Empty post

Well... if we call an "easy" update ovewriting just of the 3 core files, then it will be easy -) However adjustments needed to make in those files are not one line changes.

I would say there is a hiss in the current miniBB core which allows to post messages which "look" like empty at the time they are not. For example you can post [ i ] [ /i ] which stands for a simple space enclosed withint italic BB codes, and it could pass through.

I doubt it is a very critical error and if somebody just strikes your board this way, you can ban him :-) However I will issue an update after I will be sure it all works... Currently I've updated the scripts on our board here, so you may try it out again.

Paul
if you'r using laptop just press :

Fn + Alt + 255

:D

I'm not using laptop... don't know what "Fn" button means?

test..

Paul wrote: I'm not using laptop... don't know what "Fn" button means?

"Fn" is short for "Function" (function key). :)
All best,
mb

I'm not using laptop... don't know what "Fn" button means?
"Fn" is short for "Function" (function key). :)
All best,
mb
that's it ;)

Now we have empty title with empty post as well!

What is this? how can I write a text filter to prevent this type of junk posts?

Danny2000
In your case, I think, the user has posted some symbol which consists of the numerical code 194. In Latin encoding, this symbol means Â; if you switch encoding of your forums in your browser from UTF-8 to Western, you will see what I mean: there is such symbol separated by line breaks which makes the post passing through. It's not an empty post, you only think so because you don't see anything typed.

I am not sure if this problem belongs to miniBB and if I should fix it (because in general I don't know how to fix it - and I don't know what else symbols can be involved in repeating it, there may be the symbols with codes 195, 196 etc. as well). On the other hand I don't really care about it, because it's more related to users content, and excuse me, but users can also post something not suitable with your board rules, "bad" words or "bad" content, they can type something stupid like simply "A" letter for message and topic title if it's allowed by your forums settings - you will not try to prevent it using text filters, will you?.. And you can't. It's a moderation question.

So the most effective solution is just to ban this user from further posting, as I mentioned earlier, and delete this post. No other solution is useful.

I think it's possible to do empty post just using the ALT+255 (without any tags around them). So adding three or more time: ALT+255 will make an empty post/topic.

I agree with Paul, I would also ban someone trying to post garbage just like I would ban someone whose only content of the post are 20 smilies; there are probably more than one possible scenarios when it's possible to post empty posts and instead trying to fight them all is better to ban such user focus on something more useful :.

I'm not sure if you can repeat it here on our forums? Because it seems to be a case which this thread was started from and which hopefully we have fixed in the version 2.2 (see: Updates list -> "empty post" issue update).

Here we talk about a bit other issue which affects now other symbols.

    

Yes, I could do it as above (doing 3 times: alt+255)..

Oh yes I see now, you are right.

Well, it seems PHP function doesn't trim such kind of "spaces" because they are not spaces actually. They are specific symbols which are just not visible on the screen in the certain encoding. If you switch this page to UTF-8, you will see these symbols some way appear.

I think it's definitely not our problem to fix this, and as I wrote earlier, it's the same case as if user posts improver content on this board which is possible to fight only with standard moderation methods.

That's strange and that explains it when one can clearly see posted characters in different encoding..

That's not strange, that's logical. In programming there is only one code which reserves the space symbol, and this code is #32. So if you type Alt + 32 it's the same as you press space button on your keyboard. Other symbols are not spaces at the time they may look so in some encoding.