Known Issues

Updated 2023-08-21 19:42:23 UTC

These are the major Known Issues that are currently affecting us on the Archive of Our Own. Please also check our official status Twitter, @AO3_Status for updates on temporary issues such as site downtime, slowness, or other problems.

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.

The Archive is still a work-in-progress, and we continue to make improvements. 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.

Jump to:

Current Issues

  • Older devices unable to load the site: Due to necessary updates in the site's security, some older devices may be unable to access the site, getting a message like "could not establish a secure connection to the server". While we previously maintained an insecure version of the site at http://insecure.archiveofourown.org which users on obsolete devices might be able to access, we are not currently able to safely provide this access. We regret the inconvenience.
  • Not getting any emails: We sometimes get reports about missing subscription notifications even when we couldn't see any problems with the mailing queue on our end. In all likelihood, these emails are getting caught in spam filters or blocked by your email provider. Please check your junk mail folder and add [email protected] to your address book to increase chances of successful delivery. You can also follow these unofficial instructions for permitting all emails from the Archive. If you use Gmail, check whether your notifications may be going into your Social folder in the web interface.
  • Recurrent forced logouts: If you are receiving a forced logout error every time you try to log in, try to log in from the Login page rather than from a subpage (such as your Dashboard, a specific works page, etc.)
  • Sorting works returns inaccurate listings: Due to the way works are indexed in search, there can be discrepancies between hits, kudos, comments, bookmarks and date information shown in the work blurbs and the sorted search result. In addition, our pages are heavily cached and it may take a while for updates to reflect across the Archive, which can contribute to this issue.
  • Orphan Account "creator" page shows an error 404: Due to how the creator pages are set up, the Pseuds for the Orphan Account were causing an unreasonable hit to the database. Until our coders are able to deploy a fix, they've directed the profile pages to the 404 response. The individual works are still there, though, and can be accessed directly, as can the main Orphan Account page if you want to subscribe/unsubscribe to it. You can also unsubscribe from your own Subscriptions page if you are unable to load the Orphan Account page.
  • History page has incorrect entries: Some users have reported seeing works they have not viewed in their History. We have found that unofficial scripts or browser extensions are likely causes for this and recommend disabling them one at a time to see if it resolves this issue.
  • Layout is very small/wide on mobile: If you are seeing a desktop layout of the Archive on a mobile screen, please disable "Request desktop site" and any extensions in your browser. If the issue only occurs when you are logged in, you should try reverting your skin to the default by going to https://archiveofourown.org/skins/unset
  • Retry Later message: There are several reasons you might run into a "Retry Later" error. The "Retry Later" message is returned when a particular IP address makes a large number of requests within a single minute. It can happen if you request a password reset multiple times in a row. You might also run into this issue if you are very rapidly making use of search filters and accessing multiple pages very quickly, or have many works open in tabs that all reload at once, or are using an extension or add-on in your browser to open many links. As well, if you're sharing an IP address with someone else browsing the Archive, it might be more likely to occur. Our only suggestion is to slow down, as the block is temporary for each IP and allows requests again after a few minutes.
  • Bookmarks out of order: Bookmarks may not be ordered correctly when sorted by Date Updated. Currently, a change to the privacy settings of a work in a series will cause the work to be treated as if it was recently updated in Bookmarks sorting, even if nothing else was updated. Our coders are working on a fix for this issue.

Posting Works

Rich Text Editor

  • Formatting lost when pasting from some word processors or editors: The Rich Text Editor (RTE) is an external component provided by TinyMCE. The wide variety of possible combinations available across all operating systems, word processors, and Internet browsers makes it impossible to test all permutations, but here are some known problems with the RTE that we are aware of:
    • Google Drive: The way that Drive encodes styles differs from most traditional word processors, resulting in all character formatting and alignment being stripped out when pasting into the RTE. You can make use of the unofficial tool listed here to help preserve your formatting when posting a work from Google Drive.
    • Microsoft Word: While left, right and centered alignment are preserved when pasting from modern versions of Word, justified alignment will not work. Please also note that first-line indents are never preserved.
    If you run into formatting difficulties while posting or need advice on using Work Skins to achieve a desired effect, please refer to our FAQ or contact Support.

Editing Work Data

  • Can't add chapter notes and summary for first chapter: The boxes to enter a summary and beginning and/or end notes for chapter 1 won't appear until chapter 2 is posted. (The summary and notes boxes on the work posting form are for the entire work. In particular this means that any end notes entered here will be work end notes, attached to the end of the last chapter of the work.)
  • Series order not updated: When the order of the works in a series is changed, this change may not be properly reflected in either the work blurb or the summary at the top of the work. Clicking on the series title will show the series in its proper order, but the works will be labeled with the wrong part numbers. The series information at the bottom of the work text is updated correctly. As a workaround, you can fix this by adding a "placeholder" tag to the work and save. This should correct the series order and you can then remove the tag.

Multimedia Embeds

  • Pasting with quote marks: Several browsers are inconsistently converting regular quotation marks to angled smart quotes when pasting in HTML code - for example, embed code - with attributes enclosed in quotes. These smart quotes in the HTML code will be stripped out by the parser, rendering the code unusable and causing the entire embed to be stripped out. You may need to manually go through the pasted code and replace the “smart” angled quotes with "straight" double quotes. You may be able to change this setting in your browser or device's preferences.

Tags

  • Tags are not case-sensitive: When you enter a tag, it defaults to the capitalization which already exists in the database, which may be different from the one you entered. If a tag is non-canonical, the first user to enter that tag sets the capitalization, and tag wranglers cannot change it unless the tag is canonized. If you think a canonical tag is wrongly capitalized you can submit a Support request and our tag wranglers will look into changing it (subject to wrangling guidelines).

Drafts

  • Date Posted and Date Updated are incorrect: Works that are saved as drafts retain the draft's initial saving date when they're posted, rather than showing an updated posting date based on when the draft is actually posted. To change this, you can edit the work to update the posting date to the current day or the day you posted it. Please be aware that due to the Archive using caching to reduce the strain on its servers, it might take some time for the posting order to refresh.
  • Works posted from drafts show blank word count: Sometimes when a saved draft is posted, the work will not display a word count. To correct this, please try clicking "Edit" on the work, and then Saving it (without making any changes to the text). This should cause our systems to re-process the story and publish it with a correct word count. Doing this will not change your story's position on any listing, nor will it send out any additional notification messages.

Importing Works

  • Imports from fanfiction.net or Wattpad.com: Imports of works hosted on fanfiction.net and Wattpad.com are currently not supported, as these sites have blocked the Archive from accessing their site - see this post about FF.net for more information.
  • Imports from other sites: Due to issues with the page layout, our parser is unable to interpret the content on pages from several other sites, including tumblr.com, Quotev.com, and Adultfanfiction.net, as well as files publicly shared at Google Drive/Google Docs, Word Online, and DropBox. This causes the import to immediately fail and generate an "error 500". Our best suggestion is to copy the content directly from the page and paste it into the Rich Text editor.
  • Imports from sites with Age Verification confirmations: The Archive import code is not able to bypass sites' age verification pages. It will return the age verification as content or the import will fail. To import from a site such as Livejournal or Dreamwidth that has an age verification page or pop-up, you will need to temporarily mark your content on the original site in a way that disables the age verification.
  • Multichapter importing: Currently, if you import a multichapter work (either from 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. Additionally, choosing to Edit before posting will cause your work to appear with two copies of chapter 1 and no chapter 2. You can avoid this problem by choosing either "Post" to post directly or "Save Work Draft" to save the work to your Drafts (so you can edit it before posting).

Collections and Challenges

  • Still have the option to submit a work to a finished challenge: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.
  • Signup Summary ignores Optional Tags: Fandoms entered in the "Optional Tags" box of Gift Exchanges (for example, "bucket list" offers) are not factored in when the Signup Summary page is created. Fandoms that have only been requested in this way will not appear in the Signup Summary at all.
  • Works from subcollection not appearing in parent collection: If you created your subcollection first, and had works added to it, and later created a parent collection which you added that subcollection to, the works in the subcollection may not properly show up under the parent collection. You can edit the works (if they are your own) to reindex them and make them show up, or you can submit a Support request for help resolving the issue.
  • Collection name is not appearing as an option: Sometimes recently-created collections or collections that have had their names changed will not show up in the collections dropdown menu when adding works or bookmarks. Unfortunately we have no way of forcing collections to appear in the suggestions box, but typing in the collection shortname (the section after /collections/ in the URL of the collection) and then saving the work or bookmark will add the work or bookmark to the correct collection.
  • Add to collection button is gone: As of March 31, 2023, by default, it is not possible to automatically invite another users' works to a collection. Instead, users can choose to enable the preference "Allow others to invite my works to collections" on their own accounts. If this preference is enabled, the "Add to collection" button will be visible on their works. Creators will receive an email for each new invitation, and the work will not be added to the collection unless the request is approved.

Downloads

  • Large download files fail: Despite the update of our download software, some very large files (such as works over a million words) or files with many images may still fail to download. If this happens, you might try downloading the work in HTML and then converting it to the format that you need. We have also had reports that long works like this can be more reliably downloaded using the free, open-source ebook management software Calibre, which can be found here.
  • ePub fails to update with new chapters: If you download an ePub for a work, and later download a new version of that work once more chapters have been added, the ePub file may refuse to update, since it sees that it already has a file of that name. This error is very commonly reported when using iBooks or some versions of Kindle on iOS devices. Our suggested workaround is to delete the previous version of the file, then download the updated work.
  • Incorrectly transliterated file names: As of Release 0.9.53, our code for generating download file names automatically transliterates languages that use non-Latin alphabets, e.g. Japanese or Russian. We can't control how work titles are transliterated, and since it's an automated process, some results will not be correct. (Previously, however, titles composed entirely of non-Latin characters were blanked, leading to identical file names like "-.epub", so this is an improvement.) The transliteration will only affect the file name and not the contents of the file itself. In particular, titles will still appear correctly in your e-reader or app!

Notifications

  • Notifications about related works don’t go out if the work is posted without preview: If you are creating a new work with "This work is a remix, a translation, or was inspired by another work" ticked, choosing to preview at least once before posting will ensure a notification is sent to the author of the inspiring work.
  • Subscription notifications don't go out for anonymous work if subscribed to creator: If you are subscribed to a creator and also to one of their works that is in an anonymous collection, a bug currently prevents subscription notifications from being sent when the anonymous work is updated. Users who are only subscribed to the work will receive notifications as expected.

Navigating the Site

  • Comments/kudos section of the page does not appear: Some users have reported being unable to see the comments on works, or the kudos that have been left on works. In most cases, this has been traced to an ad blocking extension or tool on their device, such as 1Blocker or AdBlocker. Disabling the ad blocker for this page should resolve the issue.
  • Commenting: 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.
  • Slow "Mark as read" update: Clicking the "Mark for later" button on top of a work will result in a success message, although you might have to wait a while until the work shows up in your history and the button changes into the "Mark as read" button at the bottom. Please keep in mind that due to caching, you might also need to wait up to ten minutes to see it vanish from your History > Marked for Later list once you've marked it as read.

Specific Browser Issues

Chrome

  • RSS feeds displaying as code: Clicking the "RSS feed" link on fandom/relationship/character tag pages will open a page of raw code instead of letting you choose a feed reader to subscribe with. This is a problem with Chrome and not something we can fix on our end. Please consider installing an extension such as RSS Subscription or Feedly, or using a different browser to subscribe to tags.
  • Unable to add notes/series/chapter information to a work: If some elements of the posting form won't open for you when ticking the respective box, it's possible that a browser extension is interfering with the site's Javascript. In particular, some users have reported that disabling the Troll Emoticons add-on took care of the problem, but there could be other extensions that cause similar issues. Please try disabling any browser extensions and try to load the page again.

Mobile Chrome

  • Page lags or has trouble scrolling in mobile Chrome on Android devices: Some users have reported slow loading or difficulty scrolling when using mobile Chrome on Android. Unfortunately at this time we believe this is an issue on the browser side, and recommend using a different browser if the problems persist.

Internet Explorer

  • We cannot provide support for Internet Explorer. We realize that some of our users are forced to use older versions of IE. However, some portions of the site will look broken or behave erratically. If you can, please use a different browser.