Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

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abzb13
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 15. Aug 2022, 22:18

Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by abzb13 »

1) As of August 14, the program never gets past the first Captcha page on fanfiction.net - I believe they might have updated it again.

2) I suspect that the blank chapter problem is arising from either some property of some advertisements on fanfiction.net, or some new formatting thing - some new fics are fine for even a few dozen chapters, and then one day they upload a new chapter and the random-blank-chapters thing starts happening.

3) I don't know if this is just me, but I am completely unable to log into the bug-reporting site, or register a new account (I have tried from two separate computers).
Chrystalline
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed 22. Jul 2015, 02:01
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Re: Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by Chrystalline »

Can confirm. That's definitely a change to FFN - the popup page looks different (now they're giving us "Did you know?" facts about bots, like we're supposed to be impressed with their security features). It reloads and retries several times, but never gets past the "checking your browser" window. If only they'd put as much effort into improving function as they do barricading access.
abzb13
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 15. Aug 2022, 22:18

Re: Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by abzb13 »

They clearly spent all of their effort researching the most annoying ad layout possible, so as to best ruin the reading experience.
Doranwen
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat 16. Jan 2021, 07:38

Re: Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by Doranwen »

Agreed. It really stinks. I've tried other options which do successfully download fics, but I really like FFDL best and I've saved all my other fics in that format. I can still use FFDL for the one purpose I've not found anything else to do well at (which is to save a specific chapter ONLY from AO3 "fics" where the author posted every ficlet they came up with for every fandom all in one "fic"), but I hope it will be able to conquer ff.n's new attempts at access restriction.

If it weren't that too many authors would complain, it would almost be useful to have a site of all the fics saved via FFDL, hosted so people could download them there and thus bypass using it on ff.net itself as much as possible (assuming that the new "feature" is bypass-able - I see it's listed as a bug to be worked on). But I don't think that would work publicly, only possibly privately. (I'd be in if one existed! I've saved TONS over the years.)
Brook195
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri 16. Sep 2022, 21:19

Re: Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by Brook195 »

Any other options that will let me download stories from FanFiction.net?
shethian
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue 23. Jan 2018, 09:31

Re: Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by shethian »

You can try FicHub. It a slightly different format on file naming and on an epub (that is the only type I download) but will at least download from FF.net.
LSc
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon 19. Sep 2022, 05:22

Re: Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by LSc »

FicHub works, although since it exports from a previous crawl it might not get the latest chapters for whatever story you're trying to download, if it was updated too recently.

FicLab also works--it's what I'm using for the time being--but the file sizes are extremely bloated compared to FFDL. Depending on how much storage space you have on your device, it might not be a feasible option.
Brook195
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri 16. Sep 2022, 21:19

Re: Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by Brook195 »

:D They both work. Thamks!! :D
FicLab
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed 5. Oct 2022, 06:23

Re: Apparent update in fanfiction.net captcha

Post by FicLab »

LSc wrote: Mon 19. Sep 2022, 05:27FicLab also works--it's what I'm using for the time being--but the file sizes are extremely bloated compared to FFDL. Depending on how much storage space you have on your device, it might not be a feasible option.
Hi :wave: - FicLab's developer here. This should not be the case for any format other than mobi; however, mobi files generated with FicLab are larger because they use Amazon's official tool on the backend to do so, which also unfortunately bundles an entire second copy of the original source material inside the output file (hence the larger size).

I have an update pending for the backend stuff which should reduce the size of the mobi files somewhat by changing which tool is used to generate them. That should land sometime before Christmas.

In the meantime, if you are experiencing larger-than-expected filesizes on anything other than mobi, please let me know (ideally via the contact form on FicLab's website) so that I can investigate. FicLab should not be producing unusually large files in any other format.
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