[Not a ZC bug] Product Description Disappears - Chrome vs <Blockquote>

I am setting up the latest version of ZenCart. When I tried to edit the product, the description was gone. I didn't realize that, I was only changing the price - so when I saved it, the description disappeared permanently.

There's a thread on this problem, and I posted there:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1106292#post1106292

So apparently it's the editor in Chrome that's doing this? My Chrome is up to date. My PHP on the server is the latest version, just installed yesterday.

I switched to IE-9 instead - and I can edit products with that browser. But not with Chrome.

So apparently this is a bug with Chrome more than ZenCart or it's editor? I thought you'd want to know about it. I haven't had this problem with version 1.3.9h, in fact I edited both of my ZenCarts with the same open window of Chrome: the description is fine with 1.3.9 but with the latest version of ZenCart, it's ERRATIC.

I just did a lot more messing with Chrome. Sometimes the description shows up fine and other times it doesn't. I loaded PHPMyadmin so I could see if there was actually any data in the description fields for those products: YES, there is.

Does it not like my HTML in those fields? No, that's not it because in PHPMyadmin I see that all my products in that category start out with the exact same HTML code. But sometimes Chrome sees the product description and other times it doesn't.

And if it DOESN't see it, Chrome is consistent in not loading that one every time. Maybe it's something further down in the code. Here's the code from one of the pages that Chrome doesn't like:

<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT FACE="Arial" size=3 COLOR="#9F9F9F">
<b>DOLL WIG BARGAINS<br><B></FONT>
<FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE=4 COLOR="#000000"><b>
Cyndee Doll Wig Size 14-15 Black</br></B></FONT>

<P ALIGN="CENTER"><IMG SRC="http://www.prillycharmin.com/images/1supply/wigs/wig_cyndee.jpg"></br>
</FONT>
<P align=left><FONT FACE="Arial" size=3 COLOR="#000000"><b>Cyndee… This is an ever-popular style for babydolls:  with two curly ponytails on a short pixie cut.  Available in black only. </br>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<FONT FACE="Arial" COLOR="#008000">
<BR><b><i>SPECIAL CLOSEOUT WIGS:  These beautiful bargain wigs are factory closeout due to overstock.  There is nothing wrong with the wigs. (The original Retail price was  $14 to $30 for the wigs in our shop.)  Sales of doll wigs and synthetic hair craft items are final. </i> </BR></font>
<P ALIGN="CENTER">If you're not sure what size wig your doll needs,<br><a href="http://www.prillycharmin.com/shoes/2amenu_sizes2.html" target="_blank"><em>CLICK HERE to learn how to measure for doll wigs.</em></a> </BR>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><a href="http://www.prillycharmin.com/restore/1wigs.htm" target="_blank"><em>CLICK HERE to learn HOW TO APPLY & STYLE doll wigs.</em></a></BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

I suspect it's the blockquote that's giving the fits. I don't ordinarily use blockquotes. Yes, the other one that I've been inspecting also has the blockquote code in it.

Not only does it mess up on the back admin editor, but these products with a blockquote code are not showing up on the front end of the shop either. Description is blank.

So now it's looking like a ZenCart - Chrome issue? These same products display fine in IE.

Ok, I did my best on that one. I hope that report helps.

Cyndy

Oh, I checked one more thing. I used Chrome to edit the exact same product in version 1.3.9h and there's no problem. It's just in 1.5 that this is happening, and only with Chrome. With 1.3.9h Chrome can edit the description, and no problem displaying it in the front either.

Cyndy

Zencart 1.5
Chrome browser 17.0.963.56 m

Block quotes seem to work fine for me, I have used both the ckeditor plugin and the normal plain text editor to insert them.

I have saved them and edited them and they seem to work perfectly fine

How are you putting your code in?

Are you typing the actual code into the box, or are you using one of the html editor add-ons for zencart?

If you have access try it using the Safari browser as it uses the same base as Chome browser (with a few differences), that may narrow it down

I cut and pasted your code from above, and pasted it into my product description, and the block quotes survived being saved and edited, however it did mess up my front-end display a bit but thats due to the large number of errors in your html code.

You have opening tags for paragraphs but no matching closing tags, lowercase opening tags for some and upper case closing tags, this can cause issues as some of the editors will apply formatting when saving to ensure the display matches what is on the editor screen, if the code put in on the editor screen is, um borked, it can lead to weirdness with tag placement and display

You also have a few non-existant tags </br> I am fairly sure doesn't exist, it should be <br> for html or <br /> for xhtml (which I think is correct for zencart)

Try using the below and see if it works and comes through, the code isn't fixed fully by any means, but all the elements are closed and invalid tags are replacesd by valid ones, which may make a difference. I can't really think what else would be causing it as it is all working for me.

Buy yeah post back and let us know how you got on and especially how you are inseting code and if you are using the plain text editor or a plugin

<p align="center"> <font face="arial" size=3 color="#9f9f9f"> <b>DOLL WIG BARGAINS<br /> </b> </font> <font face="arial" size=4 color="#000000"> <b>Cyndee Doll Wig Size 14-15 Black<br /> </b> </font> </p> <p align="center"> <IMG SRC="http://www.prillycharmin.com/images/1supply/wigs/wig_cyndee.jpg"></br> </p> <P align=left> <font face="arial" size=3 color="#000000"> <b>Cyndee… This is an ever-popular style for babydolls: with two curly ponytails on a short pixie cut. Available in black only. </b><br /> </font> </p> <blockquote> <font face="arial" color="#008000"> <br /> <b><i>SPECIAL CLOSEOUT WIGS: These beautiful bargain wigs are factory closeout due to overstock. There is nothing wrong with the wigs. (The original Retail price was $14 to $30 for the wigs in our shop.) Sales of doll wigs and synthetic hair craft items are final. </i></b> <br /> </font> <p align="center"> If you're not sure what size wig your doll needs,<br /> <a href="http://www.prillycharmin.com/shoes/2amenu_sizes2.html" target="_blank"> <em>CLICK HERE to learn how to measure for doll wigs.</em> </a> </p> <p align="center"> <a href="http://www.prillycharmin.com/restore/1wigs.htm" target="_blank"> <em>CLICK HERE to learn HOW TO APPLY & STYLE doll wigs.</em> </a> </p> </blockquote>

It was originally written using notepad or Editpad.
I built a huge ecommerce and information website on HTML pages only, more than 10 years ago and it's been an ongoing success (even if it was sloppy code.) I've been going through all the HTML pages that I still have online, and improving the appearance, the code, and the metatags - because those pages are still popular and Google really likes them.

But I haven't worked on the code that was moved to ZenCart a few years ago. It was working just fine until the current upgrade (that hasn't gone live yet.) I can clean the blockquotes - but I think if the editor is going to choke on user code when it's used in certain browsers, there might be ongoing problems?

I don't know when they moved the forward slash BEHIND br and others - but I don't think it started out that way in the 1990's? I think XML has had an influence on HTML since the 90's maybe.

Here's a page of XML Don'ts on W3CSchools. I wonder if "data islands" or the Behavior attribute are the reason why these things work with IE but don't work with Chrome or Mozilla. If ZenCart's editor is using these XML tricks with the product descriptions in ZenCart?

http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_dont.asp

I just happened to run across that when looking up XML so I thought I'd mention it.