Why are we seeing � ?
 

I've noticed this cropping up in various posts: � on threads. It makes it more difficult to read the posts. It's a relatively recent thing. Is it due to a software change?

Cheers.

Link to an affected post please?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26328984-post20.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/25959141-post2.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26170120-post536.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26580297-post547.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showwiki.php?t=1758289
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26456220-post1.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/25364072-post504.html

It should be noted on some of the posts the � did not exist before. It's a relatively recent change - but can be/is very annoying. It seems to affect punctuation type symbols and currency symbols primarily.

Ok, here's the VERY weird part! When I cut/pasted the links above, & then click on them they don't show it. But if I look at those posts in the actual forums the � appears. So IBobi you'll probably have to go to the actual threads & posts to see it vs. doing the click on links above.

I'm using Chrome by the way on Win 7 laptop. Edited to add: I check the posts in the forums via IE & the � shows up in those posts via IE too.

Cheers.

Should be fixed now.

It's not (screen shot below taken about a minute before I made this post)

My steps to get to that page:
-Click on the first link in post #3 of this thread
-In the new window that opens, click on the link in the far upper right corner "Thread: Courtyard Tokyo Station, Japan"
-Screenshot below appears at post 20

Yup, I can see that, too. Running Windows 10 with the latest version of Chrome.

In a signature line
 

See post #9 of this thread. Mr. Vker is the poster
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...omplaints.html

Are you still seeing this?? I am not. The post appears normal.

Try clearing your cache a few times (CTRL-F5)

this is something that started with one of the 'recent' updates

its off and on

It seems to have started much more recently than that; I've only seen it reported as of this week and there was no update.

Tech is still working on this.

right, i dont mean 'that' recently, i literally was offline for a week

i dont know, maybe a month or two?

i dont really report things in general because 99% of the time it doesnt bother me

Not only did I clear the cache in my primary browser (Chrome), but I also tried it in Safari and Firefox, and all 3 browsers are showing the same way, with the � showing in weird places.

If you go to this direct link, you might experience this phenomenon (I put the link in CODE so that FT wouldn't do weird things to it - make sure to copy/paste the entire address):

Fwiw, I've never seen this, and don't see it when viewing any of the links provided above, in IE, FF, or Chrome on Win10.

Regarding the example text @ mile post 20 in the Courtyard Tokyo Station, Japan thread:

Looks like the poster used left/right curly quotes aka ANSI character codes 147 (0x93) and 148 (0x94), which leads me to wonder whether there's a Windows-1252 to ISO 8859-1 encoding snag (maybe in the input stream?). To illustrate my point compare the following links, which display the same post in isolation and in context, respectively:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26328984-post20.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...l#post26328984

I clearly see smart quotes displayed in the former but not the latter. Can you open the files in a hex editor and compare whether the byte values are the same on the glitchy chars?

ETA: Combing through SkiAdcock's list of links upthread, I can replicate the display problem of other high bit characters, namely 145 (single left quote), 146 (single right quote), 163 (British pound symbol) and 174 (registered trademark symbol). LMK if I can be of further annoyance assistance. ;)

essxjay, to put your post into English :p, are you saying that the problem is most likely on FT/IB's end on and not on the users' end? I know when you mentioned Windows, I have a Mac machine so I was somewhat not paying attention after that. :cool: