Unable to leave a review, strange error message

@Michelle​ Trying to post a user review here:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17041964/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Tried to provide you with a screen grab, but the link to leave a user review for this film seems to have disappeared now.  I can't find it anywhere on the main page or the user review page (even though some people have already left reviews)?  

The 'invalid characters' error where you cannot see which character is invalid is usually because the invalid character is something invisible like a soft-hyphen or non-breaking-space. If you compose your message in an editor that automatically inserts that sort of character without you realising it then they can cause trouble if you copy/paste the text.

You may be able to find the offending character by selecting the character immediately before the dot and searching for it in the text of your review. This can be tricky because you cannot see what you are doing and some systems try quite hard to hide this sort of thing from users.

If you do a search for 'Sorry, your submission contains the following invalid characters: ‌. Please correct them and resubmit,' you'll find that another user has had the same problem in the past and the same solution as above was given.  Months later and after many different tries, the user still can't leave a review and is quite frustrated, as apparently the issue on the forum has just been abandoned.  I typed the review out the same way I've typed on my keyboard for years now, and the way I'm typing this posting... I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what a 'soft-hyphen or a non-breaking-space,' is, or how to even create one.

I attempted to go back to the review page and re-try two more times before leaving my initial posting here.  When I did, the number of "rating stars" would automatically go to the previous rating of 9 the moment I opened the page, as though the information I had previously typed stayed in its memory somehow.  I also tried typing other things into the review box, and each time I clicked 'submit,' no matter what I typed I got the same error message all over again.  Clearly the imdb page is somehow holding the error message in its cache or in its memory.  I also cleared my browser's cache to see if maybe the error was coming from my side, but it didn't change anything.  I even tried using another browser to submit the review and there was again absolutely no change.

What I'd still like to know is, where did the link to leave a user review go?  There's a link on the review page to 'user reviews,' but no way to leave one when you navigate to there.  Also: the reviews I'm leaving is for a documentary about a Russian opposition leader to Putin who was poisoned by the government.  There are some angry reviews being left by Russian users and one reviewer is stating they're being left by "bots."  Sounds paranoid, I know, but has the page been hijacked somehow not to accept any more reviews?  I'm beginning to wonder, lol.

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/sorry-your-submission-contains-the-following-invalid-characters-please-correct-them-and-resubmit/5f4a7bfc8815453dbaf21105

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/sorry-your-submission-contains-the-following-invalid-characters-please-correct-them-and-resubmit/5f4a7a018815453dba951ef7

The error message in the first post of this thread contains ZERO WIDTH JOINER. The link is to the page at unicode.org describing its properties in case anyone reading this wants to know more about it. I cannot help you with the other issues.

@owenrees​ Thanks for the link, but I have absolutely no idea what "zero width joiner," is, what the unicode listings on the page mean, or how they relate to correcting the review I wrote. 

The problem is that there is a character you cannot see in the text of your review somewhere and that character is not supported. The error message contains the character but it is the sort of character that you cannot see. I can find it by copying the error message and pasting it into a tool that can identify characters of that kind. A second look suggests it is U+200C "zero width non-joiner".

You have not said how you are composing your review but I suspect that you are composing it in some other editor then copying it and pasting it into the review form. That is a good idea but can go wrong if the editor you uses tries to be clever. Unfortunately, this is common behaviour. The best known examples being "smart quotes" where you type '"' and the editor converts it to  '“' or '”' (left/right double quotation marks) depending on context.

The way to get rid of these characters without special tools is to use the search/replace feature of your editor. Select the problem character (which can be difficult as I said above), copy it, paste it into the search field then replace each instance with nothing.

If you want to select the unsupported character from the error message then you will find it after the ": " (COLON, SPACE) and before the "." (FULL STOP). Being zero width that is going to be difficult with a mouse or other graphical navigation but if you copy/paste it into a context where you can use keyboard navigation you should be able to do it.

Thanks again.  I'll give these suggestions a try, but can't until I'm able to find the link to post a review on the imdb page.  I'm hoping someone from IMDB support can explain the why the user review link has disappeared.

@Michelle​ i'v same problem here with Brave on Ubuntu 20.04. I've already removed every special character : "(), only periods and commas remain. Should I remove those too ?!

As I pointed out above, the error message in the first post in this thread contains the invisible problem character and from that I was able to find out what it is.

If you are willing to post the error message and the full text of the review that is failing here in this thread, those of us with the appropriate tools can probably find the problem character.

Also as I said above, this sort of problem tends to happen if you compose your text using some other editor then copy/paste it into the review form rather than typing it directly. If you say whether or not you are doing that and if so which editor you are using that may also give some clues about how to avoid this problem.

You haven't idenitified yourself as working for IMDB, so I didn't realize you were a moderator (see Michelle's post above, stating she is an employee).  I also mentioned that the link to leave a user review on the page at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17041964/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0  is no longer there, and you replied you couldn't help me with that issue, which also made it sound like you were not an IMDB moderator.

Here's the review, but if I can't find the link on the IMDB page to post it, then it's kind of a moot point:

A very thrilling documentary

I was fortunate to be able to see this remarkable documentary through Sundance's virtual 2021 Film Festival tonight and I can't praise it enough. The film details Russian opposition leader Aleksai Navalny's poisoning with a nerve agent in 2020, as well as the discoveries he and his colleagues made after his recovery that revealed the murder attempt had been planned and executed by the Russian government. It unfortunately ends with his return to Russia and his immediate arrest, where he's currently being held in jail awaiting sentencing.

Other than being aware of the 2020 poisoning incident, I knew very little about Mr. Navalny before seeing this film. Using early Russian rally footage, he's shown as a very popular leader who quite boldly and almost matter-of-factly calls out the lies and corruption he sees within the Kremlin. Despite the seriousness of the film's content, Navalny consistently displays a positive and surprisingly humorous side to his personality throughout the documentary. There's an almost whimsical scene of him making a Tik Tok music video using OMC's "How Bizarre" to reveal to his followers that he's discovered his murder attempt, which clearly illustrates just how charismatic he can be.

Besides some brief mobile phone and news clips, very little video of the novichok poisoning or his subseuqent recovery in Russian and German hospitals reportedly exists (his wife explains that she refused to allow him to be photographed during that period). As a result, we learn most of the information from these periods from interviews with others who interacted with him. Despite that, the film moves at an extremely steady pace and is never boring. There are also clips from Russian television personalities ‌insisting he made up the poisoning and concocting ridiculous lies and exaggerations about him, which I found disturbingly similar to some of the fabrications created by right-wing personalities here in the US today.

There's also a detailed process shown of how locating the murder suspects through the Russian black market was accomplished, which I found absolutely fascinating; but finally, the phone call that takes place between Navalny and an unwitting agent that confirms he was poisoned is an appalling, edge-of-your-seat moment that really turns the film into a powerhouse.  It's a scene that's totally unexpected and not only extremely gripping, but astonishing that it's actually being captured in real-time.

I can only hope that the Russian people, many of whom have supported Mr. Navalny's attempts to overthrow a corrupt government, will somehow acquire the opportunity to see this film and will work to unite and release Navalny from his incarceration.  This is a very moving, important documentary about how vital transparency and democracy are in our society, as well as the high price that some people have to pay for it.  Don't miss it. 

I am not a moderator but I know something about Unicode and character encodings so I can suggest how to fix the text should the link ever appear again.

Mailing the review to myself using a client that uses quoted-printable encoding for characters beyond U+007F the relevant lines are:

pace and is never boring. There are also clips from Russian television=20
personalities =E2=80=8Cinsisting he made up the poisoning and concocting=20

The =20 at the end of the lines are just how flowed format is done in qp.

The significant part is the =E2=80=8C which is the utf8 encoding of U+200C (see https://www.utf8-chartable.de/unicode-utf8-table.pl and select the U+2000 to U+20FF block). If you delete the invisible character before 'insisting' then you should be able to submit your review should the link appear again.

Pasting the error message and the text of the review into one of the editors I use also worked as a way to find the invisible character as I have described above but the mail in qp format makes it easier to show exactly where the problem is.

Other people writing reviews may run into similar problems so I have been trying to explain how to find the problem characters.

Thanks very much for taking all the time to do this, I really appreciate it.  Still trying to understand what I must have typed after the word 'personalities' that could have created all this... maybe I cut-and-pasted something erroneously.  I'll correct it and resubmit it when if the user review link ever shows up again.    :-)

The film will probably be available for rating and review again once it is released on CNN/HBOMax.

@diego_mandosso​ It's always a good idea to post your problem in a separate thread to make sure not to get lost. In this case, the common problem is that the error message is confusing.

The help provided to Doug should work for you too, but the easier way for anyone getting this error message is to paste the intended review in a tool like this:

https://pteo.paranoiaworks.mobi/diacriticsremover/

Pressing "Remove diacritics" will then (by default) replace any strange characters with _ and you should be able to post it or at least figure out where the problem is and rewrite that part. Note that this tool also remove diacritics, so review the output. Some characters replaced may be ok to change back.

A fun exercise is to copy the error message itself

Sorry, your submission contains the following invalid characters: ‌. Please correct them and resubmit.

and see the output

Sorry, your submission contains the following invalid characters: _. Please correct them and resubmit.

This clarifies that the problem isn't the period symbol (nor the actual underscore), but the invisible symbol before it (now replaced with underscore).

@Michelle Getting a "screen grab of the Warning" would probably do you nothing good. Posting a text copy of the message, as Doug did and Diego didn't, does seem more useful.

You would likely reduce the number of complaints if the error message was more informative. Together with the message, you should provide context, e.g. "personalities insisting" rather than only the illegal char.