Within-map navigation links breaking when published

[MalloryCarpenter1]

I am using the "heading links" feature as described here: https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-storymaps/constituent-engagement/storymaps-heading-... to create a sort of within-story map table of contents for a specific piece.

I tested it with one link - it works.  I go back in and add the rest of the links.  After publishing, the test link now redirects to a new tab with "about:blank#blocked" in the address bar, but the subsequently added links work properly.  I went back in and fixed the first link - after publishing it works but the others now redirect.

It appears that something is breaking when publishing the story. I can go in and change all the links simultaneously, but this is a frequently updated storymap, and I would prefer not to have to redo all the links every time we publish an updated version.

[OwenGeo]

Hi @MalloryCarpenter1 -- I'm sorry you're seeing an issue with setting up heading links. The behavior you've described is not expected, and I'm not able to reproduce it based on the information you've provided so far.

Here's a test story I just created. There are four heading links are at the bottom of the story and they all appear to behave as expected: https://arcg.is/1vumWq0 

Could you please share a bit more about the exact steps you followed to configure the links so we can try to determine what's going on?

[MalloryCarpenter1]

Hi Owen,

Thanks for the reply - as described in the article I linked above, I "hovered" over the heading until the link icon appeared, then clicked it and would receive the prompt "success! link copied."  I would then copy that link into the "create hyperlink" style option available when text is selected in the story map when editing.

I have not had time to re-edit the links out of the storymap yet so you can see it here:

https://arcg.is/S09Ke0 

If you scroll down to the "interactive map" section and click "St. Lukes" it will work properly, but if you click any of the others the error will occur.  If I were to go in and edit the story again, the St. Lukes link would also break.

[OwenGeo]

@MalloryCarpenter1 -- Thanks for sharing those steps and the link. I've tried several different ways to reproduce the behavior, but I'm not able to do so. The links always work as expected, even after going back and editing the story. Either this is a glitch in your particular story or there's a specific sequence of steps that are required to cause the problem.

At this point it'd be best if you could please contact Esri Technical Support. They will be able to better assist you in troubleshooting this issue with your story.

[BenParker]

I’m encountering the same problem with old links breaking when new links are added. In trying to come up with a simple case that reproduces the problem, I have found a very odd issue with the way a link is created. If I type in the text for a link without following that text with the Enter key, and then establish the link, the link comes up broken and goes to “aboutblank#blocked” as mentioned above. If I type in the text for the link and follow it with the Enter key, then the link works properly. As I said, very odd.

Here are the steps to reproduce this problem:

1. Create a new story map
2. Type in a title
3. Click on the “+” to the left of “Tell your story” and create a sidecar
4. Click on “done” to select “floating panel” as the default
5. Click on the “+” to the left of “Continue your story…” and select “text”
6. Type “section 1”
7. Highlight the text and mark it as a subheading
8. Publish the story map
9. Copy the section link for “section 1” by hovering over the text and then clicking on the link icon that appears to the left
10. Click on the “More actions” option at the top of the story map (“…”) and select “Edit story”
11. Click on the “+” sign above the sidecar and select “text”
12. Type in “section 1 link” but do not press the Enter key
13. Highlight “section 1 link” and click on the link icon; paste in the link for section 1 that is in the copy buffer
14. Publish the story map
15. Click on “section 1 link”

These steps consistently produce a broken link in the tests I have run. I’m not sure yet if this is directly related to the issue in this case. I’m going to run some more tests. If needed, I could probably produce a video of the above sequence.

[OwenGeo]

@BenParker -- I think you're on to something!! By design, pressing ENTER after typing/pasting the URL is required to properly configure the link. @MalloryCarpenter1, can you try this and see if that fixes things for you?

It does look like there may be a bug that sometimes allows a link to be partially/incorrectly added if ENTER is not pressed. We'll look into that to see if we can address it in an upcoming release.

[BenParker]

Just to be clear, the Enter key seems to be needed when entering the text that will be associated with the link. As you indicated, the URL won't  be applied unless Enter is pressed when entering it.

[BenParker]

I have found a way to reproduce the scenario of a new link breaking an old one:

1. Using the earlier steps 1-10, create a new story map with a floating panel sidecar that has the subheading “section 1”. Publish it and get the ‘section 1” URL into the copy buffer.
2. Click on the “+” sign above the sidecar and select “text”
3. Type in “link 1” and press the Enter key
4. Highlight “link 1” and mark it as a bulleted list
5. Position the cursor at the end of the “link 1” text and press Enter to create a second bulleted entry
6. Type “link 2” into the second entry
7. Apply the “section 1” URL to “link 1”
8. Publish the story map
9. Click on “link 1”; based on my tests, it will be a broken link
10. Go back into edit mode and reapply the URL to “link 1”; publish and this time the link should work
11. Go back into edit mode and apply the “section 1” URL to “link 2”; publish again; based on my tests, link 2 will work but link 1 will be broken again.
12. Going back to edit mode and fixing the broken link then repeatedly causes the working link to break
13. Consistent with the original issue report above, reapplying the URL to both the broken link and the working link results in both finally working.

I know bulleted lists weren't mentioned thus far but maybe a similar mechanism is at work.

[BenParker]

Here's what this most recent test looks like:

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/aa89fb9b749b4c09ba9c5eaecf6ff785 

[OwenGeo]

Thanks for all the additional information. We can reproduce the issue now and are looking into the cause so we can try to get a fix out in the next few weeks.

We'll update this thread when we have more information.