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This URL (obtained by right-clicking "link" below the answer and selecting "copy link location"):


leads to a blank page.
I assume it is designed to go to whatever page the answer is on, but this is not working.

A workaround is to copy the URL from the page number link:


But that relies on the answer staying on the same page, and in CW questions it often does not (except with ?tab-oldest, but that's probably not the default for many users.)

If this is by design, is there a reliable way to get a permalink to an answer that remains valid if the answer gets pushed down to a different page?

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Works for me ;) –  ChrisF Feb 5 '10 at 13:55
@ChrisF, If last tab you clicked (oldest/newest/votes) puts that answer on page 1 then it will work. Try clicking "votes" then try to follow the link again. –  Perpetual Motion Goat Feb 5 '10 at 14:20
Ah - my default view is newest first. In that case I withdraw my comment. –  ChrisF Feb 5 '10 at 14:22
i see the issue you're talking about. by the fact that there's no other obvious permalink offered in the UI, i have to assume this is a valid bug. –  quack quixote Feb 5 '10 at 14:26
Permalinks for answers on the first page are broken too, and get one one page too far. In fact: this happens for any last answer on any page, when sorted on oldest. See meta.stackexchange.com/questions/38103/…, which I guess is a duplicate (assuming the blank page only shows if there's no answers yet on the one-page-too-far page?) –  Arjan Feb 5 '10 at 14:50
I don't know if that is the same issue, but I'm pretty sure that a URL that is meant to be a permalink should not be affected by the cookies of whoever happens to follow it. –  Perpetual Motion Goat Feb 5 '10 at 15:16
@Arjan I think this is more closely related to meta.stackexchange.com/questions/18815/… (even though it's tagged "feature-request' not "bug") –  Perpetual Motion Goat Feb 5 '10 at 15:35
The link works for me. It takes me to the answer, which is on page three of the answers when sorted by votes. edit: Oops, now I see a problem. This link to the last answer (when sorted by votes) doesn't work for me: stackoverflow.com/questions/731832/interview-question-ffn-n/… It just takes me to the question. –  raven Feb 5 '10 at 18:04
Throw some ideas on this: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/18815/… –  random Feb 6 '10 at 9:04
I added a screen capture at meta.stackexchange.com/questions/38103/… -- which I guess is what you saw too? That's NOT a blank page then? –  Arjan Feb 9 '10 at 11:10

2 Answers 2

up vote 3 down vote accepted




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Look like this issue - meta.stackexchange.com/questions/18815/… - might be fixed too. –  ChrisF Feb 9 '10 at 12:51
I don't know whether to down-vote for making the mistake, or up-vote for finally fixing it. –  Brad Gilbert Feb 9 '10 at 14:22

The permalinks implicitly require that you have not changed the default sort order from Votes.

This is [status-bydesign] at the moment.

edit: assuming you have the default votes sort order, my guess is that this is sometimes affected by deleted posts; do you guys have the 10k rep to see the deleted posts in these questions?

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I clicked on the "comments" link on one of the OSS ads today and was directed to the wrong page of answers. Why might that happen? (And yes, I have the default sort order.) –  mmyers Feb 5 '10 at 22:08
How long is this 'moment' going to last? –  Jonathan Leffler Feb 5 '10 at 22:19
I was sorting by votes, as stated in the question. Unfortunately you can't see the problem with the answer I linked anymore as it has been upvoted from -1 to 0. –  Perpetual Motion Goat Feb 6 '10 at 6:48
@Jeff, Possibly. My rep is 5K, but mmeyers has 23K. –  Perpetual Motion Goat Feb 6 '10 at 9:15
@Jeff, how about rendering the question page(s) to figure out where the linked question should be? If someone has clicked the link you're going to have to render it anyway. Would it be a disaster if you occasionally rendered the wrong page first and had to discard the result? –  Perpetual Motion Goat Feb 6 '10 at 9:19
@perpetual mmeyers does not have 10k rep on meta, which is what he was referring to. –  Jeff Atwood Feb 6 '10 at 9:30

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