B

14 Messages

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210 Points

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2024 11:45 AM

Website problem.

All of a sudden my website has the letter “A” all over it. Below is an example. How could this have happened? How do I correct it? I went into my website through Website Manager/Edit and pressed the save button a number of times and the “A’s” disappeared but when anyone goes to the website they still see the “A’s”.

MON - APR 22     NATANIS ARROWHEAD
TUE - APR 23        RAIN DATE

MON - APR 29     PVCC
TUE - APR 30        RAIN DATE

MON - MAY 6      FOGG BROOK (PALMYRA)
TUE - MAY 7           RAIN DATE

MON - MAY 13    AUGUSTA C.C.
TUE - MAY 14         RAIN DATE

MON - MAY 20    NORTHEAST HBR. (OR)
TUE - MAY 21        NORTHEAST HBR.

462 Messages

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11.2K Points

5 months ago

Someone else had this problem last week and I do not know if they finally got it resolved, but these do look like "formatting" codes.  I have no idea if it will work, but I have done something similar to this by accident in Word and this is how you get rid of it- press: Control Shift *

While you are in editor, give it a try.  If the problem remains, I suggest giving support a call at 800-710-1998.

14 Messages

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210 Points

5 months ago

Thanks for the suggestion but it didn’t seem to help. I have been in touch with Homestead’s support but they couldn’t help and have suggested I try Tucows who they say my domain and hosting service are under. 
I don’t really understand any of this but will try Tucows.

462 Messages

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11.2K Points

I doubt Tucows has anything to do with this.  Tech support is not what it used to be.  I strongly suggest you call them back and INSIST on bumping the problem up the chain.  The standard response these days seems to be "it's not our problem" and they "new" people actually admit that they are not trained on the editor.  There ARE still people there who are technically savvy, just not the ones who pick up the phone.  I will take a look and see if I can find that other thread where a guy had this same problem.  No promises, but I will look to see if he resolved it. 

462 Messages

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11.2K Points

I found the message and asked how they fixed it.  Hope they respond soon and will let you know what they say.  Are you using SiteBuilder Plus?

14 Messages

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210 Points

I’m not sure what Site Builder Plus so I assume that we are not using it.

462 Messages

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11.2K Points

what is your website address?

462 Messages

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11.2K Points

That could be.  Did you recently migrate your site from a different template or other platform?  What is the website address, so I can see it. 

2 Messages

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74 Points

5 months ago

I have the same problem.  Also received multiple emails that went into my spam folder saying they need me to update my credit card.  Sounds like a scam but IDK.

462 Messages

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11.2K Points

Unless you get a message DIRECTLY from Homestead.com about your payment method, don't click.  You can always sign into your account and check the billing status directly.  The scammers are getting really clever.

14 Messages

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210 Points

Why do we pay Homestead if they can’t/don’t help with problems?

14 Messages

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210 Points

5 months ago

I contacted a local website builder company who told me that the problem with our website is;


”The issue you're having with the "A" characters is likely due to an encoding issue. This usually happens when a database is improperly migrated.”

I’m not sure what all of that means - nor do I know who is responsible for correcting it.

Any ideas?

13 Messages

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380 Points

I'm having the same issue with my site. I haven't migrated it from anywhere, so that's not what happened in my case. I did see where someone got an email notification to update their payment method in which I also received. I deleted it as spam but decided to check my account anyway and changed the payment method just in case and the problem with my site happened within a few days after that, so their may be something related to those suspicious emails.

29 Messages

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240 Points

4 months ago

The problem is, Homestead stopped updating their Web Builder Plus, to be phased out. Those characters are from the "tabs" and some "spaces" in your words. If you remove those tabs to start with, many of those issues will go away. Homestead told me this morning to copy out the text, delete the text box, then make a new text box and copy back in, from the outside source, the desired text. Save, Publish and see where you stand. They suggested that we create new sites, using their latest Web Builder software.

13 Messages

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380 Points

I'm so happy they gave us a heads up.

14 Messages

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210 Points

Thanks. I will give that a try.

13 Messages

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380 Points

The copy/paste method doesn't work. Tried multiple methods. Deleted text box and created new one and pasted in from different sources. All failed at removing the "A's"

29 Messages

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240 Points

4 months ago

For unknown reasons, this site isn't showing your responses to my post(s). So what I did was open my site using Web Builder Plus, I think...lol, sorry. Saw that the displayed characters were indeed correctly displayed but when separately viewing my website, I had all the screwy characters. So, I manually went into the text block space via Edit. Then selected all of the text within, then "ctrl C" for copy, or you can right click and copy which puts it all onto the clipboard. Then, I opened a blank MS Word document. "ctrl V" or paste into that document. Then, if anything was amiss there, minor corrections, then selected all of that text, again, "ctrl C" for copy.

    Then, I went back to the web builder plus. I selected the text block and deleted it. Next, I opened a new text block, positioned it, sized it, then EDIT, right click and paste. It automatically opened a small text window to copy the text into, so I did that again, in that new small window. Completed it, then saved and Published.

    Next, after a few seconds I refreshed the page I was separately on, for my site. I would instantly see the changes I had made. There was a lot of doing similar things for some odd space character that their system stopped liking but overall, it was a success.

    Now, having said that all, apparently their view is for us to build a new website, using their new web builder.Site Builder program, but its not going to allow us to do that, given we're already on our website. Can't create a new one with the same name/location because the original is already there. This possibly implies that we're supposed to purchase a new site, new hosting, changing everything on our end, then change it all back by disposing of the old.

    What needs to happen is for them to figure out what they changed that caused this and to fix it. Then enable us to upgrade our existing sites with their new builder program, for free.

29 Messages

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240 Points

What I saw is that their system doesn't like "Tabs" in a text format and also, some "spaces" in text format therefore their ASCII character sets are corrupted, on their end.

462 Messages

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11.2K Points

@parkridgepoa6169​  If you have the Gold Package you indeed CAN create a new website in Website Builder.  You can name it the same name as your site, but it will automatically add .homesteadcloud.com to the name, thus separating it from your currently live website. If you build that site and then want to switch your domain name, THEN is the time you would re-associate your domain name with the new website (in Domain manager at log in page).  Your old site will still be there, just dormant.  It would be better to rebuild in the WebsiteBuilder platform mostly because SiteBuilder Plus is very old, and the formats look it.  Website Builder also has a pretty decent (automatic) mobile view.  There are a couple of things you should know about the mobile version (feel free to ask me at picturethismultimedia@comcast.net) but the new layouts are pretty nice and once you learn the new dynamic tools, you will like it a LOT better.