3.2.1 no characters on drop down

A fresh installl wouldn't fix anything if you are using the same files on the server.

If I were you, I would delete the eFiction files on my computer (put them into a backup zip somewhere else first) and on the server (except for the story text files if you use them, and the config file). Then I would get the latest download from this eFiction and upload it to your site. See if the problem goes away.

This refers to http://www.fanfieds.com

To be clear. I downloaded the files to a folder on my desktop recently. I installed them on a new folder fresh. So that the two efiction instances have no connection nor do the files uploaded have any connection. They do not share any data. I assure you that there is no contamination. I made many mistakes trying to get it to work, but I deleted them all and reinstalled it. Also, I've made no additional html edits, patches or even touched the php code.

I thank you for the reply and the advice. That indeed is an important point.

Actually, I think this is a bug. In the examples Tammy gave, all the characters are set to site-wide. When you do not set your characters site-wide, the drop down doesn't work. None of mine are set site-wide, and mine doesn't work either.

http://www.timeturner.net/fics/browse.php?type=categories&id=1

I don't know... On my fics.babaca.org website the characters are not site-wide but are listed by category (the categories being different fandoms). I can see characters in the pulldowns.

On my other website, uketrowa.babaca.org the categories were essentially genres and I was having problems, but when moved the characters to sitewise it fixed the problem. Because then when you did a browse character there were multiple listings for the characters.

What I find peculiar about the filtering by characters is the filtering isn't exclusive. I'll use Potter characters since most folks around here have HP sites...

If I select Harry and Hermione as the filter in categories, it pulls up stories that have Harry as a character. Then stories that have Hermione as a character and you have to wade through until you find them together in a story. You have to add other characteristics to the sort. Like Harry, Hermione, MA (rating) to hopefully pull up stories of the two together, but there's no guarantee that you still might end up with a Draco/Hermione or Harry/Draco before you would get to a Harry/Hermione story.

But I will agree there is something weird going on  that it effects some websites and not others. I just wonder what the common denominator is?

Thanks for the replies. This is the way I see it then. We ought to have the community test this. See if we can understand why its not always a problem.

I don't think that the advanced search for characters work on my site.

http://www.potionsandsnitches.net/fanfiction/search.php?searchtype=advanced

If I search for Dumbledore and FredGeorge, and only those two things, I get results that have not been filtered, I get basically the whole list of stories on my archive. There are no sorts at the top, but it's listed in the default for my site, last updated.

When I browse my characters, they seem to be right, but sorting for a second character doesn't seem to change it at all. The Dumbledore browse character page has 12 pages of results, but sorting for "Neville" as a second character (a rare character) still brings up the same 12 pages of results, with stories that Neville is not in. It's possible that there are only a couple of fics that have Neville, and not Dumbledore so the number of pages of results isn't changing.
http://www.potionsandsnitches.net/fanfiction/browse.php?type=characters&charid=171

In the browse category page, I can sort for one character and it seems to work fine. Browsing for two characters does what babaca says, it brings up stories with eiter Dumbledore, or stories with Neville, but not necessarily both.

I am not getting any errors, but debug is not on. All of my characters are sitewide. I have multiple categories.

I'm going to move this to the bugs forum...

Jan, that's a different problem than the original one in this thread. This thread is for the characters drop down not working. There is something else going on with the filtering. You or babaca might want to start a different thread about that one.

Actually, I think this is a bug. In the examples Tammy gave, all the characters are set to site-wide. When you do not set your characters site-wide, the drop down doesn't work. None of mine are set site-wide, and mine doesn't work either.

http://www.timeturner.net/fics/browse.php?type=categories&id=1

No they're not all sitewide. 

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

This category on my site includes both sitewide characters (from Stargate) and category specific characters (from Buffy).

Odd, can't quite test it on that link. No results on any of the searches. Might not have the 3.2.1 update yet.

The characters are showing as you said, but I couldn't say why.

Yes, it has the 3.2.1 update.  It's the site I used to test the 3.2.1 update.

itanshi, you should always have the latest update when creating a bug or support post, or replying. 🙂 Otherwise, the update could have fixed the problem.

Jan, that's a different problem than the original one in this thread. This thread is for the characters drop down not working. There is something else going on with the filtering. You or babaca might want to start a different thread about that one.

I'm trying to list what's going on with my site to figure out if there is a common denominator, excluding the things that work on mine, and testing the others. If figuring out what's wrong with everyone else's site doesn't fix the things I notice, then I'll start another bug post soon, but I'm not trying to report what's wrong with my site as a bug post in this one. I wasn't sure if the inclusive(?) charcter sort was intentional or not.

itanshi doesn't have any character drop downs even showing up on some pages... mine show up but have some tricky behavior. I was thinking that maybe something was wrong in that that connected the two, a difference between having only sitewide characters, and some category only characters?

I have the latest update and I don't get character drop downs either on category pages but I get them on other pages where you have to set the category first so it's like it's not recognizing the category being set at all.

It also works if I click on the series link at the top. It takes me to the series page with the category drop down menu showing but set. (Though I see from looking at the browse folder and the url, it's not using browse>categories for results)

http://www.timeturner.net/fics/browse.php?type=series&id=1&se_php?type=categories&catid=1

So I'm guessing it has something to do with my site's configuration and the drop down not actually being on the page. I turned on register_globals and that didn't make any difference though I'm guessing at least Tammy's site doesn't have them on either.

I also added a sitewide character to see if it would make the rest show up, and while it did show up, none of the others did. I also tried changing  id to catid in browse>categories.php and that didn't help either.

Tracked it down.  Open browse/categories.php and replace all instances of $categories with $cats.

Ah, that fixed them both. I thank you for the work ^^ I know how debugging can be sometimes.

Oops, missed one http://fanfieds.com/browse.php?type=characters&charid=3 no characters drop down here.

It'll let you select a second character there.  That's why there's only 1 character drop down and not two.