W3C validator issue: DOCTYPE Override in effect!

WebKitty

01-25-2012, 05:06 AM

I'm using the W3C mobile validator and I get this message first thing:

DOCTYPE Override in effect!

The detected DOCTYPE Declaration "<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">" has been suppressed and the DOCTYPE for "XHTML Basic 1.1" inserted instead, but even if no errors are shown below the document will not be Valid until you update it to reflect this new DOCTYPE.

I don't see where this is happening in the code--where else should I be looking? Does anyone know what this means?

felgall

01-25-2012, 06:12 AM

It means you changed the settings in the validator itself.

WebKitty

01-25-2012, 02:08 PM

Ok all I did was put my url in here: http://validator.w3.org/mobile/

What do I need to do differently?

Thanks for your help and time!

felgall

01-25-2012, 08:23 PM

Just tried a couple of my pages in that validator and the equivalent message I got was:

The document does not validate against XHTML Basic 1.1 or MP 1.2.

I also got the following warning message:

The document uses a non-XML doctype (-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd)

Presumably the 'XHTML Basic 1.1' doctype is the one that defines what tags are valid to use for web pages intended for mobile devices and so the validation is done against that doctype instead of whichever one the page actually specifies. To validate using the doctype actually specified in the page you'd need to use the regular validator instead of the mobile one.

Do you get a message about the doctype being overridden when you validate the page using http://validator.w3.org/

WebKitty

01-25-2012, 08:30 PM

Do you get a message about the doctype being overridden when you validate the page using http://validator.w3.org/

Nope. Thanks, it must be something they are doing. The message looked like I had seriously forked something up!