We have discovered that the 4.1.0 update introduced a bug for a small number of users. The bug seems to hit with a combination of two factors:
- The user is running Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8
- Internet Explorer 9 works
- Internet Explorer 6 is unknown and has other issues with the site.
- The user does not have the Enhanced (WYSIWIG) editor enabled.
There are three workarounds – although only one is available for IE 7 and one has other impacts. Note: These have not yet been tested with IE7 but the 2nd (select WYSIWIG editor) workaround appears to work for other sites based on posting.
The first workaround is to upgrade to Internet Explorer 9. This is only an option for Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 users. Vista or 2008 (non-R2) and earlier only have IE8 available. Note that you may have other issues with other sites moving to IE9 but in general IE9 has much improved support for various HTML5 technologies and behaves closer to other “modern” browsers.
The second workaround is to enable “Compatibility Mode” for IE 8. Basically you click a button on the IE window. This only works for IE 8 (IE7 does not have a compatibility mode). It is unknown whether this may cause other issues for the site now or later.
The third workaround is to enable the WYSIWIG editor. This is the current default for new users but older users may have the “Basic” or “Standard” editors enabled or may have chosen them for better compatibility with mobile or other devices.
Note that we could force the WYSIWIG editor for everyone but we are starting conservative in the hope of a quick fix and not breaking other things for users that chose the basic or standard editor for other reasons.
The details on 2 and 3 are given below but left out of the article text for clarity. We do have a bug issue open with vBulletin and other sites are seeing this issue. So we do hope to field a real fix – however most users will want to switch to the WYSIWIG editor anyway.
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Webmaster Mark
Workaround #2 – Enable Compatibility Mode
This only works for IE8, it is not available in IE7 and is not needed in IE9.
Note that the editor box is “broken” as it is greyed out and can’t be activated and the page shows “normal” mode up top.
Soclick the compatibilty mode icon to enable, the page should refresh. If not hit the reload button, now the editor works:
Workaround #3 – Enable WYSIWIG Editor
Works for both IE7 and IE8. This is also preferred unless you have a reason to not use the Enhanced editor. There are many, many new features and you can create and edit much more complex content including tables and embedded videos and images.
First click “Settings” in the upper right on any page:
Then select “General Settings” in the toolbar on the left:
Finally select “Enhanced (WYSIWIG) Editor” and click Save down below:
