User blog:Jpearson/Technical Updates: June 30, 2023

Hey everyone! Check out the latest Technical Updates since June 16th. We’ll continue to update the editor community on bug fixes and product development updates on a bi-weekly basis!

Notable Changes

 * The experiment winner was released where we removed the global navigation bar from within the 2017 editor for all users to reduce clutter and distraction. In a future update, we’ll also be hiding the local navigation by default from the 2017, with an option to toggle it back on. You can learn more in a deep dive blog from earlier this week.


 * With the recent MediaWiki upgrade, Widgets combined with DPL stopped working on Minecraft Wiki. We were able to solve this issue and the widgets should be working properly.


 * Embedded videos (File: namespace videos that point to YouTube embeds) have stopped working when displayed in portable infoboxes. Videos had no thumbnail, and clicking it triggered an “Oops. This item is no longer available” error message for users. We were able to solve this issue and users shouldn’t have a problem with embedded videos.


 * Users were unable to create a new infobox while using the VisualEditor, as the “Template Name” dialog was hidden behind the dialog. This bug blocked users from using the tool to create an infobox!


 * Attempting to use EmbedVideo to include a Nico Nico video resulted in error for users. We were able to find a solution for this issue and users can successfully embed videos again!

Known Issues

 * Some wikis are experiencing issues as the “Special:BrowseData” Page no longer functions and only returns a white screen after going to the page.


 * There appears to be an issue with the Light Theme background not appearing properly for some users after uploading a new version through the Theme Designer.


 * When editing in mobile, two related issues occur for users: some text that is on the page is lost when saving, and some text that was deleted from the page is restored after saving. A fix is in progress and we’ll report in the next update.


 * Template editor popup overlaps with warning when one or more required fields are not entered, making the entire VisualEditor unresponsive. A fix is in progress and we will update you in the next update.


 * LinkSuggestions leaves a blank box after selecting a suggestion and when scrolling outside the editor.


 * Users are experiencing issues when they open the mobile editor on pages where tabber is present. The same problem occurs using source editor mode and trying to switch between VisualEditor and SourceEditor pages results in users being stuck on a loading state on the page.

User-Generated Content (UGC) team

 * The Thanks extension is in testing. We’re continuing to test the results of the Thanks extension, which we’ve launched on 1200 wikis, to analyze how it’s performing on the platform.  We expect to continue testing for the next several weeks before moving into the full release. In the meantime, if you’re interested in having your wiki be part of the Thanks testing, feel free to reach out to your Wiki Representative (if applicable) or Fandom Support so we can review your request!


 * Thanks notification preference for Gamepedia. Due to differences in how preferences are set up between historically Gamepedia and historically Fandom wikis, Thanks can currently be enabled on Gamepedia wikis but the preference to opt out of notifications is not present. We are working on implementing this soon, and the release is in testing.


 * The editor community is growing. The experiment winner was released where we removed the global navigation bar from within the 2017 editor for all users to reduce clutter and distraction. In a future update, we’ll also be hiding the local navigation by default from the 2017, with an option to toggle it back on. You can learn more in a deep dive blog from earlier this week.


 * Additional experiments are running. We have several other experiments currently in progress or in development. We just completed one to make things a bit easier for newer users in the editor, and we’re analyzing the results of that. If it looks good and we decide to productize it, we’ll let you know in a future Technical Update!

User Experience (UX) team

 * Experiments are running! We don’t have any release news from the User Experience team this week, but there continue to be several experiments being run in areas like improving image lightboxes, improving the Fandom app, and more.

Platform team
If there’s anything you still think needs to be fixed that hasn’t yet, please be sure to either contact your Wiki Representative or, if your wiki doesn’t have one, send us a bug report!
 * MediaWiki 1.39 upgrade. The migration is complete! Because we have recently fixed the remaining backend bugs caused by the MediaWiki upgrade, we can shift our focus to bugs reported by communities and address more of the known issues moving forward.