Troubleshooting

Content Management Systems have only been on the market for a few years now and are raidly evolving.  Each year the applications are improving their performance and enhancements.  Our CMS system is a very complex and customized application.  However, there are a few issues or workarounds with this complex system and we would like to share these issues with you.   Below are a listed few known issues with the CMS system that we have found some helpful workarounds.

Text Editor causes content to disappear when editing

We have discovered that users who are not on the Admin domain have run into an issue when they edit text within the text editor, their content disappears. If this happens, our suggestion is to use the "Edit via Form" method to make changes in your content areas. This option can be located in the "Actions" tab at the top of your page. "Edit via Form" allows you to use the editor within that feature not only to edit text, but to create links and view the source code as well. Please feel free to review the instructions on "Edit via Form". If you need further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact the CMS team, we would be happy to give you one-on-one instructions or training.

Text Editor locks up and only loads 90%

When you try to open up the Text Editor and it just loads to 90% and opens it up blank or just freezes, this is caused by too many characters within that content block for the text editor to handle. The Ephox text editor only allows up to 64,000 characters. Solution, break up the large content block into smaller content blocks of text.

When I bold something and italicize my text it does appear correctly

This is caused by the way the CMS inteprets the html code. Un-bold and un-italicize text. Make sure in the source code there is no html tags for <em> and <strong>. You can check the code by hitting the "Code" button at the bottom left hand corner of the text editor. After making sure and/or removing those tags. You can the go back into the "Design" mode and select the text. Then hit the italice (I) first - then the bold (b) second.

When hyperlinking to JumpMarks, window freezes

When hyperlinking to JumpMarks within the CMS system. The window that lists the jump marks, doesn't allow you to click on the "ok" button to chose your jumpmark. There is a work around for this known bug. Please review our step-by-step instructions to get around this known issue, using the Alt + Tab keys.

VB Script Error

If you have received a VB Script Error, when you you are viewing your page in "Page Preview", this could be caused by a recent change you made on a menu item and perhaps it was done incorrectliy. If you have recently made a menu item change, perhaps created a submenu item or deleted a menu item, then call the CMS Administrator or enter a help desk ticket at cmshelp@wpi.edu and we would be happy to resolve this error for you, by fixing the error caused on the menu change.

Active Server Page Error

If you have received an Active Server Page Error, when viewing your page in "Page Preview" mode, this can be caused by a special script code that is working in the background on your page to try to pull in some data, perhaps from the Regi application or something, and the CMS system itself doesn't recognize it within it's web browser or application. In most cases, it should not reflect your page content nor make your page not be releasable to the workflow. If the page appears fine within the CMS application itself, then just ignore. If not, please contact the CMS Administrator.

Bolding Hyperlinks

If you create a hyperlink and bold the hyperlink, sometimes it may not appear as bolded when you publish the page. This is caused by the HTML ordering. If you are comfortable and have some knowledge of HTML you can get around this, by going into the code and placing the <strong> tag after the <a href> tag.

Browser Issues

The Reddot CMS application is a customized application built using a web browser. Just as in web development, there are cross browser issues where styles may appear differently from browser to browser. This is known throughout the internet industry. Reddot CMS application was built mostly for IE browsers users, however you may use a different browser such as Firefox, Safari, etc. It is strongly recommended however, that most users use IE browser. Here are a few known browser issues and workarounds:

Active-X Control needs to be installed

With this content management system there are a few components that need to be installed locally on your machine. There are some active-x controls that are needed in order to run the text editor. If you see a yellow warning box at the top of your screen asking you to install the active-x control, hit "run". You will have to hit run or install several times in order for this to complete the installation of this component. You may also need to change the security of your machine to a "medium level", as well as enable these active-x controls to run on your machine. These settings are listed in the attached document.

If you need assistance, please don't hesitate to contact the CMS team to help walk you through this process.

Firefox Issues

• If you use SmartTree - that option is not available through this browser.
• Firefox prevents pop-ups - you may need to allow pop-ups to allow the text editor to open correctly.
• You can not add hyperlink to files or pages within the editor - the browser causes the text editor to go blank.
• Your page layout will appear different than IE. Some of the style designs are not picked up in CMS application. See attached sample.

Safari Issues

• If you use SmartTree - that option is not available through this browser

Content Management System down

Occassionally the Content Management application can crash down due to either network issues, server crashes or the database server that hosts the content fails. If you see the following errors, and the CMS System is not listed on the portal home page stating the system is down, then please contact the CMS Administrator at extension 6026 to notify them that the system appears to be down.

Internet Explorer 8 issues

If your computer was recently upgraded to Internet Explorer 8, you must switch to "Compatibility View" to be able to save your content in the text editor. Users can just click the "Tools" option and "Compatibility View" is the fourth option in the drop down list.

Or it can be easily set by clicking on the Compatibility View button located at the top bar within their IE 8 browser.

Reddot installation instructions for Windows Vista users

When you first login into CMS, there are some active x components that need to be installed to run the systems text editor. If you receive a big RED X while trying to use the text editor, couple of setting on the PC's themselves have to be changed within the IE. Please follow the instruction on Reddot Installation.