Weird links when using number sign #

[Rich82GS750TZ]

This is a real oddity that I’ve not seen on any other forum. It showed up after the site upgrade a few months ago. I’m sure, among all that Frank administrator does here, this is not a priority, I was just curious, is all. Folks keep asking about it.
Have we figured out why this happen or how to fix this? There are probably more than 30. That’s just as far as I went to illustrate the point.

when we use a hashtag followed by a numeral: (first set I added a space between the # and the numeral)
# 1
# 2
# 3
# 4
# 5
# 6
# 7
# 8
# 9
# 10
# 11
# 12
# 13
# 14
# 15
# 16
# 17
# 18
# 19
# 20
# 21
# 22
# 23
# 24
# 25
# 26
# 27
# 28
# 29
# 30

this set with no space:
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[Baatfam]

Yup....I used a number sign the other day and got a completely unexpected displayed word.

[rphillips]

When I use the and symbol ( & ) something strange comes up... not this time I guess, I hadn't tried it for a while.

[dpep]

Yes. that is something in the new software that I have discussed with Frank. Unfortunately it is not simple on/off. We will have to live with it. It is a pain when referring to a previous post in a thread. Referring to post number three in this thread would come up Blogs unless you enter it # 3..

test ##3

[Rich82GS750TZ]

Thanks for checking on it, Don.

[Nessism]

Very odd. Tons of different forums using vBulletin, but not having this issue. Why the GSR?

[Suzukian]

I got sick of VBulletin software and switched to Xenforo for my website. Updates for VBulletin if not done sequentially can make the forum eventually lock up.

[dpep]

Here is part of one of the posts Frank sent me while we were trying to figure this out back in May.

Yes, you are correct about the hashtag being a new feature and not a bug. The forum software is now using what they call enhanced BB Code functions. It replaces your ability to put HTML in your messages because HTML is a security risk.

So it is something that VBulletin has implemented as a security measure to replace html code in posts. But neither of us could find any decent documentation on those BB Codes either from VBulletin or on internet search. That was back in May and at the time there were bigger fish to fry as we were getting hit many times per day with hacker probes from around the world. It took Frank some time to code in the needed protections and we just never got back to the BBCode issue after.

If anyone wants to try their hand at turning up more info on this please do. Otherwise the two known workarounds are using the space, # 234, or quotes, "#234".

[rphillips]

Just wondering & got to ask, is that HTML an abb. for hotmail.com... I use @hotmail.com... if it's a security risk, could that be why I haven't been able to send PM's since this site was updated several months ago ?

[Grimly]

Just wondering & got to ask, is that HTML an abb. for hotmail.com... I use @hotmail.com... if it's a security risk, could that be why I haven't been able to send PM's since this site was updated several months ago ?

HTML is hypertext mark-up language, so nothing to do with hotmail. HTML dates to the start of the World Wide Web, and is basically what made it work the way we're all familiar with. Of course, eventually script twonks found a way to pervert it to malicious use.

[Suzukian]

Another reason why we got rid of VBulletin, their arbitrary implementations.

I found the following test off of a post which other posts in this thread alluded to.

QUOTE:

Strange Behavior - Post a "#" Followed by a Number

April 11, 2022, 06:52 PM




Believe it or not, this is actually a vBulletin "feature". We reached out to vBulletin technical support and here is the reply we received.

**** vBulletin Tech Support response begins here ***

It would be the hashtag bbcode. It will link to nodes by their ID number.

There is no way to remove that small piece of functionality at this time. You would have to turn off the hashtag bbcode completely. Settings → Options → BB Code Options. Uncheck Hashtag. Or surround it with noparse tags.

edit:

When I proposed the hashtag functionality, I figured linking to nodes would be very useful shorthand. The system already has a node bbcode and this just builds on that functionality and exposes it now. So if someone want to link to this channel (or more commonly a topic) instead of going:


Support Issues and Questions

or

https://www.hrwforum.com/node/111

They can just type…#111

**** vBulletin Tech Support response ends here.

Note the portion of the feedback that reads, "...there is no way to remove that small piece of functionality at this time."

Workarounds:
Enclosed the number in quotes - "#9"
Use No. 9 instead
Use # 9 instead (add space between "#" and number - e.g. # 9)