AF Blog Post Japanese Text Display Problems

Hello! I tried searching for this specific problem on AF and didn't find anything. I also tried searching the Internet in general, but I kept getting non-relevant results for this very specific situation.

When I posted a blog entry the other day that included Japanese text, there would be random (I couldn't find the pattern) characters that ended up being replaced by '�' this question mark character in the final post. The text looked fine in my Google/Word docs; it was also fine when pasting into and using the text editor, but the final publication would always show the question marks. (Going from final back to preview still showed the chars just fine in the editor.)

It wasn't consistent for any one character either: 'の' might be fine in one sentence and a question mark in the next.

I tried a few things (i.e. changing the font, writing it directly in the editor instead of copy/pasting from an external file, removing all Japanese-typed spaces and punctuation bc I thought maybe they were the weird ones). I finally fixed it by brute force replacing the weird characters with the ones that worked (like with the 'の' example above-I pasted the successful one over the weird one) and, for some reason, this fixed the problem.

I've attached a screenshot of the same problem happening again in a new draft. I wanted to see if anyone can provide some guidance before I have to brute-force fix my next post in the same way. :(

Possibly relevant info: I'm on MS Windows 10+MS Office 2016 and using Google Chrome v 90.0.4430.85.

Please let me know if any add'l info is needed! Thank you!

Have you tried this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wDxd6j0CYs

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Originally Posted by sumire007

Have you tried this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wDxd6j0CYs

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Hello! I just tried to look for that option in Chrome and it doesn't appear to exist anymore. :( A couple Google help threads indicate that the manual encoding tools were removed after Chrome 55 many years ago and the only feature now available is built-in auto-encoding.

I hadn't considered though that it might just be something I'm seeing on my side. Can you or anyone else let me know if the following block of text has question marks in it or not? I see them again when I preview the post, but maybe it's just on my side after all. How does it look for everyone else? Thank you!

江口拓也：ドラマCD男子高校生,はじ� �ての第七弾アニメイト限定版フリー� ��ーク。
河西健吾：YAY!
E：というわけで…えー…アルバアー� ��“ナナオ”エインズワース役の江口 拓也です。
K：月ヶ瀬藍役の河西健吾です。
E：はい。ということでたった今収録� ��無事終了致しました。
k：はい。お疲れ様でした。
E：ありがとうございましたね！アル� ��アート“ナナオ”エインズワース… これも…長くて…ね…これ中々なじ� �うまでに時間が掛かったんですけれ� ��も。まーまー…今回はちょっと二人 きりな収録ということで…もう…あ� �…なんていうんですかね…あの…な� ��…ん…さいしー…慣れるまでこの距 離感ていうんですがここの今収録し� �スタジオ結構…あの…近いじゃない� ��すか。

@hungryperson; Ah, okay didn't know this.
On my side your Japanese text looks like this
https://puu.sh/HBu0b.png
I'm using Opera GX on a imac, so I'm not really a help per se:hot:

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Originally Posted by sumire007

@hungryperson; Ah, okay didn't know this.
On my side your Japanese text looks like this
https://puu.sh/HBu0b.png
I'm using Opera GX on a imac, so I'm not really a help per se:hot:

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No, that's perfect! I can see the question marks. They look a little different, but I can see that certain characters aren't making it over from editor->final post. Thank you so much for confirming so quickly!

I'll have to use the long workaround if I still can't figure it out, but at least there's a workaround. T_T

The question marks are there for me too, and I'm using Mozilla Firefox.

Hello hungryperson, it looks like this could be an encoding issue with the Aarinfantasy forum software itself. I've had it happen to JP text I've pasted into a post before. On your post, the display is also showing question marks on my screen (it looks the same as the screenshot by sumire007), and I'm on Firefox on Linux.

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Originally Posted by stormwolf2010

The question marks are there for me too, and I'm using Mozilla Firefox.

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Thank you for confirming! I appreciate it! ^_^

- - - Updated - - -

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Originally Posted by Cheremonda

Hello hungryperson, it looks like this could be an encoding issue with the Aarinfantasy forum software itself. I've had it happen to JP text I've pasted into a post before. On your post, the display is also showing question marks on my screen (it looks the same as the screenshot by sumire007), and I'm on Firefox on Linux.

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Hello! Thank you for confirming that you also see this question marks displayed with your different set of specs. I suspected it would be related to encoding, but I wanted to rule out my own user error first (I'm still open to discovering that there is something I'm doing/not doing!). And thank you for letting me know this happens to you too, so I know it's not an isolated incident. If it's an encoding issue with the forum, then it seems I'll have no choice but the workaround. Z_Z Good thing it's fairly simple to copy/paste; it's just tedious after a while. Haha. :'D

Hello! Just reporting back to say that I found a simpler workaround and wanted to share in case it can help other people too.

I am still unable to prevent the issue from happening in the first place, but I can fix everything relatively quickly now by adding one space " " in front of the problem character. I do this as a step btwn Preview Draft and Publish.

For example, if "X" is showing up as a question mark in ABXCD -> AB?CD, then I change it to AB XCD and it seems to work fine. Since I'm posting large blocks of text, it's not too noticeable. :)