Any Post That Contains a Link With a Percent Symbol in the URL Causes an Error

I recently came back to GameSpot to reactivate The HeadCrab Union. I was trying to post all the news we've missed to the front page when I ran into something I never previously had to deal with. I kept getting this error message when trying to post links to pictures with my Photobucket account. I did some testing and narrowed the problem down to this. No link will post if it has a % in the URL.

Any photo album on Photobucket that has a space in the title automatically puts %20 in the URL. For example, if my album title was "HeadCrab Union," the URL would contain "headcrab%20union" in it. Because of this, I can't link any image that has a space in the album title. I could edit all my album titles to remove any spaces, but that would also break all the image links on all of the HCU's news articles since the union system was first created. I'm not going to go fix thousands of articles, so that's not an option for me. I could also create a new Photobucket account with new album titles and transfer all the images over to the new one, but again that's thousands of images and a lot of work.

Is there a reason for this? Was this done intentionally? It's not just pictures either. Any link at all that contains a percent in it will give me the same error and won't allow me to post the message. What can I do to resolve this situation?

You're right. I think there's something else going on that I must have overlooked. Also, this isn't a union issue. I've checked on the main forums and PM box and wherever there is a WYSIWYG editor, this error happens. By the way, you don't have to put %20 in the link. All that's needed is one % symbol, but as you pointed out, sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. This is the original image I way trying to link in my posts. Notice all the percents. These are spaces in the album titles. Try and link it to something and you'll find it doesn't work...

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b382/HCU/VALVe%20Games/Half-Life%202%20Episode%20Three/advisor.jpg

You should get the following error message...

Errors:
- Your path is not valid [valve%20games].
- If you are copying from a word processing software, try pasting the text into a plain text editor (e.g., Notepad) first.
- If problems persist, try disabling the WYSIWYG editor in your preferences.

For the record, I am using GameSpot's WYSIWYG editor to do this. All I do is type something in the editor like "Testing," then I highlight it and hit the link button on the editor, paste the image link in the box and hit insert. Hitting preview after that gives me the error message.

Now besides that, I think I figured out something that gets the error to trigger. In all the following example links, notice the placement of the percent symbol in the link. I'll bold it for you. I used each link twice, the first link will work and the second link will not, even though every link contains a percent symbol.

Works - http://images.wikia.com/lostpedia/images/1/16/Lost-%season1.jpg

Causes Error - http://images.wikia.com/lost%pedia/images/1/16/Lost-season1.jpg

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Works - http://www.youtube.com/wat%ch?v=FG2PUZoukfA

Causes Error - http://www.you%tube.com/watch?v=FG2PUZoukfA

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Works - http://www.gamespot.com/forums/topic/28707757/any-post-that-contains-a-link-with-a-percent-symbol-in-the-url-causes-an-error-?tag=topics%3Btitle

Causes Error - http://www.gamespot.com/forums/top%ic/28707757/any-post-that-contains-a-link-with-a-percent-symbol-in-the-url-causes-an-error-?tag=topics%3Btitle

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Works - http://digg.com/news/politics/mitt_romney_takes_gop_fire_%in_michigan_for_his_let_detroit_go_bankrupt

Causes Error - http://digg.com/news/poli%tics/mitt_romney_takes_gop_fire_in_michigan_for_his_let_detroit_go_bankrupt

Notice that every link here has a percent in it, but some work and some cause the error. In the image link that works, the percent is in the file name at the end. In the rest of the links that work, the percent is also located somewhere toward the end of the link, but all the links that cause the error have percents that are located somewhere in the middle of the link. I'm not sure of what significance this is, but I think I just pointed out a pattern here. Let me know if everything worked for you and what you think. I've been holding off to post more articles on my union until this is resolved.

EDIT: Maybe my assumption that placing percents at the end was incorrect also, because I just tried another variation of the links I already used above and came out with two links that cause the error while the percent is at the end of the link. I'm confused here, so maybe you guys can figure this out. Here are the two that don't work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG2PUZ%oukfA

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/topic/28707757/any-post-that-contains-a-link-with-a-percent-symbol-in-the-url-causes-an-error-?tag=topics%3Bti%tle

Why not try using the HTML code
& #37;
without the spacing between & and #

Just remove the % sign and add the html number, I don't know if it will work but worth a stab.

Yeah, I just tried it myself and it doesn't work.

• Link URLs in general
• Some problems with the URL filter here at GS
• How you can still post this item

scheme://domain:port/path?query#fragment

Thanks for your help.