How to auto-fix W3C validation errors? Blank comments, can’t even post!

  • A few weeks ago, my blog stopped working: I couldn’t make a new post, it wouldn’t show up. I tried deactivating all plugins & using the default/classic theme, even went back from 2.7.1 to just 2.7, but nothing worked. Prior to this, I hadn’t posted or added any new plugins for a long time (except upgrading WP) and everything worked.

    Then it was pointed out to me that the blog had validation errors (which wasn’t the case before). Given that I have over 100 errors and don’t know exactly where they’re stemming from, is there any tool I can use to auto-fix these error?

    On top of everything, I have now started to get blank comment notifications (getting alerts to moderate but there’s no comment when I check).

    Blog: Ceci et Cela

    Thanks!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • is there any tool I can use to auto-fix these errors

    Not really, no. Some of the errors may be within your templates but others will be in your post/page content. The latter will have to be fixed one-by-one. There’s just no easy way around this. Which is why it pays to validate, and re-validate, at regular intervals.

    Hi, Geekette. There are various supposed “auto-fix” tools, but in my experience they do an extremely poor job.

    After going through the same experience you are — tons of errors and no idea where to start — I wrote up a 2-part series on the validation steps I use. No guarantee it’s the best way, but it’s definitely easier than plowing through a pages-long error list of the W3C Validator.

    Take a look, if you’d like. Leave me a comment if you have any questions or if it worked for you.

    Good luck.

    Thread Starter geekette

    (@geekette)

    Well, I found out why I couldn’t post:
    After checking my database stats, I found out that it was overloaded (carrying 150MB as opposed to 100MB), which was a result of visitor stats stored by user online plugin. After dropping those tables, available database capacity came up to 98MB and voila, I was able to post again.

    Validation wise:
    Thanks for the suggestion asechrest, but it didn’t work for me. Since HTML Validator isn’t available/recommended for Macs, I tried Total Validator but it wasn’t really helpful either. Also tried using Dreamweaver to validate hoping it would pinpoint actual root errors & auto-fix, but it validated the posts as ok. So, bottomline, I’ve decided to let it sit given that the site is accessible and I can now post again. It IS crazy that there is absolutely no real auto-fix tool out there though.

    Geekette, see if you can use the Mac version of HTML Validator here.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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