!

    Since it does appear to be resolved, I'm going to set this thread to resolved, but please let me know if it recurs so I can check it out.

    Cheers!

  5. ingridcc
    Member

    Hi zandyring,
    Unfortunately this is happening again--I just got back to the blog after being away for a while, so don't know when it started up again, but in the following post, I have had to repeatedly add back in the anchor point (jump-to point) for the two links "below" (meaning the link itself is that word) in this post:
    http://loopbraider.com/2012/12/25/double-braid-tutorials/

    Both "below"s are in the lower part of the post, past the 4th/last video, and both had the same anchor point. That anchor point has gotten stripped out every time I edit something.

    This last time I didn't add the anchor point for the two links back in, so the links still look like links but aren't functioning...

    Oddly the 2 jumps in the post that each go to a separate footnote haven't been affected. So it looks as if the code doesn't like the fact that both jumps went to the same anchor point. However that was never a problem in the past...

    Thanks in advance for any help.

  6. justpi
    Member

    No, this doesn't have to do with "the fact that both jumps went to the same anchor point". WP, apparently trying to correct their previous mistake, now made a new one: they now strip the code if it contains the id attribute instead of the name attribute. This is a joke...

  7. ingridcc
    Member

    Well, I got tired of waiting, and just added the anchor point back in. So the jumps are working again (for the time being, til I edit again!).
    @justpi-- the thing is, the anchor points for my numbered footnotes also have the id attribute, and they don't get stripped out when I edit! It seems to me it must be the fact that I have two jumps going to the same anchor point (?) that messes up the code somehow.

  8. ingridcc
    Member

    Hmm...Maybe I should start a new thread on this, as I see it isn't exactly the same problem I was having at first. This is a problem with jumps to anchor points within the same post, not in a different post...

  9. timethief
    Member

    @ingridcc
    You don't need to start another thread. Go to the first entry you made when you created the thread and click "not resolved".

  10. justpi
    Member

    @ingridcc:
    "it must be the fact that I have two jumps going to the same anchor point". No.
    "This is a problem with jumps to anchor points within the same post, not in a different post". Doesn't make a difference.
    "the anchor points for my numbered footnotes also have the id attribute, and they don't get stripped out when I edit". I forgot to mention a crucial detail: the code with the id attribute gets stripped out if you switch to Visual; if you don't switch it stays put.

  11. zandyring
    Happiness Engineer

    Hi @ingridcc,

    I agree that the cause of the links getting stripped is likely that you are switching between visual and text mode. For adding in anchors, I would keep the view in text mode, and probably save that step for last if you'd like to check your progress in the visual mode as you work through the post.

    But I find it curious that it isn't happening with every anchor you add. I am going to investigate further and keep you apprised.

    Cheers!

  12. zandyring
    Happiness Engineer

    Ok @ingridcc,

    I think we have it nailed down :)

    Your anchor link for dborder was an empty tag:

    WordPress will strip out most empty tags. So what might be better for you is to assign a heading to your subhead and add the anchor there. Something like this:

    <h3 id="dborder">Color planning and loop set-up:<h3>

    If you go to "Visual," clicking the "kitchen sink" icon at the end of the row will show you more options, and you can automatically select what heading tag you'd like to assign something (to make that part of it easier!)

    Let me know if this helps, or if you have any other questions.

  13. ingridcc
    Member

    Hi and thanks, zandyring. I'm afraid this is a little over my head--

    Could you please clarify which was an empty tag--the link or the anchor point? You said my anchor link, but it was the anchor point that kept getting stripped out, not the code for the links... I have re-added in the anchor point code several times now.

    The hard thing for me is that I don't really understand html--I've always just used an html template to make my anchor links and anchor points--so I have no idea what "assigning a heading to my subhead" means. I'm not even really clear on what a tag is or in what way that particular one was 'empty'!

    And a further problem I see is that I made this link and anchor point with the same html templates that I've used to make tons of other anchor points on the blog. They have always stayed put, until last fall, even when I edited the post later--whether in text or visual mode. (Some things are a lot easier to do in visual mode-- changing properties of uploaded pictures, also underlining and using special characters...)

    So if it's a problem with this tag I must now have lots of other problem tags in other parts of my blog...

    Most of my posts are tutorials and articles, not journal-type entries, and I edit and change them frequently...

  14. justpi
    Member

    @zandyring: I tested things carefully before replying, and the problem wasn't the empty tag. The problem was that the tag would get stripped out if it contained the id attribute while it wouldn't get stripped out if it contained the name attribute. And that was wrong, because the current HTML for this job is id, not name.
    @ingridcc: But things have changed (maybe some other staff member saw this). Now both versions remain in place when you switch to visual.

  15. zandyring
    Happiness Engineer

    Thanks for the detailed answer @justpi!

    @ingridcc,

    I'll explain what an empty tag is :)

    So, if you have a tag like this:

    <h3></h3>

    It's called "empty" because there's nothing between the two H3 tags. Here's a tag that isn't empty:

    <h3>Subheading</h3>

    It's not empty because the word "Subheading" is in between the two tags.

    To be on the safe side, don't use empty tags if you can help it; our editor will want to strip those out for security reasons. If you have a current post that works with one, you're ok. If you go in to make changes to a post, you can either change the empty tags out (by surrounding them around some text), or you can test to see if they will remain or not (and then fix accordingly). But if you have some that are currently working fine, they won't suddenly stop working (unless you update the post again).

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