Last modified: 2008-09-27 12:32:52 UTC
Examine the sample entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Imagemap_Bug which is a copy of the Wikipedia entry for "Area code 760" and is an attempt to mark all the area codes on the image with the appropriate area code so that they are clickable. Currently, only 19 of the spots are active. If you open the page, uncomment any of the commented-out spots (some "poly" entries are marked as "#poly" because of the bug) and if you add just one more uncommented polygon by changing it from a commented entry to a "live" entry, then click on the Preview button, and... Nothing! The page is completely blank. It does not render, not even the top or side information, not even the background. Don't know if this is caused by more than 19 polygons or the number of comma-based entries or what, but uncommenting even one more item causes Wikimedia to fail to render the page. This makes it impossible to preview or save. This behavior occurs in Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.5.0.10 AND Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180, and is consistently repeatable in all browsers.
This bug seems to be related to the number of consecutive poly commands in the image map. Uncommenting more of the "rect" entries does not trigger the bug, nor do some #poly items uncommented after some "rect" entries. It may be that if there are more than 6 consecutive poly statements, or something like that, Wikimedia doesn't like it and retaliates. Or it may be that it only occurs when there are mixed poly and rect entries, it is conceivable that if there are no rect entries it doesn't do this. I'll check. No, even with all rect statements commented out, the bug resurfaces. Even breaking up the number of poly statements to no more than 6 with rect statements still causes the bug.
The behavior is not consistent, some work and some fail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code_480 has 20 poly statements and works okay, as do the area code entries for 520, 602, 623, 928 which all use the same clickmap (the image used on each page is the same size). The full page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_in_Kentucky takes forever to load, so the image won't be very visible, but go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_counties_in_Kentucky&action=edit§ion=1 which brings up the map of counties in Kentucky which is a clickmap, this map has 120 polygons and renders just fine.
Dupe of bug 8582? Same sympton: white screen on preview/saving.
I've looked at bug 8582; he's saying a space after the image size changes it. I'm saying that certain lists of polygons for an image map cause the page to become unreviewable / unsavable. The method for this madness is uncertain because it doesn't always happen the same way; as noted above, a page with 120 polygons has no problem, but one with less than 20 does not work.
Confirmed. Someone with shell access should check out what's going to the error log.
I have noticed that the specification for the map may depend on where the map is located, e.g. how the image is placed on the page, and maybe where the info box is located. I use a program called Mapedit to create the maps, then use a text editor to change them over to Wikimedia syntax. I know the maps are right when I generate them, but when Wikimedia gets hold of them, in some cases the map does not work. It may have something to do with how it is going to generate the index point (the circle I) or where the map is placed on the page, left, center or right justified. I think the map for http://en.wikipedia.org/List_of_Counties_in_Virginia (List of Counties in Virginia) has a correct map, but the click locations are migrated left. However, the http://en.wikipedia.org/List_of_Counties_in_the_United_States has a map of all 50 states and it does work correctly. I'm going to do a test using Template:X9 to put the page on and get back to everyone on it.
the problem was with an invalid title, "[[[Area code 209]]", which produced a PHP fatal error. now it produces an error message instead.
Thank you for finding the error, I will be damned if I couldn't figure out what was wrong.
