*smacks LJ with a dead fish*

[sholio]

Okay, seriously, LJ, WHAT. Spoiler-span code seems to have stopped working. I've tried it in two different browsers and in two different journals, and I'm pretty sure it's not me.

On top of that, people have already complained about what has been done to comment display in LJ's "light" style (and apparently for some people in the default style as well; it doesn't do it for me, but it does for some, possibly depending on your prefs) -- the gray separator bars have become much shorter, so that the icons overlap the line below. It's not only fugly, but makes the comments harder to read.

And on top of THAT, I noticed the last couple of days that the "expand" button in threaded comments doesn't reliably work anymore. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it just makes the whole comment thread disappear and the only way to get it back is by reloading the page. (The first time it happened, I thought I'd done something wrong. But it just kept happening.)

Is this happening to anyone else, or is it just me?

Comments

[spark-force.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I haven't noticed any of that happening, no...

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

It's possible that upgrading my browsers would help, because while I did try it in two different ones, neither of them is the most up-to-date version. But it's still weird that it's happening all of a sudden like that ...

[spark-force.livejournal.com]

Try posting something w/spoiler text (and keeping it posted! *g*) so I can see if it works in my browser? I believe mine's up-to-date.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Okay, let's try it: Do you see spoiler-spanning here?

[spark-force.livejournal.com]

Ah, nope, I guess it's not just you! How odd. That's going to make life interesting if they don't fix it soon...

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I just checked on my laptop while waiting for your reply - because it does have the newest upgrade of Safari - and, yeah, still not working. Could you try posting some? Maybe it's happening on the posting end and not on the viewing end. Spoiler span code in case you need it: <span style="color:#333333; background:#333333"> [spoiler text here] </span>

[spark-force.livejournal.com]

Ok, sure.

Attempting a spoiler cut...

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Nope. Not showing up.

CONFUSED FRIENDSHIPPER IS VERY CONFUSED!

ETA: Although I see what you mean about spoiler spans showing up in the email notification. Actually, when I went to edit this comment, it shows up in the comment edit/reply interface! Just not in the default layout, apparently. OKAY, LJ, SERIOUSLY, STOP IT.

[spark-force.livejournal.com]

That is seriously strange. o.O

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

It could be because LJ will be doing maintenance soon. Maybe it's just me but things always seem to go screwy when they're about to do maintenance.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Hmm, point. I guess I'll wait and see if I'm still having the same problems after the maintenance downtime.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Hmm - spoilers are still working on my lj?

(no actual spoilers in the following )

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, the font tags are still there but the styling code got stripped! But I still see spoilers in my previous posts, oddly...

Well, maybe the maintenance will fix things...?

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I *just* got a post on my flist (a couple hours ago, anyway) that used spoiler text, which makes me wonder if some people's posting interface does it and others don't (like, maybe if you post from a desktop client or something, it works, but not in the browser window, or ... something).

WEIRD.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Okay - maybe it's only in comments? I just tried editing an old post to add spoiler tags, and they worked just fine. Haven't tried making a new post (or editing a post with existing spoiler tags). Which leads me to think it's just buggy comments, rather than lj actually changing their code *fingers crossed*!

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

... OR ARE THEY? Because the text doesn't seem to have come through spoiler-spanned in that comment.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

It seems like previously existing spoiler tags still work, but one can't make new ones. Well, that's...annoying! >.>

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

But they work in some aspects of the interface! When I went to edit one of my above comments, I discovered that they still show up in the edit/reply window, just not in the default viewing layout. So it's not stripping them out completely so much as just ... not showing them.

I CONCUR WITH YOUR ICON.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Do you use the native expander or do you use greasemonkey? I used the native one when I had a paid account, then let it lapse to free only to find out expanding was a paid-only feature, so I installed the greasemonkey script and have been using that. It started fucking up a couple days ago (just in time for all the massive yuletide posts I wanted to expand!) and I finally I decided to try uninstalling the script and found that expand is now a native feature for free users as well, so apparently LJ's expand was conflicting with greasemonkey's.

But...if you're already using the native one, then I don't know what to suggest!

I have been seeing the fugly-ass narrow comment bars for a week or more now and it's horrible. It really makes me want to not read anything on LJ, because it's not just ugly, but makes it much more difficult to read.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I use the native expander ... so, yeah, IDK.

If it's screwing up Greasemonkey, then they definitely changed something in the code that is causing random fuckups all over the place. I am, admittedly, not surprised at this turn of events, beyond the usual faint boggling that an actual company with actual paid staff is run this badly. *g*

I've had everything set to "view in own style" for awhile now, and it's not doing the ugly comment bars for me, so I've been able to ignore it on most posts. But, yeah, it's awful. Between that, and comment threads now collapsing at 40 comments rather than fifty, I've been choosing to do more reading/commenting on DW simply because I don't want to deal with LJ's interface snafus anymore. It's possible that most of the weirdness is due to cramped server space, and the server maintenance they're doing tonight may fix it, but sloooowwwwly but surely it's getting to the point where I'd just rather not deal with it anymore.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I have everything in style=mine, but my style is the site scheme, not a custom style. (I don't like custom style pages.) I might try switching to a different scheme. I still use one of the old ones, so maybe it's that they're trying to force people to newer site schemes...

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I use the default style too ... and yet I'm not getting the narrow bars, which is weird. ratcreature suggested that it might depend on whether you use the newer or older styles, because I do use one of the newer styles and she's having the narrow-bar thing happen on style=mine in one of the old styles.

I'm not sure if it's a deliberate thing so much as just increasingly not bothering to support older styles and older and/or non-mainstream browsers. Which I find very annoying in general, but I can't really hate LJ for doing something that most of the sites I visit have been doing (or, well, it's more accurate to say that I just hate all of them equally *g*). It's very irritating to have something work and work and then suddenly break, though.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Just switched to Horizon from XColibur and that fixed the blue bars! Well, I prefer XColibur (especially the fact that the LJ banner at the top stayed plain blue and didn't change to these fancy seasonal ones), but that was utterly unworkable, so I will just have to get used to Horizon.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah, I can't ever remember the names of things, but Horizon is the one I use, I think. (Dammit, LJ, stop "fixing" things already!)

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

I haven't noticed anything but then I really don't notice things :D

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe it's only doing it in certain layouts.

[astridv.livejournal.com]

The mystery of the disappearing comment threads has occurred a few times lately; I haven't noticed any of the other things. I think a few months ago LJ had that same problem with expanding comments, for a while.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Ah, good to know it's not just me. That's a weird enough one that I could see how it could slip under the radar in bug testing (I still can't figure out exactly what causes it to happen).

[crashbarrier.livejournal.com]

Been happening for me too.. figured it was a "new upgrade".....:/

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I wish they'd stop "fixing" things. *mutters*

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Is this what you mean by "spoiler span"? Where the text is greyed over and you have to highlight to read? I can see it in the entry to which I linked (it's n the "warning" line, right after the word "highlight:"), but I don't see it in your entry or your comment above.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Yes, that. According to michelel72's comment below, they're now stripping it out of comments but leaving the ability to use it in entries; suck!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hm. No idea, but the above comments sound smart -- good luck! I will be over here in the corner secretly rooting for the end of spoiler black-outs, since they don't work when you're (er, by which I mean "I'm") using mobile devices to browse -- the spoiler text either shows up like regular text, or it's a black bar you can't highlight to read.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

d'oh, I do tend to forget that span tags don't necessarily work in mobile browsing, since I don't have a mobile device! I tend to use them a lot, too. From what michelel72 says below, the change is a) intentional and b) probably permanent, so I guess this will just force LJ users to find some new way of doing it, or get more proactive with spoiler warnings/spoiler space, or whatnot.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

I had heard that, because of spammy malware comments, they deliberately broke whatever makes spoiler-texting work in comments, but not in posts.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's on purpose? Well, SUCK. I used that one a lot. Though I guess not being able to use span tags is better than getting malware (stupid spammers!), and like bironic points out above, they don't work on mobile devices.

[trobadora]

Oh hell. Stripping spoiler span tags in comments? What a pain. :( :( :(

As for the comment display, it happens in ?format=light and in the old site schemes, yes. They've said they're looking into it.

I've not noticed anything bizarre with the thread expander, though - it works fine for me.