OK, this is more of a report than a request for a fix, since personally I hate emojis and feel they have no place in forum topic titles. But I digress…

Our forum members started reporting an issue where the topic page would not load after posting a reply. After hitting submit, they instead got the error “That topic does not exist. One member shared this screenshot…

I confirmed the issue: I replied to the topic, but on page reload, I got this same error. Then I reloaded the topic and my reply was there. Then…

I noticed the member who started the topic included an emoji in the topic title…

I also noticed the actual slug of the topic on the page with the error after attempting to reply…

…tripawds.com/forums/alumni/eurydice-the-angel-aa92c80f54bf1d517e68973b4ac828a8818c8d219c7ce95fe54d8082be8dfa18f0aa92c80f54bf1d517e68973b4ac828a8818c8d219c7ce95fe54d8082be8dfa189faa92c80f54bf1d517e68973b4ac828a8818c8d219c7ce95fe54d8082be8dfa188caa92c80f54bf1d517e68973b4ac828a8818c8d219c7ce95fe54d8082be8dfa189f-travels-in-europe-with-pedro-the-penguin-and-woody-the-woodpecker/page-6/#p200580

Something is apparently chewing up the emoji and spitting it back out in the topic URL when posting a reply.

My fix was to simply add a custom message above the new topic post editor that says “Please do NOT use emojis in topic title!”

I understand the issue may have something to do with the character set or collation of the sp database tables, which I don’t necessarily care to mess with just for this. But I did find it interesting enough to report here.

Cheers!