The Volokh Conspiracy
[Eugene Volokh, February 16, 2007 at 11:20am] Trackbacks
Trouble with This Site?

If you're now having trouble with the site that seems to be linked with the digg code -- e.g., occasional error messages and offers to debug the script, conditions that sprung up after late Wednesday night, when we turned it on -- please post a comment or drop me an e-mail (volokh at law.ucla.edu). Our digg code has some temporary flaws (which we hope will go away in a few weeks, as a new PowerBlogs feature is added), and I wanted to know if they affect enough people that we should just drop the code.

I'm looking for problems you're having now -- we had more problems Thursday morning, but I think we fixed most of them. Thanks!

Domer88 (mail):
I have to cycle through about 10 debug script messages every time this page loads.
2.16.2007 11:26am
epriest (mail):
Part of the script is not set up correctly. For instance, the post "Journalism Programs End Race Criteria" produces this snippet:

escape(""Journalism Programs End Race Criteria":")

Because of the double double-quotes, this is invalid javascript and it causes an error ("would you like to debug?"). The generating script should escape the string properly before constructing the snippet. Alternatively, avoid making posts with double quotes in their titles.
2.16.2007 12:53pm
Xenos:
I'm not having any problems whatsoever.
2.16.2007 12:59pm
Blindgambit:
I've been getting the line-error notice (4 times per site opening I believe). I've also gotten (the last 2 times I've visited) two empty web pages opening up that display error messages. I should caution that this is from my work computer, which disables Active X controls. I do not recall the same problems when accessing the site at home.
2.16.2007 1:09pm
Orielbean (mail):
For those running IE, there is a setting under tools > internet options > advanced that is labeled Disable Script Error Notification that will eliminate those pesky messages in the future for other websites. Epriest is correct as to the scripting problem.
2.16.2007 1:34pm
Spartacus (www):
I have experienced no problems. I also have not noticwe any difference, except for the "digg this" link next to the comments link. I guess th idea is that if you don't have a digg account, the whole thing should just be minor background noise?
2.16.2007 2:11pm
Toby:
Plenty of erros on main page, not on threads. Just got errors on lines

372, 482, 537, 832. 941, 1235, 1449

I assume that's one for each digg on the page.
2.17.2007 12:53pm
Toby:
Not happening any more...
2.17.2007 2:34pm
a knight (mail) (www):
Analysis over a few days of the volokh.com code's thrown errors using the Firefox extension, Console², show that all are related to the same common javascript coding error of using literal double quotation marks in the wrong context. All errors are thrown at the place in the digg code that defines the blog post's title, and most often is between two successive double quotation marks.

Although I've not run a test in a sandbox (not my code, nor my responsibility), I believe the fix is to either use the JS backslash special character notation ( \") or the html special character notation (") for the double quotation marks that enclose the blog post's title. I suggest the latter case be tried first.
2.20.2007 10:54pm

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