Help me please!

Question

Нi, plz help me with this:

i am writing a web browser and need help. i want to parse html with regex. i hav found this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags.

when i try the things Justin Morgan proposed i get this error:

Fatal system error:
Error #32af5e8ca. STOP!

what can i do? thanks in аdvantage.

SOLVED:

~~thx for all ur hints, i have solved it now:~~

i tried this but it is no longer working:

i just had to change a few variables and it is working now

_{Note: This "solved"-edit is a part of the puzzle's story. PLEASE DO NOT ROLL BACK}

ok, i hav a new error occuring, when i try to compile my project:

Please insert an other hard drive, binary code could not be decrypted.

whenever i insert a hard drive the following message occurs:

Cannot read hard drive. Third digit of checksum should be zero.

Bounty text was:

Please, i need an answer ASAP! It is really important. If I can't solve this (current fix is br0ken), they will replace me by someone else, but i like my job. :( Can you help me?

Please don't downvote/closevote/vote to migrate. THIS IS A SERIOUS PUZZLE. related to: this. (The formatting issues are intentional too) [no, not in the meaning: i am seriously puzzled] — MEE, May 23 '18 at 14:53
Well, I just spent a few minutes reading the best thing on Stack Overflow. Thanks for sharing! Oh, and you have a puzzle.. hm. Maybe on my next break. — Ian MacDonald, May 23 '18 at 15:10
you... you tried? ì̫̙͖̬͚̞̫t̟̠̦'̯̣̼̤̩̪̖s̙̥̪͈̠̥̠͞ ̺̙̦͕̜̻t̸̝̼̭̤ͅó͇̣͉̱̜͇̘o̮͝ ̯̝̀l̝̟̤̂a̶̖̳͓͂̎t̙̘͍͔̖͕̆̐ͯ̀͑͒ͬͥ̕e̶̗̭̻̞̪ͯͫͨ̽͛̈̒̀ ̛̮̮̙ͬ̒̓͐͋̇͜t͈̠̟ͦͯ͊͐͜o͖͉̗̥̙̐͋̊̇̔̅̅́͘ ͇̺̪͉͈̜͕̳̪̦̰̤̙̰̪̝̯̬̞̃̑̈́ͮ̃̑̐̎̄̅ͣ̊͜͜s̴̶͎̰͇̖̄̆̅̆̓͒̇ͪ̿̎̓̅͘̕a̯̬̦͎̩̰͉̦̣̜ͦ̓̉̅͂̅͛́͠v̷̸̼̬͔͚͔̅ͤ͑ͮ̐͊ͮ̇̏ͨ͐̀ͬͤ͒ͣ͘͟͞e̶̦̦̹̥̦͎̦̹̳̠̹͚̫̞̬̯ͮ̈̌̉́ ̧̢̡̛̎̔ͭ̑̒̀̓ͯ̑͌ͣ̐̒͋̿͗ͬ̚͏̳̬̼͙͇̯͎̲ỳ̸͗ͭ͟͏̩̯͖͚̩̬̣̰̗̗̮̤̹̳͚͜o̶̸͕̭̬̟̳͙̪̣̦̺̤̝͓̲̲̩̼ͣ͛ͮͣ͐̓ͣ̃̈̈́̅ͭ͒̽̍́̑̚͟ù̴͔̤͉̺̭͈̥̝͚̥͔͖̬͙͐̇ͯ́̐ͩ͗̐̄ͩ͑͊̚̚͢ ̧͙͎͉̼̫̘̝̫̘̹͚̣̙̞͍̖̃͂̉ͣ̊͘͝͞ — Quintec, May 23 '18 at 16:30
OK, the formatting issues are intentional, but what about the spelling errors - are they intentional as well and part of the puzzle? Namely plz, hav, advantage and lowercase i? Not to mention the lowercase start of sentences? EDIT: Thanks for clarifying, @MEE — Phylyp, May 23 '18 at 17:58
@thecoder16 yes, that was the last mistake I made. I asked a question about it on SO but they closed it. That is why I am asking it here. :) — MEE, May 23 '18 at 17:58
@Phylyp yes they are intentional too. https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/251498/364003. This does not neccessarily mean that they are important to the puzzle. — MEE, May 23 '18 at 18:00
I even had to use cyrillic laters to make sure the engine does not censor my first and last line. — MEE, May 23 '18 at 18:02
I googled for 32af5e8ca, and there was only one result. Can you guess what it is? — Victor Stafusa - BozoNaCadeia, May 24 '18 at 20:39
@VictorStafusa this question? (edit: yes only this question. I can promise the error code is not random) — MEE, May 24 '18 at 21:12
You should talk to this guy, he looks like the right person for your problem... — LinuxBlanket, May 25 '18 at 23:44
@L_Church ok, I have one more try. There is now a new system error. Could you please help me? Also look at my comment to Dmihawk on the answer (I am really hesitated to post a comment as an answer, but I am not going to do so :)) — MEE, May 30 '18 at 12:19
@MEE is my guess correct? There haven't been any updates from you in quite a while... — Dmihawk, Jun 01 '18 at 19:45
@Dmihawk yes, your guess is correct. Sorry, I were not online in the last days. — MEE, Jun 02 '18 at 09:48

Dmihawk · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-31T20:30:07.687

7

New theory!

Moving my comments into a partial answer so that I can edit it as I go and not extend the discussion for it in Oleg's answer.

We know from the first hint and the bounty text that:

We need to substitute one (or more) of the characters in the error code.

With the new hint:

If we replace all the numbers with "1" and all the letters with "0", we get 110010100

Which is:

The number "404" when converted to decimal. Which just so happens to be the infamous HTTP error response code for page not found!

So:

You might want to fix your page indexes to make sure you don't lose your job!

edited May 31 '18 at 20:30

answered May 30 '18 at 20:56

Dmihawk

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Yes, i made a mistake) of course it's 321,655,831 not 321,755,831. But maybe your new number 19442023 corresponds to some question at Stackoverflow website? Or to user id of some user? Another thing about his text - 1) there were no capital letters; 2) r is deliberately missing in the word 'binary' (he wrote 'binay' twice)- maybe we need to use some code of letter r? – Oleg May 30 '18 at 22:57
I noticed that same thing too, but I'm not sure how to relate the letter 'r' back to the puzzle... I don't think the fact that they are lowercase letters makes much of a difference, I tried playing around with hexadecimals when I first saw this (all the letters are from A-F), but it didn't lead me anywhere that looked helpful or relevant – Dmihawk May 30 '18 at 23:06
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I think you are definitely right with these first two steps, and 19-44-20-23 thing definitely makes sense. Now if the letter 'r' is missing in the word 'binary', maybe we need to delete 18 (its place in the alphabet) from our sequence? Then we get 1-26-2-3, which corresponds to AZBC. Does it sound reasonable to you? – Oleg May 30 '18 at 23:19
I don't disagree, but between "AZBC" or "SRTW", I'm not sure what to do with the collection of four letters... – Dmihawk May 30 '18 at 23:23
Since STOP is also a part of the error code, I think we need to do something with it as well. STOP is 19-20-15-16, but not sure what is gives us. – Oleg May 30 '18 at 23:31
1

Oops, I misspelled binary; sorry that is hint. Also it is not correct to replace all letters with their position in the alphabet. Maybe something simpler happened. – MEE May 31 '18 at 07:32
Now you've got me scratching my head on what could be simpler... – Dmihawk May 31 '18 at 07:39
that's so strange that this 19-44-20-23 part is wrong... I am also not sure what simpler can we do. If we transform 32af5e8ca as a hex to binary, the result does not look so nice. – Oleg May 31 '18 at 13:33
@Oleg ok the point is: you shouldn’t transform but replace (I have probably spoiled too much already, I am disappearing for now) – MEE May 31 '18 at 14:06
1

Because of the hint "br0ken", I keep thinking about a l33t-style substitution, but I'm not sure where it could lead... – LinuxBlanket May 31 '18 at 15:47
2

@Dmihawk - nice new theory, but if this turns to be true, I would be really disappointed. I was hoping for a multi-step complicated puzzle,.when we need to use some information about the number of the question at stackoverflow website or lots of misspellings or some other stuff... and this... Hope there is still something additional besides this 404 number in the puzzle. – Oleg May 31 '18 at 23:45
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also the author even call one of his edits "404 error not found". If 404 is indeed the answer, then it's really weird and disappointing. As we say in Russia - "a mountain gave birth to mouse". – Oleg May 31 '18 at 23:49
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haha I was half-hoping for "In mother Russia, you 404 page" – Dmihawk Jun 01 '18 at 07:28
@Oleg, yes it might be disappointing but this is the secret of the puzzle. You were all looking for something more complex than the answer was. (Oh and the edit: It was a stupid mistake I made, but when I recognized it I were unable to correct it. Sorry ;( But wait, who is looking at the edit summaries?) – MEE Jun 02 '18 at 09:51

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

0

Partial answer - first step. So we know according to the first comment of the author of the question, that this question is related to this one.

Thus we should also use

Imgur. Deleting the numbers from the error code we get the following link https://i.stack.imgur.com/AfecA.png

And we found there this

Any ideas what does it mean? How to proceed next?

edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

Community

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answered May 28 '18 at 20:59

Oleg

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Are you sure this is part of the puzzle? It's part of this post https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48233204/summernote-stylewithspan-attribute-doesnt-work-in-chrome-and-edge – phenomist May 28 '18 at 21:15
well if this error code is relevant for the puzzle, then yes I'm pretty sure this is part of the puzzle. But I must say that the puzzle is so weird, that is can easily be a false clue. We need to wait for the confirmation from the author. – Oleg May 28 '18 at 21:23
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hey! plz don't down vote! thanks in advantage! – Oleg May 28 '18 at 22:02
@Oleg ok, that is a pretty interesting approach. But I have to say that it is not correct. Look at the hint and the bounty text. Maybe you can find one verb that says what you must do. And it is not destructive. – MEE May 29 '18 at 05:10
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given that the hint text says "change a few variables" and the bounty text mentions "they will replace me", I'm guessing some sort of substitution of the characters in the error code is required... – Dmihawk May 30 '18 at 03:31
@Dmihawk I can confirm that this is correct, my system says now "Please insert an other hard drive, binay code could not be decrypted." – MEE May 30 '18 at 12:01
@Dmihawk Yes, this is plausible. Maybe we should replace the letters in the error code by their numbers (a=1, b=2, etc). Then we get 321755831. Converting this to binary (as per hint 2) we get 10011001011011001101010110111 - not sure what should we do with this now – Oleg May 30 '18 at 14:33
ROT18(Pbafvqrevat gur ynfg uvag naq gur abgr sbe gur rqvg, n=5, fb gur fhofgvghgvba ergheaf 875009375. Naq lbh qb abg pbaireg vg gb ovanel. Orlbaq gung, V qba'g xabj jung gb qb jvgu gur ahzore. Cerfhzrnoyl vg tbrf vagb n HEY, ohg V'ir gevrq FB naq vzthe jvgu ab yhpx.) Using ROT18 from https://cryptii.com/rot13 to hide the numbers as well. – cpcodes Jun 01 '18 at 00:41
@cpcodes no, unfortunately it does not go anywhere... see the correct solution by Dmihawk. Turned out that this puzzle was slightly weird and only 1-step. – Oleg Jun 01 '18 at 01:00

Help me please!

2 Answers2