Are you working on an arc that has already been published or is it a new arc? It's tough to know what the problem could be without a little more info.
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
if you edit the arc, use the ? in the upper right side. Click on it and it will tell you what's wrong. Click on an item that is wrong and it will usually take you to the section or part of the mission that is wrong.
i know about the orange box in upper right hand of screen. it's not a problem with that. the problem is that after it is already published and i am editing/updating the arc or i am just trying to publish it in general that i get an error message that pop's up and says something like "publish failed : field description unformated HTML" something or other, not sure of wording coz i am at work right now... it would be nice if this stuff was caught before i hit the publish or republish button coz everything i changed is then thrown away and i get to do it all over again
evoL Love, -Pretty Hate Machine, Taelus, Lie-Taelus, evoL II Love, Maerd dreaM, King of Hate, Cie-Taelus, Vie-Taelus, Ifand Orbuts, Candi L. Stien, Hell's Dreaming, Hell's Freezing, ecIce, Phillis Sy, the Last Splash, S. Wayland, Crimson King?, Dream Ghost, Gusher, Dawn of the Red and the Moment After
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i know about the orange box in upper right hand of screen. it's not a problem with that. the problem is that after it is already published and i am editing/updating the arc or i am just trying to publish it in general that i get an error message that pop's up and says something like "publish failed : field description unformated HTML" something or other, not sure of wording coz i am at work right now... it would be nice if this stuff was caught before i hit the publish or republish button coz everything i changed is then thrown away and i get to do it all over again
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Do you by chance have and 'Signature' Heroes, Villians, NPCs in your arc? I ask because there is currently a bug (no fixed on the Test servers) where some signature NPC bios are LARGER then what is allowed; so you need to clear their Bios to nothing to get the arc to publish; and you need to do that once every edit or update with the arc.
The other issue is - How close are you to 100% used on the file soze bar. There is an occasional issue were an arc between 99 -100% will not publish.
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i know about the orange box in upper right hand of screen. it's not a problem with that. the problem is that after it is already published and i am editing/updating the arc or i am just trying to publish it in general that i get an error message that pop's up and says something like "publish failed : field description unformated HTML" something or other, not sure of wording coz i am at work right now... it would be nice if this stuff was caught before i hit the publish or republish button coz everything i changed is then thrown away and i get to do it all over again
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OK, that sounds like the MA editor problem that many people have been experiencing. For some unknown reason, if you edit your text in the description by using ctrl c/v for copy/paste it seems to add extra invisible formatting characters in the text. Sometimes it's just that there's an extra space somewhere in the text. If you edit in a word processor that uses formatting (Word, MS Works, etc.), the same thing can happen. What you have to do is check all of your 'description' texts by copying them and re-pasting directly into the box or into notepad (no formatting) first. If there are invisible characters there, they will show up in the description box. Clear the box and paste from notepad and it should be fine. Or you can edit the gibberish out and fix it that way.
This is a major problem in MA because it doesn't always set off the orange flag that there's a problem, or show you exactly where it's located.
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
Telstar, that looks to be the problem. Don't mean to sound like a jerk but I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem.
My method of dealing with it was to just start over, and copy and paste stuff over, republishing every 5 min so I don't lose so much text/dialog. Really hope they fix this soon!
I spend so much time editing and re-editing I hardly have time to play the game I love!
Thanks all for respones!
drg-
evoL Love, -Pretty Hate Machine, Taelus, Lie-Taelus, evoL II Love, Maerd dreaM, King of Hate, Cie-Taelus, Vie-Taelus, Ifand Orbuts, Candi L. Stien, Hell's Dreaming, Hell's Freezing, ecIce, Phillis Sy, the Last Splash, S. Wayland, Crimson King?, Dream Ghost, Gusher, Dawn of the Red and the Moment After
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Telstar, that looks to be the problem. Don't mean to sound like a jerk but I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem.
My method of dealing with it was to just start over, and copy and paste stuff over, republishing every 5 min so I don't lose so much text/dialog. Really hope they fix this soon!
I spend so much time editing and re-editing I hardly have time to play the game I love!
Thanks all for respones!
drg-
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I'm sorry it happened to you, too. So many people have had this happen that, as soon as you described it in more detail, I figured that had to be it. I think the problem is related to the way the description fields are 'monitored' for 'hidden text' as a means for unscrupulous people to try and sneak things past the censors. Because most word processing programs use hidden text as formatting tools, they show up in the description and it trips a flag. Unfortunately, the error flagging system in the MA doesn't always show it as an error in the orange error code. It's also responsible for some wonky fluctuations in file sizes when they show up after trying to republish an arc. 
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
This problem is why I stopped using the excellent Word document template to write my missions in advance. Now I'm forced to write them in MA, Alt-Tab to Word and paste it for spell checking or using the thesauraus or whatever, then manually correct the MA. Not exactly an ideal situation.
I suppose what I could do is use the template, then paste the whole thing to Notepad to get the flat text, then paste from that into the MA... hmm...
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This problem is why I stopped using the excellent Word document template to write my missions in advance. Now I'm forced to write them in MA, Alt-Tab to Word and paste it for spell checking or using the thesauraus or whatever, then manually correct the MA. Not exactly an ideal situation.
I suppose what I could do is use the template, then paste the whole thing to Notepad to get the flat text, then paste from that into the MA... hmm...
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That is the best solution I've found. I use MS Works, then paste it into Notepad because there's no hidden formatting in there. It's a pain in the butt to have to do it that way, but it will save a lot of frustration in the long run.
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
I use Leandro's mission formater. I may have to check and see if that makes a difference. I find that thing great for creating mission and being able to just drop them into the mission file.
Thanks Telstar. It occurred to me while I was composing the post so I'm glad to hear it works.
You're welcome. I had the same issue in my arcs and it was the only thing that worked for me. Even using copy/paste directly in the MA text boxes can add crap. I've tried changing text around within MA and always end up with it pasting in odd places (within a word, instead of where you place the cursor) and adding formatting characters that don't belong.
One other tip. If you delete the text in a description field, make sure that the character count is at '0' afterward. I've had problems with phantom stuff being left behind when deleting the text. The best way that I've found to empty the invisible crap is to highlight the entire box again (from right to left) and backspace it until it shows as having '0' text in the box.
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
Yep, the text editor truly sucketh for MA. I really hope that's at least somewhat improved in i15.
* Not seeing characters that really are there
* Copy/Paste not working 100% - especially true if you highlight some text and paste over it when you are likely to lose huge chunks of text not selected
* Blinking text
* cursor disappearing or skipping to a different place
*sigh* I just keep telling myself it is a work in progress. But I truly love being able to make custom missions for myself and my friends tailored for our particular character stories so I keep slogging away at it.
I feel your pain. I have 3 arcs published, now. Two of them have been overhauled in the past couple of weeks. The third is next on my list to hack away at. I'm not looking forward to all that rewriting, but I think it needs it. Since I love to use my custom critters, it makes it hard to tell a good story if you want it to be longer than 3 missions. I made the mistake of making it 4 missions, but it really did cut down my ability to add more story text. I'm probably going to cut one of the missions out so I can expand the text, but it's going to be painful to have to do that. Even if I15 hit tomorrow, I'd still probably have to cut one to improve the story itself.
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
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This problem is why I stopped using the excellent Word document template to write my missions in advance. Now I'm forced to write them in MA, Alt-Tab to Word and paste it for spell checking or using the thesauraus or whatever, then manually correct the MA. Not exactly an ideal situation.
I suppose what I could do is use the template, then paste the whole thing to Notepad to get the flat text, then paste from that into the MA... hmm...
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You can also save the Word file as a straight text file, - then othen it in notepad, and copy/paste from there.
is there already or can there be a list of what all the "unable to publish" 's mean. can it explain specifically what is wrong?
i can go through the arc for hours and find nothing wrong with it, send in a petition and then get the email, and then the auto email messes up and so far it's more frustrating than anything... also i end up loseing alot if i dont remember to save or republish
sorry for the vent... would like answer to question though
evoL Love, -Pretty Hate Machine, Taelus, Lie-Taelus, evoL II Love, Maerd dreaM, King of Hate, Cie-Taelus, Vie-Taelus, Ifand Orbuts, Candi L. Stien, Hell's Dreaming, Hell's Freezing, ecIce, Phillis Sy, the Last Splash, S. Wayland, Crimson King?, Dream Ghost, Gusher, Dawn of the Red and the Moment After