Web Wiz Support and Community Forums : RSS Invalid Character Problem https://forums.webwiz.net/ Copyright (c) 2006-2013 Web Wiz Forums - All Rights Reserved. Sun, 12 Apr 2026 11:15:03 +0000 Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:39:45 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Web Wiz Forums 12.08 360 https://forums.webwiz.net/RSS_post_feed.asp?TID=19297 <![CDATA[Web Wiz Support and Community Forums]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_images/web_wiz_forums.png https://forums.webwiz.net/ <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : Must be the encoding then. ]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104628.html#104628 Author: wistex
Subject: 19297
Posted: 17 April 2006 at 6:39pm

Must be the encoding then.

]]> Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:39:45 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104628.html#104628 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : The description tag is surrounded...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104466.html#104466 Author: WebWiz-Bruce
Subject: 19297
Posted: 16 April 2006 at 12:43pm

The description tag is surrounded with <![CDATE[     ]] as it is the only way to display HTML code in an RSS Feed]]> Sun, 16 Apr 2006 12:43:44 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104466.html#104466 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : Yes, I bet it had to be a pain...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104376.html#104376 Author: wistex
Subject: 19297
Posted: 15 April 2006 at 2:35pm

Yes, I bet it had to be a pain to get to work for everybody.  Theproblem is you can tell it how you want the web page encoded (UTF-8)for example, but when someone pastes something from their WordProcessor or another web page that is encoded differently, I don'tthink what gets saved in the database is UTF-8.  It's whatever waspassed to the database.

In version 7.x of WWF, I had to change WWF to display in ISO-8859-1because of the problem of characters not showing up correctly.  Almostall my users use ISO-8859-1, and the headers and footers ASP code is inISO-8859-1 as well. 

What was weird is IE 6 displayed the forums fine, FireFox 1.x (if Irecall) displayed it fine, but FireFox 1.5x was screwing up the page.

What I in my articles RSS feed did that helped was surround the description content with a <![CDATE[     ]] tag, which prevents newsreaders from chocking on characters that are not valid in XML. 

http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/rss.asp

Response.Write "<description>"  & vbCrlf 
Response.Write "<![CDATA[" & vbCrlf 

IF rst("ContentAuthorDisplayName").Value <> "" THEN
    Response.Write "By " & rst("ContentAuthorDisplayName").Value    
END IF 

IF rst("ContentSubHeadline").Value <> "" THEN
Response.Write "<p>" & rst("ContentSubHeadline").Value
END IF

IF rst("ContentExcerpt").Value <> "" AND rst("ContentSubHeadline").Value <> rst("ContentExcerpt").Value THEN
    Response.Write "<p>" & rst("ContentExcerpt").Value 
END IF

IF rst("ContentExcerpt").Value = "" THEN 
    If Len(rst("ContentContent").Value) > 500 Then 
    dot = "... <a href=" & LinkURL & ">Read More...</a>" 
    Else 
    dot = ""
    End If
                  Response.Write Left(rst("ContentContent").Value,500) & "" & dot
END IF

Response.Write "]]>" & vbCrlf
Response.Write "</description>" & vbCrlf
]]> Sat, 15 Apr 2006 14:35:53 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104376.html#104376 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : neil.carter wrote:Wistex...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104356.html#104356 Author: WebWiz-Bruce
Subject: 19297
Posted: 15 April 2006 at 11:01am

Originally posted by neil.carter neil.carter wrote:

Wistex is correct - if you change the encoding of the rss feed to ISO-8859-1 you no longer get the error as you can see http://www.bhpc.org.uk/forum8/RSS_topic_feed.asp.
 
Presumably this is because this is how its encoded in the database.


It seems to on your forum, but if you try and use a space as the separator when using ISO-8859-1 it displays '?' in between dates, if you use UTF-8 it doesn't.

This is one of the biggest issues with designing this type of software is also making it generic enough to run on so many different systems with so many different setups.
]]> Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:01:03 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104356.html#104356 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : Your link is working fine in my...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104355.html#104355 Author: WebWiz-Bruce
Subject: 19297
Posted: 15 April 2006 at 10:58am

Your link is working fine in my copy of IE now, so it seems in version 8 full this problem has been solved.

You may have some issues with old posts for a while till they are no longer part of the RSS Feed.

Although in IE is does display a square symbol as quotes are changed to &#146; I have changed this for the next version to &#039; which also gets rid of the square block issue in IE and displays quote correctly in IE
]]> Sat, 15 Apr 2006 10:58:34 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104355.html#104355 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : Wistex is correct - if you change...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104353.html#104353 Author: neil.carter
Subject: 19297
Posted: 15 April 2006 at 10:54am

Wistex is correct - if you change the encoding of the rss feed to ISO-8859-1 you no longer get the error as you can see http://www.bhpc.org.uk/forum8/RSS_topic_feed.asp.
 
Presumably this is because this is how its encoded in the database.
]]> Sat, 15 Apr 2006 10:54:09 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104353.html#104353 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : I can recreate the problem by...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104346.html#104346 Author: neil.carter
Subject: 19297
Posted: 15 April 2006 at 10:36am

I can recreate the problem by putting the character either into a post body or forum topic - for example
 
What’s New
 
Should cause the RSS feed to fail with an error
]]> Sat, 15 Apr 2006 10:36:29 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104346.html#104346 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : The version I upgraded from was...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104343.html#104343 Author: neil.carter
Subject: 19297
Posted: 15 April 2006 at 10:24am

The version I upgraded from was installed without any modifications - I will delete the problematic post and see if I can recreate it.
]]> Sat, 15 Apr 2006 10:24:52 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104343.html#104343 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : The encoding UTF-8 in tests worked...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104339.html#104339 Author: WebWiz-Bruce
Subject: 19297
Posted: 15 April 2006 at 10:11am

The encoding UTF-8 in tests worked the best.

I have been looking into this issue as I did do exhustive testing on this due to problems in previous versions and couldn't workout why you got this issue.

Anyway, the single quote ' that is coursing the issue in your subjects should be there as it should have been encoded on the way into the database for security reasons. This is why it didn't come up in testing.

The only thing I can think is that the version you upgraded from was modified or didn't encode the ' singe quote mark.

The only thing I therefore can suggest is that you leave it and see if the problem sorts itself out in the new version as new posts come in.
]]> Sat, 15 Apr 2006 10:11:12 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104339.html#104339 <![CDATA[RSS Invalid Character Problem : http://feedvalidator.org/docs/error/UnicodeError.htmlIt...]]> https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104268.html#104268 Author: wistex
Subject: 19297
Posted: 14 April 2006 at 6:13pm

http://feedvalidator.org/docs/error/UnicodeError.html

It looks like you either need to turn curly quotes into regular quotes, and curly apostrophes into regular apostrophes... or you need to change the encoding to ISO-8859-1, which allows those characters.


Edited by wistex - 14 April 2006 at 6:14pm]]> Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:13:52 +0000 https://forums.webwiz.net/rss-invalid-character-problem_topic19297_post104268.html#104268