Yesterday the Forum did something strange. All the what I think is the formatting information appeared. Titles in square brackets like “en_GB” followed by what looks like data base information. All very strange. I could have clicked an unobtrusive button or something. The “Shop” pages look OK and other sites also seem OK. Firefox and Chrome on a Windows laptop seem OK.
My computer is a Mac Mini, browser is Safari but like I say others seem OK.
Thanks for pointing that out, not quite sure what went wrong there! I’ve passed it on to our IT team to take a closer look. Looks like everything’s back to normal now, but let us know if you see anything else odd.
I think it is something I have accidentally done. It is OK in Firefox. I don’t have Chrome installed on my Mac but it is OK on Chrome on a Windows laptop.
How do I do this. Just sign out and start again ??? Will try that.
Cheers Bob
How do I sign out. Can’t find anywhere to do this.
Good to hear it’s working fine in Firefox, that suggests Safari might just be hanging onto something odd in the cache.
To answer your questions:
How to open the forum in Private/Incognito Mode in Safari:
Click File in the top menu bar.
Select New Private Window.
In that new window, go to the forum website as you normally would.
This will load the site with no cache, cookies, or saved settings, perfect for testing weird issues.
If it’s showing up fine in incognito mode, then you’ll likely need to clear your cache. Which can be done on safari by:
Open Safari.
In the top menu bar, click Safari > Preferences (or Settings if on macOS Ventura or later).
Go to the Advanced tab.
At the bottom, tick “Show Develop menu in menu bar”.
Now, in the top menu bar, click Develop > Empty Caches.
That will clear just the cache and shouldn’t sign you out of any websites.
For future reference, you can sign out of the forum by clicking your profile picture, then the person icon in the bottom right. You should see a “Log Out” option there.
I did some digging, and it seems like it could be an issue with specific fonts installed on your Mac.
Any chance you have installed or modified any local fonts recently? The en_GB prefix is normally hidden data to let your browser know the text is in British English, but apparently this can make its way to the user’s view under certain conditions.
This forum post seems pretty similar to your description:
Hi Samuel
Logging out of Core Forum then logging back in fixed the problem
I am using Safari and have not got Chrome installed on this Mac
I had suspected the “en_GB” referred to the language in use and should be hidden.
I have not installed any extra fonts at all. I can get into enough trouble with what I have got which is plenty.
I suspect I clicked on the wrong thing accidentally. I found myself in some sort of Font selection screen while investigating another funny. Namely the Forum suddenly started to double space when I clicked on the “Return” key when replying to a post. Still don’t know why it does this but I am living with it. Might have done something there. This double spacing might have fixed itself when re sighing in. Will keep an eye on it.
Cheers Bob
Thanks again for the tips.
Hi again Samuel
I just fixed the double spacing. I had selected something called “rich text editor” accidentally. Went back to “standard” and all good.
Cheers Bob
