Bug reporting

[Harry]

We try hard to avoid them, but bugs are a feature of coding, so if you spot anything then let us know, here or by email. If you think you have found a security issue or someone is posting info about the solutions online, then email us instead at [email protected] with the word Security in the subject.

Thank you!

[f6exb_the_frenchy]

[Thanks for this report, I have passed the details to the web team. Harry]

[f6exb_the_frenchy]

The forum index is not updated after a message is validated.

[Sorry for the delay in posting, we needed to carry out some checks before replying. We think this is OK now, but if there is a residual issue that is not due to slow moderation then let us know. All the best, Harry]

[Cribbage]

Great to see the Cipher Challenge up and running for another year!

I think that there is a problem with the link to the BOSS Cryptanalyst handbook underneath the 1B Challenge text. It is, though, still easily accessible via the BOSS Training Division in the Resources menu.
[Thank you, the team is fixing this. Best wishes, Harry]

[kford_academy]

Slight issue in the forums: Some profiles are linked when you precede them with the @ symbol (but not all of them). The pages that they link to do not exist. Can this be fixed, please?

Thanks.

[Thanks for raising it. Harry]

[Feefen]

On the Official Boss Deciphering Tools page, when I paste text into the Frequency Counter tool, I can see the graph of the letter frequencies below the text box, but the list of individual letters and their frequencies shows up under the Substitution Tool instead, which is confusing because I haven’t pasted any text there.

[Rhydwen23]

As per message #88342, from by f6exb_the_frenchy, this doesn’t appear to be fixed. The “This topic has n replies, m voices, and was last updated” message is updated to show a recent post, but the message does not appear in the forum.

[Sorry about this, it is an annoying bug and we are trying to track it down. Harry]

[f6exb_the_frenchy]

The comment after a good answer at 6B is a little old. Isn’t it ?
[Obsolete is the word for it I think. So it is now retired and replaced with a shiny new message which is probably no more helpful than the old one! Thanks for pointing it out. Harry]

[pufferfish101007]

Looks like the feedback for challenge 6B is a hangover from last year’s challenge?
[Thanks for the heads-up. Fixed now. Harry]

[priyam]

Submitted 6B twice due to a minor error the first time. The second time was correct but I checked in my submissions page and it says our score for Part B was 0 and the first incorrect submission shows! Still gives me a successful solve message on 6B submission page though. Hope you can check we have the number of points deserved.

[Are you sure, I checked your account page and it showed two submissions for 6B with one of them at 100%. Might be worth taking another look. Harry]

[CodeKitten]

Hi! I think I may have found a bug in the tools. Sounds like it might be the same as #92045

If you use the frequency analysis on anything, then scroll up to the substitution tool it seems a little broken. Instead of the box with the text and the little boxes with the letter names that you can change it is different.

It still has the long box for the key but underneath instead of the boxes where you can change the letters, it has something like this

Character ^ Frequency
A 1
B 2
C 4
D 7
E 0
F etc.
G
etc.

The frequency does match the text you put into the frequency analysis, and the keyword box still works and changes the text but it’s a bit inconvenient to not have the easy labelled boxes for changing the letters. (I end up just opening the frequency analysis in a different tab and using it there instead of within the same tab as the substitution so it still works properly.)

[Thanks for pointing this out, and sorry it has taken a while to get back to you. It definitely needs fixing. I will ask the team to prioritise it. All the best, Harry]

[madness]

Shouldn’t it be “objet trouvé”?

[If you knew me better you would know that my French accent is not very good! Harry]

[f6exb_the_frenchy]

+1 for madness.
But Harry, your French is certainly better than my English.
[Mais, vous etes trop gentil. Harry]

[madness]

*”An historic cipher”

[brickyboy]

Not sure if this counts as a bug, but the forum posts don’t seem to be in any particular order? They aren’t sorted by last updated, or by amount of voices, or anything else as far as I can tell, maybe they are sorted by when they were originally posted, but this doesn’t seem super useful? Idk, its not really important to fix.

[Author]

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