3.2.1 no characters on drop down

It's not a bug in the script.  It's working on my site:

http://sgxover.hugosnebula.com/browse.php?type=categories&id=15

And others.

http://www.potionsandsnitches.net/fanfiction/browse.php?type=categories&id=7

http://www.divasnluv.com/browse.php?type=categories&id=1

I suspect you've got a character that's somehow breaking the javascript.  Problaby "Blue Delmo X (Catherine)" and "Golden Delmo (Toniya)" and any others like that.  Take the ( and ) out  and see if it fixes your problem.

Ok, I removed those. no change. should - and : matter?

edit - I removed : and no change. I'd think - would be an allowed character.

Try downloading the eFiction 3.2.1 files again and take the browse folder and categories.php and upload them to your site. You might have an old version of something somewhere, getting the files again and uploading them again is the way to check and see if it fixes it.

Are your characters sitewide, or under a certain category? If the characters are set to the wrong category, or to a higher, lower category, maybe that's the problem. It looks like you have a lot of duplicate characters:
http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=characters

For some reason, your sorts are not coming up in the browse pages, so I can't check and see if characters are listed because the sorts are missing:

http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=categories&id=1

And you have a count of 1 story in comic http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=categories but when you click on it, it says no results found... same with games... I think you have other problems that just no characters showing up on the sorts.

Maybe your characters are orphaned from any categories. The other characters show show up if they share the same category, I think... but if none of them have a category... that could be it.

Check your characters table.

Mine lists them like this:

191  -1  Voldemort

Is yours similar?

Try downloading the eFiction 3.2.1 files again and take the browse folder and categories.php and upload them to your site. You might have an old version of something somewhere, getting the files again and uploading them again is the way to check and see if it fixes it.

Are your characters sitewide, or under a certain category? If the characters are set to the wrong category, or to a higher, lower category, maybe that's the problem. It looks like you have a lot of duplicate characters:
http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=characters

Ah I need last names too, some series have different continuities and the same characters though.

For some reason, your sorts are not coming up in the browse pages, so I can't check and see if characters are listed because the sorts are missing:

http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=categories&id=1

eh? never knew I was supposed to have any.

And you have a count of 1 story in comic http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=categories but when you click on it, it says no results found... same with games... I think you have other problems that just no characters showing up on the sorts.

http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=categories&id=25 worked for me, that's the one story under comic. I'll recheck without admin.

Maybe your characters are orphaned from any categories. The other characters show show up if they share the same category, I think... but if none of them have a category... that could be it.

According to 'characters' in admin, they are all applied to categories. I found one under top level 'games' but i got rid of it. No changes from doing so overall. I will redownload and reupload. Thanks for the help.

Ok done and done and no change. I also reuploaded the includes folder. no change.

Check your characters table.

Mine lists them like this:

191  -1  Voldemort

Is yours similar?

I'll look. ok I checked in 'backup.php'

INSERT INTO settfanfiction_characters VALUES("63", "82", "Mireille", "", "");

so i presume its fine, nothing stands out.

New attempt - fresh install before and after an imported backup

Are all of your characters listed as sitewide, or are they all assigned to diferent categories? On my example, -1 means sitewide. With yours, "Mireille" should show up on under category number 82, which is .hack/Dusk.
http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=categories&id=82

listed to certain categories

http://fanforge.net/browse.php?type=categories&id=4

i made 3 sitewide test names and they did drop down

Do have a test admin account we can look at, and can you create a text file of your characters database that we can look at please?

i don't really know what's wrong.

Patches:... minor html edits in php files and language

What did you change specifically?

Well i removed <br /> in some pages, those got undone when i reuploaded the includes folder. the shoutbox was edited, I think the change to the cookie file was also undone in an update. Not sure I changed it back. Html edits in user.php affecting just the box there. admin/news.php had one part redone addressed as a [mod] on the 3.0 mod board. The security patches were undone, not sure what they were before to say, but I hadn't requested their return. I'll be sure to post about them here later. Its nothing I can think of, I'm cleaning out some unused files. Ok, that was mostly in the skins. No changes seen. I turned debug on just now, thought I might see something, but nothing so I'll turn it off. My javascript related extension shows no errors, but that doesn't mean much more than the debug I guess. Thanks for the help for what its worth. Oh, revres was redone from a post here recently. Not sure if the added ! in one variable for news comments was undone or not.

But if I am missing a row of sorts in a section, what could cause that?

Alllriiight http://fanfieds.com/browse.php?type=categories&id=2 very fresh no edit install, same problem persists. I'm going to reinstall it once more may have overlooked a chmod.

The same problem with ( and ) would also be for categories too.

After that, would you mind reuploading the CSSZen skin and hiding it? Members won't be able to see or select it, but Admins can. I always keep the skins that came with the download on my site, to see if the same problem exists on them. I'd like to take a look at it.

http://fanfieds.com/browse.php?type=categories&id=2 alright this is confirmation. I followed the instructions of the install correclty, got a story on there added characters via the edit category section (before i'd always do it via edit characters) and it still not working right. I'll add that testadmin account as before for you.

Meh no time, one admin there, same pass as before, just dif name. (i'm making the testadmin now, so use that instead)

ok install file gone from fanfieds.com, knew i missed something, but yeh, fresh install, same problem. I now added the skins and removed the ( ) and / from all the categories as requested and no change on www.fanforge.net. Feel free to test it.

What I noticed on your fanforge.net site... When you go to categories (and I picked one of the smaller ones that only had 3 or less stories in them), that when you click on that category for Characters you have Test, Test2, Test 3 listed in them instead of characters. I'm guessing you put Test, Test2, Test3 as sitewise characters?

On one of my websites I had set characters up under each genre (because it was just a limited set of characters in one series), when you did a browse character, the names would appear multiple times. Last night (since it's a small archive) I moved those characters to sitewise, then had to delete them from each category (which as I said was more of a genre). I lost all the search by characters under the browse categories, until I went in and relinked them by going in an editing by adding the characters back because deleting before changed Character to None. Now it's all functioning as it should.

Yes, those 3 are sitewide as a test. I'm not sure modifying/deleting and reentering them will help. Thanks for the comment.

I looked to try it, but I don't see a way to relocate characters other than deletion and resubmitting them. It also seems to me that they worked for you prior to not working so it may be unrelated as an issue. just a thought. I did delete some once and relocate them. I've no stories under that yet so i'll test. Ok, no change.

I doubt having dreamhost is related to this, it does feel more like a code issue, but it occurring on a fresh install is a concern.