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Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely

Premium Member

What is 65533;?

Hmmm...I'm not sure if this will reproduce correctly (it didn't in the subject line above, at least on my computer) but lately I'm seeing the following character in Firefox on certain web pages and I don't know what to make of it:
It's a small square outline filled with the letters "FF" on top and "FD" on the bottom. Using IE, I see a question mark or just a plain square outline instead. (When I preview my post here, I see the string "65533;" instead of the box.)

Can someone explain? Is this a character set flaw of some type? I don't recall seeing this with previous versions of FF. Here's an example of a web page on which I see it: »www.woodstock69.com/Wood ··· ongs.htm

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

La Luna

Premium Member

I see it there too. It's a little diamond shape with a '?' in it. I've seen it occasionally on various sites.

I'm guessing it's something wrong with the page(s).

Grail Knight

Premium Member
join:2003-05-31
Valhalla

Grail Knight to Steely

Premium Member

to Steely
Try selecting a different font in Fx and see if that helps.

I used to see that on some sites ands switch my fonts to Segoe UI and the issue seems to have resolved itself.

Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely to La Luna

Premium Member

to La Luna
said by La Luna:

I see it there too. It's a little diamond shape with a '?' in it.
No diamond with a question mark here, La Luna. I see a small square with four teeny letters in it as described above!

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

La Luna to Steely

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to Steely
LOL, this is what I see:



Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely

Premium Member


Firefox 3.0.9
 

IE 6
 
Here are my views with FF and with IE, both (I think) set to default font values.
Steely

Steely to Grail Knight

Premium Member

to Grail Knight

FF Font Settings

FF Advanced Font Settings
said by Grail Knight:

I used to see that on some sites ands switch my fonts to Segoe UI and the issue seems to have resolved itself.
I don't have a Segoe UI font as an option. Above are my current (default?) Firefox settings.

Grail Knight

Premium Member
join:2003-05-31
Valhalla

Grail Knight

Premium Member

Segoe UI is a Vista font but you can try any other font you have installed on your computer.

I downloaded Segoe UI from DeviantArt and it looks fantastic IMO in Fx and in XP as the default.

»salmanarif.deviantart.co ··· 89220266

Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely

Premium Member

said by Grail Knight:

you can try any other font you have installed on your computer.
Grail, I tried a different Segoe font but nothing changed. Doesn't the option "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above" override that anyway?

kingb71
join:2000-10-09
Mississauga, ON

kingb71 to Steely

Member

to Steely
I'm getting that a lot lately too & it's driving me crazy!

Grail Knight

Premium Member
join:2003-05-31
Valhalla

Grail Knight to Steely

Premium Member

to Steely
When you install a font it takes an OS restart before Fx or any other program sees the font.

That is how I have always done it and that method has not failed yet.

1. Install font

2. Restart PC

3. Open Fx then change default font to Segoe UI

Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely to kingb71

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to kingb71
Whew...at least one other person is seeing this! I feel better...and it's driving me crazy, too!

BTW, I fired up FF in safe mode just to rule out interference from an extension. No change!
Steely

Steely to Grail Knight

Premium Member

to Grail Knight
said by Grail Knight:

When you install a font it takes an OS restart before Fx or any other program sees the font.
Grail, for simplicity and for test purposes I just picked Segoe Media Center, which was already installed. I didn't restart FF, though. Maybe I should try that...although I still say I never saw that crazy character until recently...and now it's popping up quite often!
Steely

Steely

Premium Member

OK...Google is your friend, etc. Just found this DSLR thread: »[FireFox] FF 3.0.1 - some text not rendering properly
...and this general Google hit: »www.google.com/search?hl ··· &oq=FFFD

Always good to know I'm not alone...and somewhere in that mess lies the solution!

Grail Knight

Premium Member
join:2003-05-31
Valhalla

Grail Knight to Steely

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to Steely
I played around with different fonts one evening and settled on that Segoe UI which like I said cleared up the encoding issue for me.

I know it is an annoying to see screwed up characters. Site design plays a part but Mozilla changed something between v2 and v3 that really brought out these encoding issues.

Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

1 edit

Steely

Premium Member

So the "fix" is to install a whole new font set into Windows??? I don't know...seems ridiculous even though I'm sure you're correct about it doing the trick. A bunch of people suggested View > Character Encoding > Auto-detect > Universal, but that didn't work for me (at least on that Woodstock page).

Grail Knight

Premium Member
join:2003-05-31
Valhalla

Grail Knight

Premium Member

All I am saying is that is what worked for me.

It only takes a few minutes to do and I do know the branch build seems not to do it unless a site is seriously screwed up. Same for the trunk builds of Fx.

CCat
We're all quite mad here
MVM
join:2005-12-06
Wonderland

CCat

MVM

Just to be sure, Is this the setting you are referring to?



Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
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join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely

Premium Member

said by CCat:

Just to be sure, Is this the setting you are referring to?
I tried that (see above) but this page still displayed with those FFFD glyphs, or whatever they're called. Even rebooted my PC!

Grail Knight

Premium Member
join:2003-05-31
Valhalla

Grail Knight to CCat

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to CCat

Fx Fonts and Colors
This is what I am referring to when I say change the fonts.

jmorlan
Hmm... That's funny.
MVM
join:2001-02-05
Pacifica, CA
ARRIS BGW210-700
Obihai OBi200

1 edit

jmorlan

MVM

I have exactly the same settings and still see the funny little box with four letters in it on the test page. I've been using Segoe UI ever since it became available. Great font, but it doesn't solve this problem for me.

Edit: Fixed now. I changed the character encoding under View to "Western ISO-8859-1". It was set to Unicode (UTF-8) which displays the little squares.

The test page no longer shows the little boxes. The change does not require a reboot or even a reload of Firefox.

Thanks.

CCat
We're all quite mad here
MVM
join:2005-12-06
Wonderland

CCat to Grail Knight

MVM

to Grail Knight
Thanks

Unknown_Poster
@verizon.net

Unknown_Poster to Steely

Anon

to Steely
said by Steely:

. . this page still displayed with those FFFD glyphs, or whatever they're called.
Those are simply annotations put there by Kees de Lange and Dr. Thomas Schmid (see the top of that page) and can be referenced at the "Sources" link.

jmorlan
Hmm... That's funny.
MVM
join:2001-02-05
Pacifica, CA
ARRIS BGW210-700
Obihai OBi200

jmorlan

MVM

said by Unknown_Poster :

Those are simply annotations put there by Kees de Lange and Dr. Thomas Schmid (see the top of that page) and can be referenced at the "Sources" link.
Yes, but the character for "film" displays incorrectly using Unicode character encoding. With that it displays the little box which is not intended. Changing the character encoding to "Western" produces a little circle like a degree sign which is what was intended.

Here is the character created by Alt-0176.

°

Unknown_Poster
@verizon.net

Unknown_Poster

Anon

said by jmorlan:

said by Unknown_Poster :

Those are simply annotations put there by Kees de Lange and Dr. Thomas Schmid (see the top of that page) and can be referenced at the "Sources" link.
Yes, but the character for "film" displays incorrectly using Unicode character encoding. With that it displays the little box which is not intended. Changing the character encoding to "Western" produces a little circle like a degree sign which is what was intended.

Here is the character created by Alt-0176.

°
I'm using the default Western in Firefox 3.0.9 and I'm seeing that little diamond with the question mark in the center for the 'film' notation.

But I guess it doesn't really matter what character gets used, as long as the notation and the reference jibe up with each other.

Whether or not something like this calls for a complete change or update of fonts is, I suppose, something for the individual user to decide.

jmorlan
Hmm... That's funny.
MVM
join:2001-02-05
Pacifica, CA
ARRIS BGW210-700
Obihai OBi200

jmorlan

MVM

I'm not seeing a diamond with a question mark. I'm seeing either the degree sign or the little box with four letter.

The site defaults to UTF-8 character encoding, so even though it displays properly (I think) in "Western" you have either manually change the encoding or disallow sites from selecting their own encoding.

Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely

Premium Member

I think I'm seeing exactly what you're seeing. I can make changes to get the degree sign (little circle) to appear temporarily, but on its own it will switch back to the FFFD box with a page refresh. At no time do I get the question mark inside a diamond.

Unknown_Poster
@verizon.net

Unknown_Poster to jmorlan

Anon

to jmorlan
said by jmorlan:

I'm not seeing a diamond with a question mark. I'm seeing either the degree sign or the little box with four letter.

The site defaults to UTF-8 character encoding, so even though it displays properly (I think) in "Western" you have either manually change the encoding or disallow sites from selecting their own encoding.
I believe you.

Whether or not it's displaying "correctly" for me, I guess I really don't know.
But the notations and the references are in sync, and that's the only thing I personally consider important, as far as in the context of the information we're talking about on that website.
I'm not concerned with which symbol they want to use, at long as it's consistent on both pages.

The subtext issue (so to speak) of the discussion here-- that is, which symbol the site authors intended to be seen-- is kind of an interesting subject, though.

jmorlan
Hmm... That's funny.
MVM
join:2001-02-05
Pacifica, CA
ARRIS BGW210-700
Obihai OBi200

jmorlan to Steely

MVM

to Steely
said by Steely:

I think I'm seeing exactly what you're seeing. I can make changes to get the degree sign (little circle) to appear temporarily, but on its own it will switch back to the FFFD box with a page refresh. At no time do I get the question mark inside a diamond.
Yes, that's exactly what I see using the Segoe UI font.

For this particular case, the Unknown_Poster has a point that the symbol doesn't really matter. However the FFFD box frequently shows up for other symbols which cannot be displayed properly. I've seen it for apostrophes which are of the wrong type, possibly created on a Mac.

Other times, such as this, I'm not sure what the intended character was supposed to be.

But why does the page show correctly for GK using Segoe UI and not for me? And exactly what does GK see on these pages other than the FFFD box?

Unknown_Poster is also correct that it would be very interesting to know what the author of the web page thought the character should be.

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

1 edit

La Luna to Steely

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to Steely
said by Steely:

I don't have a Segoe UI font as an option. Above are my current (default?) Firefox settings.
My font settings are identical to yours except I have "none" in "Minimum font size". I don't think I've ever messed with the settings.

View is set to "Western ISO-8859-1" and I see the diamonds w/the ?.