Known Issues

Updated 2012-01-24 04:45:13 -0500

Introduction

These are the major Known Issues that are currently affecting us on the Archive of Our Own. If you've encountered an issue you don't see here, or you'd like to give us more information or comments, we welcome your feedback via the Support and Feedback form.

Recent Issues - January 23, 2012

Performance problems - We're suffering a lot of major site slowdowns due to heavy load. Depending on what time you're accessing the site, you may find it is extremely difficult to load index pages (such as fandoms). We're working on the problem, but it will take us a little while to fix it. You can read more about what's going on and how we plan to fix it in our post on performance issues. We know this is really annoying - we're doing our best to fix it quickly.

Missing email notifications - We’ve had a few reports of email notifications not getting through. It looks like some ISPs may be marking some of our emails as spam: we’re looking into the issues, but adding do-not-reply@archiveofourown.org to your email contacts list will help ensure our messages are treated as legitimate.

Imports & bookmarking from FF.net - Imports and bookmarking of works hosted on Fanfiction.net are currently not possible - see our recent post on FF.net problems for more information.

General Known Issues

Skins

  • Mobile display: We had a big problem when we deployed with mobile displays, because the new mobile skins were not kicking in at all. We've fixed the main part of this issue, so the site is now much more usable on a lot of mobile devices; however, we're still experiencing some bugs with mobile displays, causing button overlays, too much white space, and other oddities. We think that the problem is still related to some parts of the mobile stylesheets not being activated properly: we're looking into it.
  • The skins wizard is behaving erratically and inserting code which messes up other things.
  • Skin: One Point Faux - this skin was designed to implement the old site design on the HTML structure implemented on 2011 November 11. Since then, we've found a number of visual inconsistencies in it. We're working on fixing these errors, but some adjustments need to be tested across all the interfaces.
  • Skin: Archive 1.0 - this is the old skin from before the site redesign on 2011 November 11. It is marginally functional, but its basic structure is incompatible with the new site code, which was adjusted for accessibility reasons. While it may get adjusted in the future, it is probably better to transition to using One Point Faux or Archive 2.0 as a parent skin.

Browser Specific

  • In Internet Explorer: the commas separating tags are not showing up (some versions of IE) or they are showing up too aggressively, giving a comma at the end of every tag even if it's the last tag in the list.
  • Some people are reporting problems replying to comments in IE.

Series

  • Adding an author to a series page isn’t working properly – users need to add the author to a work in the series, then have that author remove their name from the work (it will stay on the series).

Downloads

  • PDF and EPUB downloads may result in an error, especially if it’s the first time the work’s ever been downloaded.
  • IE has an issue with downloading .epub as .zip – the file extension has to be changed manually.


Import work from URL

  • Import from fanfiction.net produces two copies of first chapter: If you import a multichapter work from fanfiction.net, you sometimes wind up with two copies of chapter one instead of chapter one and chapter two. We're looking into this issue!
  • Problems with import from efiction: Imports from some efiction-based sites are producing undesirable results: only some information will be imported, but it will trigger the creation of multiple chapters. We're very sorry abut this - we're looking into it, but right now if you get unexpected results you will need to delete the bad work and post the work manually.
  • Imported works post without preview: Importing multiple works in one go results in them being posted immediately instead of being previewed first. This is a bug and will be fixed in the future. You can work around this for now by importing works one by one.
  • Multichapter importing: Currently, if you import a multichapter work (either from fanfiction.net as a single URL, or using multiple URLs and choosing to import as chapters of a single work) only the first chapter is viewable/editable before posting. After import, you should see a preview/draft of the first chapter, with the story stats displaying the correct number of chapters but no way to access any but the first. Once you post the work, either directly from the post-import preview or from your drafts folder, all the chapters should become visible and editable. We understand this is a kind of a hassle, and we'll be working on this as soon as we can!

Drafts - edits are not retained

  • If you create a new work and save it to draft, then edit the draft without immediately posting, the edits to the draft won't be saved. Drafts are generally not very functional (they just provide an emergency backup in case you get interrupted) - we're planning massive improvements, but in the meantime please be aware they may not function as desired.

Search

  • Search engine does not properly parse hyphens: Normally with search engines the hyphen tells the system to exclude the following terms. However, since so many fandom names include hyphens, our coders are trying to find a workaround. For now, using quotes solves the problem: for example, "X-Men".
  • The Search Works page is sometimes up to a day behind what’s actually in the archive, especially on the “completed” status and number of chapters. Sometimes also a user will post a work or update a chapter order and gets hit by this as well.

Bookmarks - filtering produces works from a different fandom

  • Sometimes, if you choose to filter bookmarks to get, for example, all the bookmarks for a specific fandom, you find that a few works show up which don't belong to that fandom! This is a known bug caused by some slightly overenthusiastic matching from our bookmarks code - we're working on the issue.

Preview - edits not showing

  • Several users have reported a problem with the preview function. Edits are made to a work, but do not show on the preview page. The edits do however show up once the work has been posted. We are investigating the issue.

Redirects

  • Occasionally after commenting or leaving kudos on a chapter users will be booted back to the first chapter or full work, depending on the preferences set.

Comment counts and/or hit counts are off

  • Sometimes, our caching is slow to update and the count for the number of comments on a work or hits on a work gets 'stuck', so while there may be 6 comments on a work the stats at the top say there are only 3 or while there may be 400 views on a work the stats say there are only 200. The comments and hits haven't gone anywhere - it just takes a while for the stats to update. We're working on a fix for this.

User renaming

  • Some users have reported that attempting to rename their account with a different capitalisation (for example, from 'superfan' to 'Superfan') fails with an error saying that the username has already been taken. This appears to be caused by the browser automatically reverting the capitalisation in the 'Desired Username' field if the user has password saving and/or automatic form completion turned on. One solution, if you have another browser available on your computer, is to use it to rename your account. Alternatively, you can try changing your username to something else and then, in a second step, renaming it again to your desired capitalisation of the original name.

Work notifications

  • Missing notifications for 'inspired by': In some circumstances, adding in an 'inspired by' link to a work fails to send a notification to the 'inspiring' author for them to approve the relationship. This happens when you add in the link after the work is posted - we're working on a fix.

Tags

  • Tags are case-insensitive: You may find that when you enter a tag, it defaults to the capitalisation which already exists, which may be different from the one you entered. If you think a tag is wrongly capitalised you can submit a support request and our tag wranglers will look into changing it (subject to internal guidelines).

Tag Filters

  • Filtering on user pseud page: Unfortunately, filtering on user's dashboard produces incorrect results if you filter by two or more tags: it always filters by 'or' even if you have chosen to filter with 'and'. A fix is in the pipeline.
  • Filtering with 'or' picks up too many results: Our 'or' filters are still in the early stages of development, and they current don't respect different categories. This means that if you choose the 'or' option and select 'Star Trek', 'Explicit', 'Mature', you'll get all stories tagged with any of those tags. We're working on totally revising our browse options to make them more useful - please bear with us!

'Set publication date for entire work' not being applied to 'Completed' date.

  • You may have noticed that if you have a work with multiple chapters and you have set a different publication date by selecting 'Set publication date for entire work', that the 'Completed' date is not changed. We're aware of the problem, and are investigating!

Editing Multiple Works

  • Deleting multiple works: Unfortunately, you can't delete multiple works in one go at this point in time - although the option shows up, it's not quite working yet.

Rich Text Editor

  • Disappearing paragraphs: Some users have reported that when they attempt to paste from Word, some paragraphs are 'eaten' and replaced by ordered lists. We're working on a fix!

Collections and challenges

  • Can't add someone else's work to my collection: It is currently possible to add your own work to a collection, but not to invite someone else's work. This isn't a bug - we just haven't built the feature yet. Please bear with us while we finish and roll out the necessary code. In the meantime, you can work around this by commenting on people's stories and inviting them to add themselves to your collection.
  • I still have the option to submit a work to a finished challenge: At the moment, the dates functionality on the challenge settings page is for information only. If you're the owner of a challenge, you have to manually close the challenge at the finishing date.

Forthcoming Features

The Archive is still a work-in-progress, and we'll be introducing a whole bunch of new features in the future. Since the Archive is designed, coded and tested by volunteers, the time it takes to introduce new features varies a lot, but we do listen to your requests and feedback and work to respond to it. If you are interested in helping us turn ideas into a reality, please volunteer to join the Archive team via the OTW's Volunteers page.