In response to an uptick in bot activity on By the People last week, our technical team tweaked some of our behind-the-scenes website security measures. Since then, we have heard from quite a few volunteers (including here!) about issues saving and reserving.
To get to the bottom of these issues, we need more information from you! Please respond in below if you have gotten an error message in the last week.
Let us know:
What kind of message did you see (unable to save or unable to reserve page)?
What browser were you using (Chrome, Safari, Edge, other)?
At the time of the error, had you been on the page long?
At the time of the error, what action were you taking?
At the time of the error, had you been saving frequently?
If you do see as save or reservation error, we recommend copying any transcription text into a separate document, reloading the page, and pasting your work back in. You may need to check a Cloudflare box after reload - look for it below the Save and Submit buttons.
I have had both an unable to reserve and unable to save message, it seems the unable to reserve happens more often for me.
I have had this happen on Chrome, Edge and Firefox.
Since the latest issues started, I am usually on a page for 10 - 15 minutes before I see an error.
When I get the error I am usually in the process of transcribing a page.
At first I was not, I would just copy the whole page and refresh it, then paste my work and continue. Since this has been happening, I have gotten in the habit of saving as I finish each paragraph.
My experiences are similar to Peter’s, except I was more often editing during a review than transcribing. At first I was panicked - there was a lot of text there, and it just wasn’t saving! But I did manage to copy and then paste into a reloaded page. And then I started saving more frequently.
What kind of message did you see (unable to save or unable to reserve page)?: Often when refreshing a page OR when entering a page for review I am met with an “Forbidden 403” error (see screenshot below). To get this to go away I must manually copy the url and re-paste it into the browser address field and then hit return - a CTL-R won’t refresh the screen.
What browser were you using (Chrome, Safari, Edge, other)? Chrome and Safari
At the time of the error, had you been on the page long? Usually, yes.
At the time of the error, what action were you taking? Either entering a page for review or CTL-R refresh.
At the time of the error, had you been saving frequently? Not sure. I save a lot more often now since this has been occurring.
I don’t normally linger on a page. I am reviewing sheet music, so each page can go pretty quickly. But I see these messages about every 12 or so pages I review.
I was either trying to reserve a page or save a page.
Had not been saving frequently.
To ensure I don’t lose my work, if I’m unable to save a page I’ve edited, I copy my work, then refresh the page (which wipes out my edits) and then paste. THEN I can save … but the site does send me through a security check every time this happens.
So… here’s some feedback, but the experience was somewhat “tamed” because I was paying better attention to circumstances than if I had been just doing what I normally do.
General– I was reviewing and editing a page with quite a few randomly scattered issues (maybe some bot changes?).
Towards the end, I hopped over to another website for an unrelated reason (could be important? … or not) , but came back to the LOC transcription within 2-3 minutes.
What kind of message did you see (unable to save or unable to reserve page)? "Forbidden 403 / CSRF verification failed. / Request aborted. / More information is available / at DEBUG=True
What browser were you using (Chrome, Safari, Edge, other)? Chrome
At the time of the error, had you been on the page long? 30 minutes
At the time of the error, what action were you taking? Saving, Submitting a page under Needs Review
At the time of the error, had you been saving frequently? Yes, every 2-3 minutes
Also note: After receiving the msg, I returned to the page. All my work was saved and apparently the submission had been accepted, in spite of the 403 msg. The usual “You submitted this transcription…You can reopen it for editing…” msg was there, and the page was no longer in Needs Review, nor had it popped over to In Progress.
When I tried to save documents and submit for review, I got a RED error message telling me I could not save. I was able to circumvent the problem by copying my final work then refreshing the page which would go back to the page BEFORE my edits, then delete the content on that page and paste my edits (which I had copied). That worked. I donot remember whether that was for all types of documents, meaning new transcriptions vs. edits vs. in progress. Definitly a problem for IN PROGRESS documents…
Using Chrome.
Time spent on the page seemed to be irrelevant.
At the time of the error message, I was saving.
No, I only was saving once at most before the final SAVE.
I hope this feedback is helpful. Good luck.
In response to an uptick in bot activity on By the People last week, our technical team tweaked some of our behind-the-scenes website security measures. Since then, we have heard from quite a few volunteers (including here!) about issues saving and reserving.
To get to the bottom of these issues, we need more information from you! Please respond in below if you have gotten an error message in the last week.
Let us know:
What kind of message did you see (unable to save or unable to reserve page)?
What browser were you using (Chrome, Safari, Edge, other)?
At the time of the error, had you been on the page long?
At the time of the error, what action were you taking?
At the time of the error, had you been saving frequently?
What kind of message did you see (unable to save or unable to reserve page)? Unable to reserve this page: error
What browser were you using (Chrome, Safari, Edge, other)? Edge
At the time of the error, had you been on the page long? Yes, a guess would be 20 or 30 minutes. It had been happening after 5 minutes or so for the past few days - but seems to take longer before the error occurs today.
At the time of the error, what action were you taking? Making edits to a long page.
At the time of the error, had you been saving frequently? Yes, after every sentence or so - so maybe every minute or two.
I was using Chrome and had been on the site for about an hour and a half. I saved my work several times, and went to something else on the site for a moment, thinking I could go right back to what I had finished to hit “submit.” I tried finding it again on my profile dashboard, but it wasn’t there. I checked back on the document I transcribed and it showed as though no one had started it yet.
That was from about 12:30 to about 2 p.m. ET on Sunday.
Thank you to everyone who has responded so far - these details are really helpful to our developer who is working on a fix. Thank you as well for the information about your workarounds!
Based on volunteer feedback, if you do see as save or reservation error, we recommend copying any transcription text into a separate document, reloading the page, and pasting your work back in. You may need to check a Cloudflare box after reload - look for it below the Save and Submit buttons.
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