Hi Brian,

I responded about this in another post but am replying again to maybe help move this along a bit smoother.

Originally, reports were coming in that members were using Word to create their posts, then cutting and pasting into the message box here in the forum software. This was causing the problem you describe --- random, invisible characters being inserted along with the visible text.

Often times you can paste the clipped Word content into Notepad (Windows) then copy and paste from there into the form. Doing this strips nearly all the embedded, hidden code but Notepad lets a small set of invisible characters to slip through and cause the same issue.

As you have discovered by being able to view the raw HTML code (remember, we can not see that feature as members)those pesky characters are present.

The proper solution lies within the UBB forum software as you are discovering. What you want to do is to look into the filtering and editing post functions. In there lies the rules and filters that allow/disallow, pass/strip each character and code to be inserted into the message box.

Your tech folks know where the best support forum is for this specific software to obtain the fix. As you mention the problem started after a software upgrade, so this is the first place to investigate.

We see in the Markup drop down only the using UBBCode option. This should likely default to HTML mode only. There is decision point if you want to optionally allow UBBCode, which I suspect is all HTML plus options for special UBB features.

A couple months ago, I had a very similar issue with a client using another similar piece of software and similar scenario. Recent core software upgrade and copy/paste from one software to another got lost along the way. In this instance, there was a new default setting in the admin section that was different than the older release.

You are on the homestretch, most of the effort is figuring what exactly is going on; the fix is usually easier if you stay off the bleeding edge of upgrades as someone will have fallen into and patched the hole.

good luck, don