Template Generator Error 500

[msfry]

For the past 3 days I have not been able to get the Template Generator to work. I get this message:

This page isn’t working
librivox.org is currently unable to handle this request.
HTTP ERROR 500

When this happened before, having # in the title seemed to be the problem. This time, I made sure I had no extraneous symbols. Any help appreciated.

[TriciaG]

Is it a new author? If so, don't enter anything but numbers in the birth/death years.

EDIT: Or in any other number or year field.

[msfry]

Is it a new author? If so, don't enter anything but numbers in the birth/death years.

EDIT: Or in any other number or year field.

It's a Coffee Break Collection with Various in the author field. The year field has no asterisk so I don't put anything, but used to put Various and it worked.

[TriciaG]

I'm testing this out.

What are you putting for the text source?

Here's what I just got, using the standard (what has been used before) type of title for a coffee break collection, as a collaborative project, with Various as the author and "Various" in the text source field:

Code: Select all

[color=indigo][size=150][b]Coffee Break Collection 021 - Horses, by Various[/b][/size][/color]

[quote]to come (Summary by )[/quote]

[b]Source text[/b] (please read only from this text!): Various

[b]Deadline:[/b] Please submit your recording within 2 months of placing your claim. If you cannot complete the recording within this time, please post in the thread to relinquish your claim or to ask the BC for an extension. If your recording is not completed by the deadline, your claim may be reassigned at the BC's discretion.

[b]Claiming sections:[/b] Look in the Magic Window below for the list of available sections. Post a reply in this thread asking for the section you would like to record.

[b]New to recording?[/b] Please see our [url=https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Newbie_Guide_to_Recording]Newbie Guide to Recording[/url] for further instructions. A quick guide to our required technical settings can be found [url=https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Tech_Specs]here[/url]. When you post your file, please tell the BC what name you would like to use in our catalog.

[b]Prooflistening level:[/b] Standard
Prospective PLs, please see the [url=https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php?title=Guide_for_Proof-listeners]Guide for Proof-listeners[/url].

[color=red]Please don't download or listen to files belonging to projects in process unless you are the BC or PL. Our servers are not set up to handle the greater volume of traffic. Please wait until the project has been completed. Thanks![/color]

[MW]xxxx[/MW]
========================================
This paragraph is temporary and will be replaced by the MC with the list of sections and reader (Magic Window) once this project is in the admin system.

[list]
[*]Project Code: ko3GScKI
[*]Link to author on Wikipedia (if available):
[*]Link to title on Wikipedia (if available): 
[*]Number of sections (files) this project will have: 20
[*]Does the project have an introduction or preface: No
[*]Original publication date (if known): 
[*]If you are a new volunteer, how would you like your name (or pseudonym) credited in the catalog? 
[*]Do you have a URL you would like associated with your name?: 
[/list]
========================================

Genres for the project: Short Stories

Keywords that describe the book: 

========================================

[b]LibriVox recording settings:[/b] mono (1 channel), 44100 Hz sample rate, 128 kbps constant bit rate MP3. See the [url=https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php?title=Tech_Specs]Tech Specs[/url]

[b]Intro to recording:[/b]
Leave 0.5 to 1 second of silence at the beginning.

Say:
[quote]"Section (or Chapter) [i]#[/i] of Coffee Break Collection 021 - Horses. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org." [Optional: "Read by [i]your name[/i]."] "Coffee Break Collection 021 - Horses, by Various. [i]Section Title[/i]."[/quote]

[b]End of recording:[/b]
Say:
[quote]"End of section (or chapter) [i]#[/i]." [Optional, and if not stated in the intro: "Read by [i]your name, city, date[/i]."][/quote]

If you are recording the final section of the book, add:
[quote]"End of Coffee Break Collection 021 - Horses, by Various."[/quote]

Leave 5 seconds of silence at the end.

[b]Filename:[/b] coffeebreakcollection021horses_##_various_128kb.mp3 where ## is the section number. (e.g. coffeebreakcollection021horses_01_various_128kb.mp3)

[b]Upload[/b] to the LibriVox Uploader: https://librivox.org/login/uploader
[img]https://librivox.org/img/login.jpg[/img]
(If you have trouble reading the image above, please contact an admin)

[b]MC to select:[/b] [color=#0000FF]xxxx[/color]

[b]Copy and paste[/b] the file link generated by the uploader into a new post in this thread along with the file duration (mm:ss). Watch this thread for prooflistening notes.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! Just post in this thread.
	

It's really hard to tell why it worked OK for me and not for you. Troubleshooting exactly what went wrong is not easy.

[msfry]

Thanks for trying to help me out. Yes I used Various in both author and text source fields, using both Edge and Brave browsers.
Can you tell what Error 500 is?

[TriciaG]

Essentially, it's a bad character in one of the fields that causes the form to be rejected.

Fixing it is high on the priority list, but no one is working on the list right now.

[msfry]

I downloaded Chrome and using that browser, it worked. But it has worked on Edge so many times before, I PROTEST!!!

[TriciaG]

It doesn't make sense that it would work in one browser and not another, with the exact same input.

Unless the browser is somehow inserting bad characters, that is. Is that even possible?

[redrun]

It is possible, but it seems more likely that if you're copy/pasting anything at all, the "special characters" are in your source. Edge might have stopped automatically removing or replacing them, because sometimes they're actually helpful. Just... not helpful for our generator page, which doesn't understand them.

The good news is, Edge can still remove them for you using the "Paste as plain text" option. If you right-click and paste from the menu, you'll see it just below the regular "Paste" option. If you use the keyboard shortcut to paste, you can add Shift (making it Ctrl+Shift+V) to do the same thing. Some other programs give you the choice this way, while others may be stuck with one version of "Paste" or the other.

An example of "useful" special characters is quotation marks that look different at the beginning and end of a quote. Try typing out a quoted sentence in Word, and you'll probably see it slanting your quotation marks, even without italics. For comparison:

"Left and right" - as typed in the forum
“Left and right” - as typed in Word, then copy/pasted to the forum

It looks... prettier, in Word, but the point is that the quotes from Word aren't the same as the ones I typed in the forum. Word replaced the pair of regular quote-marks with a pair of begin-quote-mark and end-quote-mark "special" characters. They might be pretty, and they might be more readable on a page, but the generator only understands the regular quote-marks.

[msfry]

My issue, redrun, is that the template never generated any code at all (See post above citing Error 500). Nothing to copy and paste. It could be something internal to the generator, but nothing I can fix.

[redrun]

My issue, redrun, is that the template never generated any code at all (See post above citing Error 500). Nothing to copy and paste. It could be something internal to the generator, but nothing I can fix.

Right, I'm with you there.
I was referring to copying and pasting from somewhere else into the template page before you ask it to generate code. If you typed everything into the template page yourself, then you really might have found some new problem with Edge, but if you copied anything into that page before clicking the generate button, then we're probably seeing the same old special-character problem. as described.

[msfry]

My issue, redrun, is that the template never generated any code at all (See post above citing Error 500). Nothing to copy and paste. It could be something internal to the generator, but nothing I can fix.

Right, I'm with you there.
I was referring to copying and pasting from somewhere else into the template page before you ask it to generate code. If you typed everything into the template page yourself, then you really might have found some new problem with Edge, but if you copied anything into that page before clicking the generate button, then we're probably seeing the same old special-character problem. as described.

Hmmm. Well, I do copy and paste as often as possible, like the Wikipedia page address mostly. I will be more careful to notice next time. Thanks.

[redrun]

Then to reiterate the helpful bit: Edge has a "Paste as plain text" option in addition to the regular "Paste" option. Use that, and copy/paste can be used without bringing in special characters by accident.

[msfry]

Then to reiterate the helpful bit: Edge has a "Paste as plain text" option in addition to the regular "Paste" option. Use that, and copy/paste can be used without bringing in special characters by accident.

Got it!

[Sue Anderson]

Michele,
Just so you know you're not the only one, the code generator does not work for me either, when I enter "Various" as the author (for the Short Nonfiction Collection). Have you found a definitive solution to the problem???