We have detected a condition causing server 500 errors (not a good thing) when the entry title contains non-alpha/numeric leading characters.
The Entry Title is used to create an entry URL with non-alpha/numeric and spaces replaced with dashes. Example:
This is an entry title generates a URL this-is-an-entry-title.html
When a title is entered as:
** This is an entry title ** MT generates -this-is-an-entry-title.html
The leading dash in the URL causes the error. It has been reported to MT support.
Follow BIG
As an added note, this entry created the error. I fixed it by manually removing the leading dash from the basename in the Entry form.
After much research in MT Forums, icdSOFT support and some additional testing, here's what we concluded:
1. A response in the MT Forums indicate MT cannot fix the URL generation (removing leading dashes). I believe they could. It is simply stripping leading dashes (or underscores) from the creation of the URL.
2. icdSOFT sysadmins claim it is a PHP configuration issue (running the server under PHP cgi/suexec). I tested it with the PHP handler disabled and, in fact, the leading dash is not an issue. Unfortunately, we need PHP enabled.
3. I tested the same condition on a GoDaddy server also using PHP and it worked fine and icdSOFT says GoDaddy is probably running PHP under a different PHP handler (mod_php or su_php) .
My next step is to submit a change request to MT Support. In the mean time, we need to avoid non-alpha/numeric leading characters in an Entry Title.