The "Help, the generator isn't working!" thread
Posted: August 26th, 2023, 6:49 pm
So, you're looking to start a project. You opened the template generator, and you filled it all out and hit "Next"... and all you got was either a blank screen, or "Error 500".
Here are some things you can check:
1. Make sure that the author is already in the LibriVox database.
Type the author's last name in the "Last name" box, under "Information about the Author(s)". You should see their name and information come up in a list, and clicking on that name should fill in all the other boxes - the author's first name, years of birth and death, and usually their Wikipedia link, too.
If you do NOT see the author's name come up, say so here in this thread. Include any of that information you can find about the author - full name, Wikipedia link, dates of birth and death. An admin will get them added to the LibriVox database, and will let you know when you can try again!
If you DO see the author's name, be sure you click it so that the other boxes are filled, and DO NOT change any of those boxes after that - they are the way the admins entered them.
If you are running a collection by various authors, then enter "Various" as the author's last name, and leave the other boxes blank! Don't put "Various" for the author's first name, date of death, etc., leave them all empty but the last name.
2. Make sure all of the "date" fields have only numbers
These fields should include no letters like BC/AD, no year-ranges like 1901-1902, and no spaces - just digits.
3. Temporarily remove any special characters.
If the title, the summary, or the "summary by" name includes anything other than English letters and numbers, try leaving those out for now. You can re-enter those characters after you've pasted the template into the forum. Examples of things to leave out are punctuation and "special" characters, such as ".*&()%`[]@', and characters with umlauts or diacritics, such as ü or ñ.
You can try leaving the summary and other optional boxes entirely blank, if you still have trouble after removing all the special characters you can find. Some special characters are pretty hard to spot, and could be copy/pasted by accident.
Please post a reply here if you're still having problems!
Here are some things you can check:
1. Make sure that the author is already in the LibriVox database.
Type the author's last name in the "Last name" box, under "Information about the Author(s)". You should see their name and information come up in a list, and clicking on that name should fill in all the other boxes - the author's first name, years of birth and death, and usually their Wikipedia link, too.
If you do NOT see the author's name come up, say so here in this thread. Include any of that information you can find about the author - full name, Wikipedia link, dates of birth and death. An admin will get them added to the LibriVox database, and will let you know when you can try again!
If you DO see the author's name, be sure you click it so that the other boxes are filled, and DO NOT change any of those boxes after that - they are the way the admins entered them.
If you are running a collection by various authors, then enter "Various" as the author's last name, and leave the other boxes blank! Don't put "Various" for the author's first name, date of death, etc., leave them all empty but the last name.
2. Make sure all of the "date" fields have only numbers
These fields should include no letters like BC/AD, no year-ranges like 1901-1902, and no spaces - just digits.
3. Temporarily remove any special characters.
If the title, the summary, or the "summary by" name includes anything other than English letters and numbers, try leaving those out for now. You can re-enter those characters after you've pasted the template into the forum. Examples of things to leave out are punctuation and "special" characters, such as ".*&()%`[]@', and characters with umlauts or diacritics, such as ü or ñ.
You can try leaving the summary and other optional boxes entirely blank, if you still have trouble after removing all the special characters you can find. Some special characters are pretty hard to spot, and could be copy/pasted by accident.
Please post a reply here if you're still having problems!