Friday, December 7, 2012

Disqus updates support page, access to live chat bug fixed

At about yesterday's timing (at least that's when I noticed it), Disqus has ushered out a update to their support page that makes it sleeker then the older design. The elements are the same, but they are now in one row if information. The form is much smaller.

However, the main reason why I posted this was because there was a bug in the old support page that allowed normal users to access VIP only support options, such as live chat. You didn't have to know anything outside of how to use a web inspector. When you inspected the form you saw two hidden boxes, one for the chat and one with an actual Disqus phone number. There was no problem with the phone number because the number was never displayed to normal users, probaby by script.

All you had to do was uncheck a "display: none" rule for the box and you could click a link in the box to open a chat popup. When I figured this out I went ahead and decided to poke around, mostly to let them know they had a flaw in the form. Tyler got back to me in about a minute's time, and he noted the problem. Weeks later and there was still no fix. A few days later, and it is now fixed with the page update.

The page update is out now. Just make sure you are signed into Disqus so you can actually access the page without being taken to a login gate.