"Period" in tag

Product Support

AI-generated summary

In a Discourse support thread titled “Period” in tag, JoiConverse reports that a tag starting with a period (e.g., “.oldnamewithperiod”) causes errors when clicked, preventing access to its 1100+ associated topics — despite advanced search only returning ~50. codinghorror confirms periods aren’t allowed in tags and suspects the tag was created under an older Discourse version. JoiConverse confirms their recent upgrade likely exposed the issue and seeks a way to access and bulk-edit affected topics. codinghorror tags eviltrout, who advises using the Rails console to rename the tag via:

t = Tag.find_by_name(".oldnamewithperiod")
t.name = "newnamewithoutperiod"
t.save

Jesus2099 asks for guidance on accessing the Rails console, specifically to rename a broken tag like #last.fm to #lastfm. JammyDodger explains the console is accessed via SSH on the server with:

cd /var/discourse
./launcher enter app
rails c

and strongly recommends taking a backup first. A link to bulk operation examples is also provided here.

1

Does having a “period” at the beginning of a tag cause an error when tag is clicked on?

On my technical community we have one tag that was probably created before punctuation started to be stripped from new tags. Now I am not able to click on the tag and see a list of all the topics with it. I would like to update this tag so our team no longer gets an error. Right now though I can’t figure out how to see all the topics. When I use the advanced search it only picks up around 50 topics. The tag has over 1100 topics associated so I know that isn’t right.

2

Based on my testing, periods are not allowed in tags. So perhaps you have an older version of Discourse where that was previously allowed?

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3

Yes, we did have a older version and just updated for the first time in over a year a few weeks. I’m assuming that is why this one tag is now an issue. Is there a way to get at the tag even with the error coming up? That way I can bulk change all effected topics.

4

I’m not sure; @eviltrout can you recommend someone who worked on tagging recently?

5

You’ll probably need to use the rails console to fix this:

t = Tag.find_by_name(".oldnamewithperiod")
t.name = "newnamewithoutperiod"
t.save
6

It’s the rails console something that the administrators can find and use easily?

Can you please describe how to find the rails console so that my admins can rename #last.fm (Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.) to something else, like #lastfm, for instance?

7

You access the rails console from your server. If you have a search there are quite a few topics that go into more detail, but it’s essentially:

SSH into your server

cd /var/discourse
./launcher enter app
rails c

Though I should also say to make sure you take a back up before attempting any changes, as accidents can happen.

Administrative Bulk Operations has quite a few examples in if you wanted to read up before trying anything.