# Comment “spreaded” all over the webpage - unable to edit, unable to delete [duplicate]

I wrote a comment to this question on math-stack-exchange.

The browser (both Chrome and Firefox) didn't take it very well, and "spreaded" it all over the webpage, such that both the 'edit' option and the 'delete' option are shadowed (unavailable).

How can I resolve this?

P.S.:

I kept adding comments, hoping I could get it fixed and then delete the previous ones.

I realized that the 'delete' option was unavailable only after repeating this several times.

## marked as duplicate by Asaf Karagila♦, Watson, Martin Sleziak, JonMark Perry, SurbJul 24 '16 at 13:07

• P.S. #2: I am aware of the problem that long LaTex formulas with no space characters aren't handled very well when posted in the comment section. I am merely trying to resolve the case at hand, where I am unable to edit or delete those comments due to the mess on my screen. – barak manos Jul 24 '16 at 10:50
• In a nutshell, you can use the "Inspect element" function to delete whatever is hiding your edit button, or the MathJax box, and thus regain access to the edit/delete functionality. If that isn't working, flag for deletion, and before re-posting the comment, post it into the answer box (for preview purpose, don't post the answer) and make sure the $\rm\LaTeX$ compiles properly. Preferably, before posting it three times. – Asaf Karagila Jul 24 '16 at 11:03
• @AsafKaragila: The comment was showing fine in the answer box. – barak manos Jul 24 '16 at 11:04
• In that case, what you need to remember is that the comment box inserts linebreaks automatically into very long code. So you need to put in some spaces where appropriate (e.g. around $+$ signs) to ensure that doesn't happen. – Asaf Karagila Jul 24 '16 at 11:07
• @AsafKaragila: I am aware of that too (as mentioned in the first comment above). I am just unable to edit or delete these comments at this point. – barak manos Jul 24 '16 at 11:13
• As I explained, you can use your browser to "delete the sidebar" from the page you're seeing, and then regain access to the delete button. Or delete the entire MathJax box and re-compress the comment to its original size, and regain that access. – Asaf Karagila Jul 24 '16 at 11:18
• A possible workaround is explained here. An explanation why this happens can be found here. – Martin Sleziak Jul 24 '16 at 11:46
• @Asaf: Exactly how can I "delete the sidebar"? I'm using Firefox in case it matters. – Jyrki Lahtonen Jul 24 '16 at 12:13
• @Jyrki: Right-click the sidebar somewhere, "Inspect Element", locate the node whose class is "sidebar" (should be more or less around the area of the code you're facing), right-click the code and choose "delete node". Bye bye sidebar! – Asaf Karagila Jul 24 '16 at 12:21
• Thanks, @Asaf. Worked like charm :-) – Jyrki Lahtonen Jul 24 '16 at 12:53

There's a subtle bug in your LaTeX code, which somehow broke it between your answer-box preview and the comment box. The formula looks correct, but if I just copy-paste your formula (removing some code in the middle so it doesn't break the answer display) and add then dollar signs, I get this

$$F_n=\left\lfloor\frac{\left(\sum\right)+2\cdot\left\lceil\frac{n-1}{n}\right\rceil}{n}\right\rflo‌​or$$

which (in the preview at least) says there's a Missing or unrecognized delimiter for \right. If I then change the last \rfloor to ) I get this

$$F_n=\left\lfloor\frac{\left(\sum\right)+2\cdot\left\lceil\frac{n-1}{n}\right\rceil}{n}\right)$$

which displays correctly in the preview, and if I change it back manually to \rfloor I get this

$$F_n=\left\lfloor\frac{\left(\sum\right)+2\cdot\left\lceil\frac{n-1}{n}\right\rceil}{n}\right\rfloor$$

which displays correctly in the preview. If I take that last one and then copy-paste the last \rfloor from your original formula, I get...

$$F_n=\left\lfloor\frac{\left(\sum\right)+2\cdot\left\lceil\frac{n-1}{n}\right\rceil}{n}\right\rflo‌​or$$

the error again, at least in the preview. If I copy-paste it into single dollars directly, what I get from $$\rflo‌​or$$ is $$\rflo‌​or,$$ and that tells the tale. It seems that somehow you got a unicode zero-width non-joinder and a zero width space sneaking in between the two os (which you can find e.g. by converting that \rflo‌​or to unicode codes using this converter).

In terms of what you should do to fix it, Asaf got it right in a comment:

you can use the "Inspect element" function to delete whatever is hiding your edit button, or the MathJax box, and thus regain access to the edit/delete functionality. If that isn't working, flag for deletion, and before re-posting the comment, post it into the answer box (for preview purpose, don't post the answer) and make sure the LaTeX compiles properly.

• Yup, such extra space is added automatically after 80 characters. If it lands in the middle of a TeX-command, the results are unpredictable. Adding an extra space yourself occasionally fixes things (if you can reach the edit pane). – Jyrki Lahtonen Jul 24 '16 at 12:08
• Is it added by the textbox itself, or by the rendering engine? I.e. do you need to re-do the whole thing, or is it enough to just edit in the spaces? – E.P. Jul 24 '16 at 12:44
• Editing in the spaces seems to be enough. Finding the correct spot is trickier. But you seem to have figured a way of looking at the source after those spaces were added. In the present case I added a sufficient amount of whitespace in front of the broken \flo or command to make the extraneous blank become ahead of it. – Jyrki Lahtonen Jul 26 '16 at 22:38
• @Jyrki It took a substantial amount of debugging, to be fair, and I only looked at the unicode codes after I knew exactly where the problem was. – E.P. Jul 26 '16 at 22:40