Suddenly I can't Validate by File Upload

[Dean Speir]

Hi...

I've been referred to this Newsgroup by the W3C Markup Validator FAQ.

I've been happily using this Validator <http://validator.w3.org> for the
past 18 months with great success, but suddenly I cannot get it to
"read" my HTML documents by the "Validate by File Upload" method. It
keeps giving me the following message:

Sorry, I am unable to validate this document
because its content type is text/plain, which
is not currently supported by this service.

The Content-Type field is sent by your web
server (or web browser if you use the file
upload interface) and depends on its
configuration. Commonly, web servers
will have a mapping of filename extensions
(such as ".html") to MIME Content-Type values
(such as text/html).

That you recieved {sic} this message can mean
that your server is not configured correctly, that
your file does not have the correct filename
extension, or that you are attempting to validate
a file type that we do not support yet. In the latter
case you should let us know that you need us to
support that content type (please include all
relevant details, including the URL to the standards
document defining the content type) using the
instructions on the Feedback Page.

If I upload the file and validate it by the "Validate by URL" method, it
works as it should, and if I use the WDG HTML Validator/file upload, it
also works perfectly.

The only thing which has changed on my end was that the Windows XP SP2
was installed yesterday, so I suspect that this has re-configured
something on my machine which is causing the problem with the W3C
Validator.

Any ideas on how I should proceed to get things back to normal?

Thanks...

----
- Dean Speir

[Dave Patton]

"Dean Speir" <de*******@thegunzone.com> wrote in
news:4a********************@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.ne t:

I've been happily using this Validator <http://validator.w3.org> for the
past 18 months with great success, but suddenly I cannot get it to
"read" my HTML documents by the "Validate by File Upload" method. It
keeps giving me the following message:

Sorry, I am unable to validate this document
because its content type is text/plain, which
is not currently supported by this service. The only thing which has changed on my end was that the Windows XP SP2
was installed yesterday

Did you do a Google search before asking? Look in this
group's archives for a thread started August 14th titled
"Validation problem with Windows XP SP2", as well as other
threads. As you are posting using Outlook Express, my guess
is you are also using IE. Do yourself a favour and get
Mozilla Firefox(and some of the extensions).

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org/
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/

[Dean Speir]

Dave Patton responded:

The only thing which has changed on my end was that
the Windows XP SP2 was installed yesterday

Did you do a Google search before asking? Look in this
group's archives for a thread started August 14th titled
"Validation problem with Windows XP SP2", as well as other
threads. As you are posting using Outlook Express, my guess
is you are also using IE. Do yourself a favour and get
Mozilla Firefox(and some of the extensions).

A. - No, I did not Google first... if I'd've Google'd
(and known exactly what to ask for), I could
have saved myself a post and the opprobrium.

B. - Yes, I am using IE. Probably a sin, eh?

C. - I have Mozilla Firefox 9.1, but it does not
render my HTML/CSS properly in some
instances, and renders it properly but
differently from I.E. in other instances.
And since 89% of the traffic to the four
sites I manage use some iteration of the
last two releases of I.E., it would be
irresponsible of me to eschew that
browser.

For example, look at
http://www.westhamptonbeach.org/marlene/marlene.html and notice the two
rules... they are supposed to be identical 1 px, and display that way in
I.E. In Firefox, the lower rule displays at least 4px, while in Netscape
7.02 it's 2px.

(HRs are styled {background: transparent; text-align: center; height:
1px; border: solid #0000ff;})

But I "get the message" about the XP/SP2 validator issue, and will
contact the gnomes of Redmond forthwith and with a strong right will...
they'll undoubtedly have the bug resolved by the end of the month.

Thank you for the information...

----
- Dean Speir

[Nick Kew]

In article <4a********************@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> ,
"Dean Speir" <de*******@thegunzone.com> writes:

Sorry, I am unable to validate this document
because its content type is text/plain, which
is not currently supported by this service.
What's not clear about that? The validator doesn't have a definition
of "valid" for plain text documents. Do you?

You have to send it markup. If you upload HTML or selected XML document
types, it'll recognise and validate them.
The only thing which has changed on my end was that the Windows XP SP2
was installed yesterday,
Complain to Microshit about this new bug they've introduced in MSIE.
You could remind them that this is a close relation of the bug that
lets all the viruses in (both arise from ignoring MIME types).
Any ideas on how I should proceed to get things back to normal?

Insert Linux or BSD cdrom.

--
Nick Kew

[Stephen Poley]

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 06:55:05 GMT, "Dean Speir"
<de*******@thegunzone.com> wrote:

B. - Yes, I am using IE. Probably a sin, eh?
No. Just a form of masochism.
C. - I have Mozilla Firefox 9.1, but it does not
render my HTML/CSS properly in some
instances, and renders it properly but
differently from I.E. in other instances.
And since 89% of the traffic to the four
sites I manage use some iteration of the
last two releases of I.E., it would be
irresponsible of me to eschew that
browser.
You could use Firefox for uploading to the validator.
For example, look at
http://www.westhamptonbeach.org/marlene/marlene.html and notice the two
rules... they are supposed to be identical 1 px, and display that way in
I.E. In Firefox, the lower rule displays at least 4px, while in Netscape
7.02 it's 2px.

(HRs are styled {background: transparent; text-align: center; height:
1px; border: solid #0000ff;})

What two rules? There's only one on the page. And you've specified it to
have a height of one pixel plus a double border of unspecified height,
so of course you should expect it to be at least 3px thick and quite
possibly more.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Stephen Poley]

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 06:55:05 GMT, "Dean Speir"
<de*******@thegunzone.com> wrote:

For example, look at
http://www.westhamptonbeach.org/marlene/marlene.html and notice the two
rules... they are supposed to be identical 1 px, and display that way in
I.E. In Firefox, the lower rule displays at least 4px, while in Netscape
7.02 it's 2px.

(HRs are styled {background: transparent; text-align: center; height:
1px; border: solid #0000ff;})

BTW I answered your e-mail, but it was bounced with the message "User
unknown". If you'd like the answer, you'd better let me have a valid
e-mail address ...

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Shawn K. Quinn]

Dean Speir wrote:

C.*-*I*have*Mozilla*Firefox*9.1,

No such version exists yet. Maybe you mean 0.91?

--
Shawn K. Quinn

[Stephen Poley]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 20:20:33 +0200, Stephen Poley
<sb******************@xs4all.nl> wrote:

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 06:55:05 GMT, "Dean Speir"
<de*******@thegunzone.com> wrote:

For example, look at
http://www.westhamptonbeach.org/marlene/marlene.html and notice the two
rules... they are supposed to be identical 1 px, and display that way in
I.E. In Firefox, the lower rule displays at least 4px, while in Netscape
7.02 it's 2px.
BTW I answered your e-mail, but it was bounced with the message "User
unknown". If you'd like the answer, you'd better let me have a valid
e-mail address ...

Still couldn't get through - dunno what the problem is. Guess I post my
answer here - which is probably where it should have been in the first
place ...

------------

At 17:38 26-08-2004 -0400, you wrote:
Thank you for the response, Stephen, but you have thoroughly confused me
with the following:

For example, look at
http://www.westhamptonbeach.org/marlene/marlene.html
and notice the tworules... they are supposed to be identical
1 px, and display that way in I.E. In Firefox, the lower rule
I.E. In Firefox, the lower rule displays at least 4px, while in
Netscape 7.02 it's 2px.(HRs are styled {background: transparent; text-align: center;
height:1px; border: solid #0000ff;})

What two rules? There's only one on the page.
Ah, yes, there is but one <HR> on the page (the lower one), but the "upper
one" is styled as a DIV bottom border:
border-bottom: solid 1px #0000ff;

Right, but a rule and a border are two different things. A horizontal
rule (<HR>) is an HTML element, and will for example appear even when
CSS is disabled. It has its own height and (optionally) its own borders.

If you want two lines to appear the same way on the page, they need to
be marked up in the same way: either both as HR elements or both as
borders of other elements (P or DIV, say) of the same class.
And you've specified it to have a height of one
pixel plus a double border of unspecified height,
so of course you should expect it to be at least
3px thick and quite possibly more.

This is the part I'm missing... in what manner do I specify "a double
border?"

If you specify border-bottom, as you say above, then it's a single
border. But in your post you gave "border: solid #0000ff" for the HR,
which specifies a border both top and bottom (and also right and left,
though with a 1px-high element that's not so obvious) at whatever
default thickness a particular browser happens to offer. If that default
is 2px, then you have 2px border-top + 1px element height + 2px
border-bottom = 5px in total.

I'm really not sure why IE makes the two look the same - I suspect an IE
bug that just happened to produce what you wanted.

(I've just been wrestling with another IE bug today - it put spurious
extra white space between two elements. Entirely by chance - I
accidentally added a border to the wrong element - I discovered that I
could make the bug go away by putting a 1px border around a third
element in the same colour as the background. That's IE for you.)
Obviously I have much to learn about CSS, but this was something on which I
thought I'd gotten a handle.

It does take a bit of getting used to. One of the key things is to
remember is that it is in principle optional. It's quite useful to
switch off CSS (in a browser where this is easy, such as Opera - I
believe this is also true of Firefox) and check the result: it will
often help to reveal areas where ones thinking has gone awry. And
generally speaking Mozilla or Firefox are much more reliable about
displaying things correctly: I'd use them or Opera while developing a
page, and then fix the worst IE problems at the end.

Hope this helps,
--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Dean Speir]

Shawn K. Quinn <sk*****@xevious.kicks-ass.net> advises...

C. - I have Mozilla Firefox 9.1,

No such version exists yet. Maybe you mean 0.91?

Actually, it is "Firefox/0.9.1" as cut 'n' pasted from the "About...."

Please excuse my less than precise shortform.

----
- Dean Speir