Webtext stripping line feeds in sent messages

[PGargan]

Hi,

Messages sent using Webtext are having line feeds removed with no warning. Sending a message such as:

This is line 1.

Here is line 2.

... results in a text that reads:

This is line 1.Here is line 2.

Watching the form submission in the browser shows a payload such as:

message=This+is+line+1%0D%0A%0D%0AHere+is+line+2

So it's definitely sending the URL-encoded line feed sequence, albeit with a Windows representation (0D 0A)

I've no idea how long it's been happening for. Tested against iPhone (latest iOS) and a generic Nokia-brand dumb phone

Thanks.

[Three_Stacey]

Thanks for highlighting this to me @PGargan.

I just tested my webtexts and I'm getting the same. I've reached out to our Digital & technical team on this, as soon as they get back to me I'll let you know.

[Three_Stacey]

Thanks for allowing me the time to look into this @PGargan 

I have received confirmation from our Digital team that when using webtext, break points will be removed when the message is converted to SMS. 

[bodonova]

Afternoon
To add to PGargan's post, other characters are also being stripped out of SMS messages being sent, most notably commas and double quotes. In addition, some other characters have been changed, e.g. back slash to underscore and ampersand to "commercial at". Recently, use of some characters have resulted in an oversized error complaining about unspecified security issues, followed by a general page hang. I can't give you a detailed list today because WebText isn't working. All of these characters used to be accepted, including CR/LF as mentioned by PGarman, and now don't for no logical reason.The Webtext service should have the basic competence not to alter the content of messages being sent.

[PGargan]

Hi @Three_Stacey ,

Just checking in on this ... your post above on Feb 21st noted the Digital team had confirmed it was broken. How are they getting on with fixing it? As per @bodonova's post elsewhere in this thread, it's also broken for double-quote characters (ASCII 0x22). This can subtly change the meaning of texts, for example:

---

He said it "should" be fixable

gets sent as:

He said it should be fixable

The former phrasing highlights a doubt as to whether it can be fixed, whereas the latter does not.

While your Digital team is working to revert whatever change caused this, can a banner be added to the Webtext site acknowledging the issue?

Thanks,

Paul.

[Three_Stacey]

Thanks for the suggestion I'll make sure that it's passed on to the webtext team.

[PGargan]

Hi,

Just so you're aware, line feeds are now being sent as literal \n character sequences (i.e. a backslash followed by the letter 'n'). so:

This is line 1.

And this is line 2.

... gets sent as:

This is line 1.\n\nAnd this is line 2.

Double-quote marks, backticks, and likely other characters, are still getting stripped without warning.

Thanks,

Paul.

[Three_Stacey]

Thank you, I'll reach out to our technical and webtext team with this.

[PGargan]

And commas are broken too! Silently dropped with no warning.

Also, accented characters are being mangled. Seán Óg is sent as Sean Og. I suspect you'll have a few upset Gaeilgeoirí once word of that gets out.

[PGargan]

For reference, the GSM character set isn't huge (it's listed here). These are the characters that should be supported in a text message.