Dropbox text editor inserting junk characters

[seaweeed]

I have a bunch of .md files on dropbox and I use the in-app text editor to make quick changes from mobile (android).

I have a frequent issue where dropbox can't always display or save non-standard characters, such as emojis, ellipsis, “ ” curled quotes (unlike " ") etc.

It produces unicode garbage like this 1�71ￄ1�77. Sometimes an emoji will display fine in the preview, and be nonsense in the editor but will save again as an emoji just fine. Othertimes an emoji would display just as intended. So I'm not quite sure what the trigger is, I haven't been able to reproduce it since the problem always catches me by surprise. But its super annoying, I often don't know what the garbage string used to be.

I imagine the text editor might be outdated in some way. 😞

[Jay]

Hi @seaweeed, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Do you know if the MD files are encoded in a specific Unicode character set, such as ANSI, OEM, Unicode or UTF-8 encoding? 

Did you create the files on the Dropbox site itself, or just added them to your account and edited them?

This will help me to assist further!

[seaweeed]

no clue! some files I've made within the dropbox app ('add file' and then giving it a .md name). But the majority were created elsewhere.

Searching with those terms I've found that my primary desktop text editor seems to preference UTF8.

[seaweeed]

@Jay was able to replicate the issue. Created one file on desktop and through dropbox app. Adding '哈 ' to the dropbox file broke it. It did not preview correctly, and editing and saving the file broke all special characters in the doc, although some characters still display on desktop (for now) they are just junk strings on mobile.

[Walter]

Hey @seaweeed, thanks for flagging this with us.

I just wanted to mention that the team is aware of this issue and working on it.

We'll make sure to keep you posted! 

[John314]

Dropbox is also insert junk characters when using text files and standard text characters.

I use Dropbox to edit small (less than 500 character) text files with standard characters (A-Z, 0-9, semicolon).  There has been a recent change.  When saving the file, there are junk characters that appear in the file when it is read from another device.  The junk characters disappear after leaving the text editor (even though there was not another save).

I use Dropbox to edit text files for communicating with other devices.  It has been reliable in the past.  Now it is not reliable, and even adding characters I did not type.

Very frustrating.  This frustration on top of the frustration of the "preview" window added within the last year.  Let's get back to the basics.

[BenDBX]

Hi @seaweeed and @John314 ,

I've spoken with our engineering team, and we would need a shared link to example files to look into this further. Would either of you mind if we reached out via email to obtain these links?

Regards,

Ben

[John314]

Here's a further explanation of my problem.

I use small text files to control various machines and equipment.  A computer monitors my Dropbox text files for changes and commands.  I modify the text files from various computers, including an Android phone.

While making some changes to my program, I noticed the incoming file had garbage characters at the end of a line I would edit.  The garbage would exists for only a few moments after being changed.  After being read a couple of times, the file would read ok without the garbage.

So, a shorter summary of the core problem...

I would make a change to a small text file on my phone.  A computer would read the file using the Dropbox APIs, but the modified lines would contain garbage.  The computer would read the file a few moments later and the garbage would be gone.

The bug might be on my side, but I have not encountered any issues until recently.  I am using Dropbox APIs, C language and CURL.

Finally... yes, Dropbox personnel can email me for more information if necessary.

[BenDBX]

Hi Everyone,

If any users are still experiencing this issue, please reply here to let me know. We need to retrieve a shared link to the files in question in order to troubleshoot further. Thanks so much!

Regards,

Ben