Report bugs for the new site here! 🐛

[sujato]

We’ve already had a lot of useful bug reports for the new site, and our devas are scurrying around fixing stuff. I’ll make a dedicated thread here for bugs, and will start off by mentioning a few known issues so you don’t have to worry about posting them again.

The new site is built using an emerging standard called “web components”. These were proposed in 2011, but only late last year was the spec fully agreed on by all parties. The standard is still being implemented, so while this happens some rough edges are expected. Currently Blink-based browsers (Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi …) have the best support for web components.

We implement web components using Google’s Polymer 2 library. They are promising Polymer 3 “very soon”, and this should bring with it a range of improvements.

Meanwhile, here are some outstanding issues:

1. Microsoft Edge doesn’t work. This is a limitation in Edge implementation of web components. Use another browser.
2. Firefox can be slow. Keep your FF updated and it should be okay, but it won’t be fully speedy until they roll out web component support over the next couple of months.
3. A small percentage of Firefox users will also encounter the dreaded “LastPass” bug, which causes the site to fail. This is a bug in the LastPass plugin for Firefox. They are aware of it and are making a fix. Keep your browser and plugin up to date, and it should be fixed soon. Meanwhile, either use another browser or disable the plugin.
4. We’ve also had bug reports for Grammarly and Smooth Scrolling plugins as well as UBlock Origin and AdBlock Origin.
5. Safari should work, but we have received some bug reports, which we are looking into. Check back in a few days, and if it’s still not resolved, let us know.
6. Downloading texts for offline use is slow, and we are working on that. I would recommend waiting until next week before trying this out.
7. Some of the more obscure texts are still not available, we are working on it.
8. Not all of my new translations are ready. We should have the draft version of the full four nikayas in a week or two, and the fully proofed version in a couple of months. If you want to use these texts for some purpose I would recommend waiting until then.
9. For the four nikayas, the Pali texts are linked to my new translations, so where the translations are absent the Pali texts are too. As above, they’ll be there in a week or two.
10. Incoming bookmarked URLs are broken. This is because we added support for multiple authors, which requires a different approach to URLs. We will try to fix this problem as best we can, so your patience is appreciated.

Please note that the main site (suttacentral.net) and this forum are completely different platforms. For now we are mainly focussed on the main site, so don’t worry too much about problems with the new theme on the forum just yet.

When reporting bugs, please mention your operating system/version and your browser/version.

[Senryu]

Excited about the new site!

I just looked up the Sarakāni Sutta on google and it gave me this link, with the title ‘SN 55.24: Sarakāni 1 - SuttaCentral’:

SuttaCentral

But the sutta does not seem to be there. Just the text:

Paṭhamasaraṇānisakka Sutta
SN 55.24
SN v 375

When Sarakāni the Sakyan died the Buddha declared him a stream-enterer. But others complained, since he was known as a drinker. However, the Buddha confirmed to Mahānāma that Sarakāni had undertaken the precepts on his deathbed.

I tried clicking on ‘SN 55.24’ but it is not clickable.
The 3 horizontal lines on the left just bring up the menu ‘sutta; vinaya; abhidhamma’. There is no panel like there used to be to see the sutta in different languages or go to any links related to the sutta. I tried pressing everything else I could find on the page but no luck.

Also using the search function and entering ‘SN 55.24’ gives only 4 results, none of which seem relevant - it seems. For example the first link (it only gives 4 hits) is:

SuttaCentral

It seems that the search was just picking up the ‘SN’.

If I type “SN 55.24” into the search function, expecting that to give only exact phrase matches due to the quotation marks, it just gives what seems to be the identical result of 4 matches. So this functionality is missing apparently.

Even if I try to search for MN 2, I cannot see MN 2 in the whole first page of results. So it’s really hard to find any sutta. I don’t remember it being that hard on the old site. Seems you have to actually navigate through the heirarchy with these steps:

1. 3 parallel lines
2. sutta
3. middle
4. MN
5. Mūlapannāsa
6. 1-10
7. Then close off the side panel so you can see the resultant page
8. Find the sutta and click

8 steps to find a sutta seems a little much, so I am guessing this is a bug.

I am using Firefox on a Mac with OS 10.12.6

[Christopher]

I just got a new badge today, but the description of the badge is cut off.

Also, although I have earned many badges, I have yet to receive any of them in the mail. I have a special sash to which I will sew them when I receive them, but, sadly, my special sash is currently empty. I’m going on a retreat next week and would really like to wear my sash with all of its badges during the retreat. I’m willing to pay for overnight delivery if necessary.

[sujato]

just looked up the Sarakāni Sutta on google and it gave me this link

So that’s good, Google likes us.

But the sutta does not seem to be there. Just the text:

This is a sutta card. It gives you all the information that SC has for this sutta.

There is no English translation for this sutta—see the original post. Translations in other languages are available from the dropdown at the bottom of the card.

The 3 horizontal lines on the left just bring up the menu ‘sutta; vinaya; abhidhamma’.

The down-pointing arrow expands to show the other menu items.

There is no panel like there used to be to see the sutta in different languages or go to any links related to the sutta.

Not sure what you are referring to here. On the old site, the menu indicated the text “divisions” by nikaya etc. On the current site it is exactly the same, except:

1. The menu is in the sidebar
2. The items are reordered a little.
3. You can navigate to any level of the hierarchy.

There has never been direct access to suttas from the menu.

Also using the search function and entering ‘SN 55.24’ gives only 4 results, none of which seem relevant

Yes, we are working to improve this.

Even if I try to search for MN 2, I cannot see MN 2 in the whole first page of results

Just do mn2 without a space, it will give better results for now, but we will also fix this.

Also, if you know the ID of the sutta you want, just write it in the URL. That is by far the fastest and most effective way!

Seems you have to actually navigate through the heirarchy

Any of the green links in the hierarchy are clickable. So if you want to open the whole of the Majjhima Nikaya, just like in the old site, you can. (It’s not a good idea for SN and AN, though!) But, unlike the old site, we also offer the ability to navigate through the hierarchy.

[sujato]

Hmm, we need to implement javascript to cotton conversion. That should be feasible, so long as we have a direct energy-to-matter creator powered by nuclear fusion. Then we can simply extract infinite energy from the quantum vacuum, manipulate it at a quark level into the desired weave, and spontaneously manifest matter in any form we wish, including your nice badges.

[Christopher]

Sounds easy enough; thanks!

The first sentence on my post was an actual bug. The description of the Aficionado badge was cut off after a few words (in fact, in the middle of a word).

The last part of my post was obviously a joke. Of course I’m not going to wear a sash full of badges on retreat!

…I’m wearing a vest:

[Linda]

@sujato I imagine you know this, but if the new site doesn’t work for us (for me, Safari, as reported) then it means all the links in both old and new posts on Discourse don’t open either as they dont’ automatically go back to the old site

[Senryu]

The down-pointing arrow expands to show the other menu items.

Ah, thanks - I must have overlooked that one… now that page just says
"Error 404
Page not found"

… so I am not sure what the original page had on clicking that ‘v’ - maybe nothing, or maybe I just overlooked it. But I tried on another page, and clicking that, and then one more, allowed me to see the link to the Pāli. It might just be a case of getting used to this new system as I was used to clicking the three parallel lines, but it might be that it is just a bit counter-intuitive…? I wonder if there is any icon other than a little ‘v’ that might help people more easily recognise that there is a lot of important stuff there? Maybe a nice little image, or something like the letters ‘ref’? But maybe it is perfect as it is…?

Also old links, such as https://suttacentral.net/pi/dn2 are not working.

“There is no panel like there used to be to see the sutta in different languages or go to any links related to the sutta.”

Not sure what you are referring to here.

Sorry, found that now since you pointed it out - it’s the stuff that comes from that ‘v’ now. I think that used to be in the 3 parallel lines link didn’t it? Which made the side bar come out. Anyway, found it now.

Yes, we are working to improve this.

Cool!

Just do mn2 without a space, it will give better results for now, but we will also fix this.

Great, will do. Thanks!

[Linda]

I’m laughing imagining you showing up to the retreat with a vest full of badges. Ohhh, memories… I remember well my girl scout uniform with the sash full of badges–those fun little artistic embroidered circles– and how exciting it was to receive and carefully sew on a new one.

[tkk]

First, thanks to all for this wonderful new site!
I am using Safari 11.0.3 on macOS 10.13.3 without major problems. However, there are some quirks.

With pali lookup, sometimes multiple popups stay open.

The pali script seems to omit every first diacritical mark per word, except for sutta titles.

…

[Timothy]

But, what about shipping?

[Senryu]

@sujato

Translations in other languages are available from the dropdown at the bottom of the card.

I have now found what maybe (?) happened for me on the sutta page I was originally talking about. No little ‘v’ to access Pāli etc. that I can see.

[Tam]

When not logged in, the top bar inhibits reading.

[Senryu]

Oh, I just discovered that the column entitled ‘more’ has the Pāli in it, if you click the item underneath, and then click the same item once more. Could it perhaps be more helpful to bring that in line with the theme of the left hand column (‘translations’) and have this one called ‘Pāli’, as it is on the pages that have the ‘v’ dropdown menu, as the lefthand column there; or, ‘original text’ or something, if it is meant to be used for not only Pāli? ‘More’ seems a bit obscure and not immediately obvious what it is about.

[Vimala]

Our developer is working on it. We discussed it this morning and he himself has a Mac with Safari and an iPhone with iOS. He has some ideas to fix it.

[Vimala]

Also old links, such as https://suttacentral.net/pi/dn2 are not working.

Yes, we are aware of this bug. We are working on it to fix it asap.

Anyway, found it now.

With pali lookup, sometimes multiple popups stay open.

I’ve seen this bug before, on Firefox, but it seems to have been solved there. Will report it back to the developers. Thanks for letting us know. It might be better if you move slowly over the text but of course, this has to be fixed.

The pali script seems to omit every first diacritical mark per word, except for sutta titles.

That is a really bizarre bug. I can see the diacriticals well on Chrome on Ubuntu. I will refer to the developers but not sure what can be done about that.

When not logged in, the top bar inhibits reading.

Yes, we noticed and have it on the to-do list. You can still read all the posts but it’s annoying.

[sujato]

The pali script seems to omit every first diacritical mark per word, except for sutta titles.

Congratulations, you win the prize for the most weirdly specific bug! Here, have some pancakes

Just to confirm, does this happen with Pali or similar texts on the old site or anywhere else?

[Brahmali]

One of our monks has tried to download the off-line version of SuttaCentral. On the download page it says the download is 28.28 MB, yet after using up over 2 GB the download was still only 50% complete. He had to abort. Do we know what’s going on?

[Vimala]

We discussed this this morning with the dev-team. We are aware of the problem and are working on it.

[Tam]

1. Chinese script falls outside of the popup definitions, in chrome.

2. Chinese words that are broken by a line do not get their definition.

Screenshot shows both.

The second problem is because the HTML is splitting the words. In this case, the line is:

生處、廣<a class="t" id="t0421a25"></a>解、未曾有法及說義，

The first will be easier to fix than the second; the second will require automation on the data or a patient individual with a lot of time to try to identify and mark these issues.

Bhante, I am happy to volunteer to write code to help alleviate this problem in Chinese sutras, as my expertise is in data cleansing of this nature.

The solution I propose is to find all of these kinds of breaks, and take a best guess at moving them.

Ex:

生處、廣<a class="t" id="t0421a25"></a>解、未曾有法及說義，
                                                 \/
生處、廣解、<a class="t" id="t0421a25"></a>未曾有法及說義，

This will keep whole words together, and allow the dictionary to pick them up. I can simply make a Pull Request to the sc-data repository, with whatever changes I make.

Please let me know if this is something I can help with.