Title: Serious malfunction – Last modified: April 4, 2017 --- # Serious malfunction – * Resolved [WP Apps](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp-apps/) * (@wp-apps) * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/serious-malfunction/) * The developers of “The Events Calendar” does not appreciate WordPress standards, which causes on some cases very serious issues, especially when you are trying to synchronise your events with other systems. * WordPress uses UTF-8 character set. The “The Events Calendar” developers are relaying on HTML entities, which causes serious system malfunction. When you import events, it uses HTML entities instead of normal characters. They are arguing, that this is security issue, which is really lame excuse for serious bug. * We do not write titles like these “I**&**apos;m human **&**amp; doesn**&**apos; t like HTML entities!”. Instead we write “I’m human & doesn’t like HTML entities!” * So we except some sort of solution to this very serious issue. * > I’m 100% certain that this is a VERY SERIOUS BUG! > For firs WordPress uses utf8 character set!!! Thats the fact! So stay on WordPress > defaults! > For second humans does not type HTML entities, its only for machines. > For third “BB & DD Horses” <> “BB **&**amp; DD Horses” ! > For fourth, you are using function get_page_by_title to check if organiser > exists already in the database. And get_page_by_title(“BB **&**amp; DD Horses”) > does not return the same result width get_page_by_title(“BB & DD Horses”)!!. > Instead, it says there is no organiser defined and creates new organiser, which > causes system behave abnormal. > It’s not hard to fix it, and 100% certain it has nothing do to with security!!! > You have to write tiny fix in your code on customer side by using html_entity_decode > function to convert characters into normal! > So, just please fix the BUG! Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total) * Moderator [Jan Dembowski](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jdembowski/) * (@jdembowski) * Forum Moderator and Brute Squad * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/serious-malfunction/#post-8990120) * > WordPress uses UTF-8 character set. * Debatable but OK. * > When you import events, it uses HTML entities instead of normal characters. > They are arguing, that this is security issue, which is really lame excuse > for serious bug. * How is that a serious bug? * Thread Starter [WP Apps](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp-apps/) * (@wp-apps) * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/serious-malfunction/#post-8990176) * Jan, thank you for response! * How is that a serious bug? * Here is an example: * echo ‘”Me & You” == “Me **&**amp; You” is ‘ . json_encode((“Me & You” == “Me **&** amp; You”)); // “Me & You” == “Me & You” is false * $post_1 = get_page_by_title(‘Me **&**amp; You’); // null; * $post_2 = get_page_by_title(‘Me & You’); // WP_Post ; * So, when The Event Calendar does the check get_page_by_title but title is using HTML entities, then it does not find the item from database. * Simple! * [Barry](https://wordpress.org/support/users/barryhughes-1/) * (@barryhughes-1) * [9 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/serious-malfunction/#post-9041351) * Hi [@wp-apps](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp-apps/), * Thanks for the feedback – if there’s a bug here, we are of course interested in resolving it. * > The developers of “The Events Calendar” does not appreciate WordPress standards * I do take issue with the above statement, though. * We take WordPress coding standards very seriously. There are certainly parts of our codebase written several years ago that don’t entirely meet the current standards (as is true of WordPress itself) and, as with any large project, there are undoubtedly a number of inconsistencies and oversights even in newer code— but that hardly means we are cavalier in our approach to these things. * > WordPress uses UTF-8 character set. The “The Events Calendar” developers are > relaying on HTML entities, which causes serious system malfunction. * OK – but would it be possible for you to distill the problem into a set of steps that will allow us to easily replicate and identify whichever part of the plugin this issue relates to? * I suspect we’re talking about import functionality here, but I’m unsure if that is the built-in CSV import or some other source. If we could pin down a few specifics, that would be really helpful 🙂 * [Courtney Robertson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/courane01/) * (@courane01) * [8 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/serious-malfunction/#post-9156914) * Hey there! This thread has been inactive for a while so we’re going to go ahead and mark it Resolved. Please feel free to open a new thread if any other questions come up and we’d be happy to help. 🙂 Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total) The topic ‘Serious malfunction –’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/the-events-calendar/assets/icon-256x256.gif?rev=2516440) * [The Events Calendar](https://wordpress.org/plugins/the-events-calendar/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/the-events-calendar/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/the-events-calendar/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/the-events-calendar/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/the-events-calendar/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/the-events-calendar/reviews/) ## Tags * [malfunction](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/malfunction/) * 4 replies * 4 participants * Last reply from: [Courtney Robertson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/courane01/) * Last activity: [8 years, 12 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/serious-malfunction/#post-9156914) * Status: resolved