Problem

[blackroses77]

Thanks Kitty and ayrine I will try that when I get home tonight.

[Kitty279]

Ayrine, Flagfic offers a number of different formats, pdf, rtf, html, epub, mobipocket (the later ones for the e-readers). But if you are happy with the other site, good for you

You are welcome, Blackrose!

[ayrine]

Maybe I will try it later, just to see the difference.
thanks Kitty and you are welcome Blackrose.

[ShotgunWilly]

I've tried both flagfic and fanfictiondownloader and I have to say that I really do like FFdownloader. As I remember, it just offers just as many various formats as flagfic (plus word docs and text files, among others), it also has more customization options... The flip-side is that FFdownloader is a piece of software that you have to download whereas flagfic is just a website. FFdownloader has a website-version, but I don't think it works as well.

[ayrine]

Thanks ShotgunWilly, I think I will continue to use FFdownloader and keep the other site as a favorite, just in case.

[blackroses77]

I went to flagfic this morning and found a noticed stating that it cannot connect with ffn or fictionpress and that it was a problem on ffn's side. They have contacted ffn admins but have no idea when the problem will be resolved I just hope it really is just a glitch and not ffn making it so the stories cannot be saved.

[ayrine]

FFdownloader still worked form me right now, I was able to save a fiction from ff.net. So you can use it in the meantime.

[Kitty279]

Saw that notice myself and went to test about an hour or two ago - Flagfic could download a fic from FFN. Might be already solved, who knows. Besides, it's not been the first time I have seen that sort of notice on Flagfic. It happens from time to time.

[blackroses77]

IT WORKS!!!! Woohoo! Flagfic is a lifesaver I was panicking that I wouldn't be able to save stories anymore. Thanks guys for all your help

[ayrine]

You are welcome, glad it's back.

[Kitty279]

You're welcome

*snicker* You sound like me after I discovered them. Before, I had copied everything by copy & paste to a word document, which is alright for oneshots, but can be tiring for long stories. Flagfic made it possible to save not only stories, but loooots of time as well!

Flagfic is rather good at explaining any glitches; if one of the sides they support has problems that last a bit longer than a few minutes, you will likely find one of those notices on their main page, explaining which one is being difficult and that steps are taken.

[Kitty279]

Just had a look at Flagfic, as I wanted to download a story. Look at this news:

PROBLEMS FETCHING FROM FFNET / FICTIONPRESS
As of 2013-10-10 03:00 UTC, FLAG is currently experiencing problems connecting to fanfiction.net and fictionpress.com. The cause of this problem is on their end.
I have contacted their site admins regarding this issue, and hope to have it resolved soon, although unfortunately I am not able to provide an ETA.
Update [2013-10-14 07:25 UTC]: FLAG is currently fetching ffnet stories via additional new infrastructure at another hosting provider. All downloads from ffnet should be working, but please note that recently-posted chapters may not always show up immediately (all chapters will be present in less than ten days after their publication date, often a lot less). Delays will be slowly reduced as the rest of the new infrastructure is set up. This message will be updated again when I have more information.
I would appreciate it if you could complain via [e-mail] or @fictionpress and ask them to please contact me - they have not replied to me via either email or Twitter, and after several days they still haven't fixed the issue on their end which is causing the current connection problems.

Apparently the Flagfic guys don't have any more luck with getting responses than we do. FFN is way too busy deleting stuff ...

Btw, that nice "Silly, silly books series" by iheartwmpp is going to be deleted, too, for 'script format'. And a (great) RtB fic of a friend of mine was deleted for 'being a songfic'. It leaves me wondering if they even look at what they delete, or if they chose the excuse randomly.

[ayrine]

from FFdownloader

"14. Oct 2013: Version 0.8.1 fixes the actual problems on fanfiction.net. ONLY available for windows! (Mac+ Linux will be done within 24 hours)"

You can use it in the meantime.

fanfictiondownloader.net/download.php

Had just tried it and it's working fine.

[Kitty279]

Thank you! Though actually, flagfic worked for me and even fetched the new chapters. But I thought it interesting that they now have to ask their users for help. With previous problems, they seem to have worked them out with FFN pretty fast; it's the first time I have seen them ask something like that. Oh well, somehow I am not surprised, not after my experiences with FFN so far.

[Kitty279]

After making it impossible to copy and paste stories the good old way, it seems FFN is now actually blocking the story download from other sites, too. That's the newest update on Flagfic:

Update [2013-10-15 04:36 UTC]: FLAG is currently unable to connect to ffnet / fictionpress, and it now appears that they are deliberately blocking FLAG's infrastructure, including the new infrastructure which was provisioned this week to work around the issue until it could be sorted on their end. They still have not contacted me, and have not responded to any of my attempts to communicate with them for almost a week.
I am working on an alternative method for fetching stories from those sites which should completely solve the issue, however this requires a significant amount of time on my part to implement - so unfortunately the ETA for that to be ready is near the end of October. In the meantime, I will keep ffnet / fictionpress downloads working as well as possible, however some stories are likely to experience errors, or have one or more chapters missing at the end.
Stories hosted on other sites should continue to work normally, this issue is limited to ffnet / fictionpress only.

FFN is really doing everything in their power to drive me away ...

[ayrine]

Do you think they do it for the Advertisements? So people would go and spend more time on the site web?
Anyway, I just tested mine, it still works for me.

[Kitty279]

Flagfic worked for me when I tried, but that doesn't seem to be a guarantee. As for the ads - for me they would rather be a reason to stay away completely. I think I am going to have to start a little research if I can find the really good stories on other websites, and failing that, I don't know how long I still am going to try out any new stories. Right now, I am really tired of FFN once again. Too much deleted, not just the RtB stories, I don't like the recent changes that much, and now they obviously try to block even the fic-download ...

Hm, just had a look at the main site of FFN, obviously they are now introducing 'true pairing' mode - after extending the main characters to four already. Not sure I like that, though I am sure all the ones who can't live without pairings will be over the moon.

[ayrine]

well they want to earn money.
anyway good luck with your research. Can you tell me if you find a good website, please?
I read they got quite a few complains about the "true pairing" mode, principally from the ones who don't write romance.

[physicssquid]

If you don't want to see ads on FFN, and use Firefox to surf the web, there is an app that will block ads, from all websites. It's called ad-blocker plus, and I think it's brilliant.

[Kitty279]

At home I use Safari, and at work Firefox, but there I can't block anything, they'd kill me if I changed anything. All computers have to have the same settings, right? *rolls eyes* Oh, and Ayrine, to download a story, you still have to go to FFN and copy the URL of one chapter, at least for Flagfic, so the ads aren't an excuse for me. I'd have to see them anyway, save I block them completely.

A friend of mine complained because she had problems with Flagfic and the Fanfictiondownloader, too. Really looks like FFN is trying to block every copying and downloading, even if it's just to read on another device, or to read offline.

[ayrine]

sure you still see the Ads for 5 seconds. But don't they get money for how much you stay online?
I mean if I want to read a fic who has 10 chapters, I would have to stay online for few hours and refresh the Ads for every chapter I go to. Doesn't that make any difference in term of money?
Not sure how it works.

[Kitty279]

Always believed they go by number of hits, not time we stay on, though I can't say for sure. When I was still on dial-up, I copied long stories quickly and then did read offline, though.

But IMO, the current problem has nothing to do with advertising, but the increasing number of people who copy stories, then repost it under their own name as if they had written them themselves. FFN is trying to stop that type of plagiarism - but at the same time is making it impossible to download fics for the honest ones, too.

[melodypottersnape]

It annoys me because I was going to do a fanfic were Naruto and Co. would read a fanfic but it would be their future. So I was going to copy and paste a fic I liked to see if I could even do it before I asked the author. Basically if they said no I would delete it and try another. If they said yes I would hate to disappoint them if I pm'ed them later to tell them that I couldn't do it.

[physicssquid]

OK, even if none of the FF downloaders we use work, there is still a way to get a copy of each chapter of a story. Simply use the browser's save page function, and it will save the entire page. I save page as a txt file, and then copy and paste into my usual word processor. Unfortunately, that does mean that there isn't any formatting, but it is one way to grab copies of stories.

[ayrine]

Oct 16, 2013 11:37:19 GMT -5 physicssquid said:

OK, even if none of the FF downloaders we use work, there is still a way to get a copy of each chapter of a story. Simply use the browser's save page function, and it will save the entire page. I save page as a txt file, and then copy and paste into my usual word processor. Unfortunately, that does mean that there isn't any formatting, but it is one way to grab copies of stories.

Good thinking and you made me realize that if you have Microsoft office 2010, you can edit webpage using Word then you save it. Thanks

[Kitty279]

Oct 16, 2013 7:27:58 GMT -5 melodypottersnape said:

It annoys me because I was going to do a fanfic were Naruto and Co. would read a fanfic but it would be their future. So I was going to copy and paste a fic I liked to see if I could even do it before I asked the author. Basically if they said no I would delete it and try another. If they said yes I would hate to disappoint them if I pm'ed them later to tell them that I couldn't do it.

Do you realise that FFN classifies that still as MST and would delete it?

Oct 16, 2013 11:37:19 GMT -5 physicssquid said:

OK, even if none of the FF downloaders we use work, there is still a way to get a copy of each chapter of a story. Simply use the browser's save page function, and it will save the entire page. I save page as a txt file, and then copy and paste into my usual word processor. Unfortunately, that does mean that there isn't any formatting, but it is one way to grab copies of stories.

Just tried that. While I can save the website itself as either web document or txt, I only can copy the header with the summary, the rest is still copy-proof. Not sure if it's the browser or a general problem.
BUT: Then I opened the chapter on FFN again, and chose to print the site. There, I have the option to save it as a pdf. And that worked, with proper formatting
Of course, one would have to do it for every chapter separately, but better than nothing.

[physicssquid]

I didn't have that problem when I tried it. I was able to save the page as a txt file, then copied what I wanted, without hassle.

[Kitty279]

Might be a browser-related problem. Most websites are mainly designed for IE, I believe, and maybe Firefox and Chrome, while I prefer Safari. Though I might test more with Firefox later. Oh well, in the end we both achieved what we wanted, that's all that counts.

While initially, the fetching via Flagfic did still work, yesterday evening I got always an error message that the story doesn't exist, and Flagfic explained that means that it's still there but FFN is blocking them. Nearly every time I try something is new.

[ShotgunWilly]

I'm on chrome and I haven't noticed anything new in regards to ads, so I guess adblock works.

Also, don't quote me on this, but FFnet may actually have policies against automated downloaders. I've been on other websites with similar policies against botting and the reason is typically due to bandwidth. FFnet has a large amount available, sure, but each page-load takes up a little and a full story can take up a few megabytes at least. That's not much by itself but if a lot of people do it often then there might be a real danger of them maxing out their bandwidth limit which means no FFnet for anyone until either the month ends or they buy more bandwidth.

But that's not really the point here, I think. I read on the FFnet blog that they're going to make this copy-protection optional sooner or later - which is to say that you, as the author, can choose to enable or disable it in your stories. But for now, perhaps while they get the issues worked out, it'll be in effect for everyone.

By the way, FFdownloader still works.

[Kitty279]

There's now a petition to fanfiction.net to remove the annoying ads and bring flagfic back and the like. No idea if it's of any use, but if anyone wants to sign:
www.change.org/petitions/fanfiction-net-remove-the-ads-bring-back-flag