Archive of Our Own ^beta

A lot has happened since our last set of release notes! We've upgraded from Rails 4.2 to Rails 5.1, grappled with login issues, rewritten several bits of code to speed up tag sets and wrangling pages, and fixed a bunch of lingering bugs.

Credits

• Coders: Ariana, cosette, Elz, james_, MaxwellsDaemon, redsummernight, Sammie Louise, Sarken, ticking instant, tuff, Wendy Randquist (Littlelines), Zorac
• Code reviewers: Ariana, Elz, james_, redsummernight, Sarken
• Testers: alamerysl, Alison Watson, Ariana, briar_pipe, Elz, GoldenFalls, james_, Julianna, Katherine, Lady Oscar, magnus, McBangle, Memé, Morgan D, mumble, redsummernight, Rosa V, Runt, Sammie Louise, Sarken

Special thanks to MaxwellsDaemon, who contributed his first pull request as an AD&T volunteer and has completed his training! \o/

Details

Infrastructure

• [AO3-5033] - We upgraded from Rails 4.2. to Rails 5.0 and then spent some time rejoicing (and fixing all the little problems we found in testing).
• [AO3-5034] - After that, we worked on getting us to Rails 5.1, which is the version the Archive is now running on. There was even more rejoicing! \o/
• [AO3-5036] - We also updated our Ruby version to 2.3.4.
• [AO3-5157] - Our logs were causing disk space to fill up quickly, oops. We've changed some settings and made the logs leaner, so that won't be an issue anymore.
• [AO3-5181] - The Nokogiri gem, which is used for extracting HTML from other sites to import works (among other things), was upgraded to version 2.3.0.
• [AO3-4952] - We moved the autocomplete data to its own Redis instance.

Login Extravaganza

• [AO3-5153] - We fixed an existing issue with the login form, which allowed us to re-enable full-page caching.
• [AO3-5158] - For this to work properly, we also re-enabled a feature that keeps your cookies in sync so the caching system knows when you're logged in. Neat!
• [AO3-5171] - Due to a Rails bug outside of our control, people were sometimes getting logged out while trying to leave kudos or a comment, creating a bookmark, or otherwise submitting a form. As a temporary stopgap, we extended the lifespan of our session cookie to 2 weeks, which should help users stay logged in despite the bug.
• [AO3-5160] - After our Rails upgrade, the bug was causing ugly errors, dumping users on a blank page when they were trying to submit forms, and clogging our error logs. We added a special error page to catch these cases and advise users to try refreshing or logging in again.
• [AO3-5169] - When running into this bug while trying to leave kudos (for example, on a work still open in a tab from days ago), nothing happened - no kudos would be given, and no error message would show up. We added the error message here as well, suggesting to refresh and try again.

Works & Comments

• [AO3-5163] - After our Rails 5 upgrade, incomplete works were suddenly showing up in listings of complete works. After some head-scratching, that bug got resolved fairly quickly.
• [AO3-5149] - There was an issue with ePub downloads not opening in iBooks and Calibre due to some faulty code in the file. That's fixed now. (Current issues with ePub files are unrelated and being addressed!)
• [AO3-5042] - In downloaded works, the links for the work creator(s) and the link to leave a comment on the work were broken. We made them absolute instead of relative (and then kicked our servers several times to make the fix stick), so now you should be able to click the link and tell the creator(s) you enjoyed their work! It's the right thing to do.
• [AO3-3300] - Adding a new chapter with the "Post" button after previewing would cause the total chapter number to be set to "?" -- it now preserves the correct chapter number.
• [AO3-2556] - When deleting a comment with replies, a placeholder would stick around so the replies were still, you know, replying to something. However, deleting the replies would not make that placeholder go away. Now it vanishes, as you'd expect!

Tags & Tag Sets

• [AO3-5105] - The way we counted how many times a tag had been used was causing undue stress on our servers, so we made that less stressful for everyone involved.
• [AO3-5178] - Saving a tag set (e.g. when approving nominations for a challenge) would take an absurdly long time, which was apparently due to some suboptimal code which we rewrote to be more on the optimal side. It's now considerably faster!
• [AO3-5176] - We added an index to tag nominations in our database, but it turned out we needed another one for character tags to streamline things more. Done!
• [AO3-5156] - We also greatly improved the performance of some tag-related queries.

Collections & Challenges

• [AO3-5091] - Claiming a prompt in a prompt meme challenge and then deleting your account would make the Claims page error for the challenge mods. /o\ We now display a "claimed by deleted user" placeholder on the page instead.
• [AO3-4748] - On the Unposted Claims page of a prompt meme challenge, the claimed date was hidden beneath the collection icon. It is now aligned properly.
• [AO3-5050] - The page listing all collections created by a user had an incomplete page title that was inconsistent with our other page title formats. It now says "USERNAME - Collections", which is much better.

Misc.

• [AO3-5138] - Trying to reference a non-existent AO3 News post when uploading a translated version (i.e. by putting in an incorrect post ID instead of selecting one of the given options) would lead to an error 500. The interface now preserves all other information that was put in and displays a helpful error message.
• [AO3-5148] - Filtering your inbox (e.g. only showing unread messages) and replying to a comment from the page would lead to an error 500 (while the comment would still post). Now it'll do the thing without throwing a tantrum.
• [AO3-5164] - The little form field that lets you check for your place in the invitation queue had become non-responsive. Now it'll let you know how long you'll have to wait for that invite again.
• [AO3-4533] - The alt text for our main logo was overly verbose, causing problems for screenreaders. It now just says "Archive of Our Own", as it should.
• [AO3-4729] - We had previously implemented a limit for how many times a work can be reported to our Abuse team, and have now added the same limit for profile pages, i.e. users.
• [AO3-5146] - In the Reversi skin, the link text in some of our admin banners was too light and the Close button had a weird white center. That's all taken care of now.
• [AO3-5011] - We've rejigged the top of our FAQ page to make it look a little neater.
• [AO3-5103] - DeviantArt started using https links for their images, causing our import test to fail. We adjusted the test, making it not fail anymore.
• [AO3-5170] - Then DeviantArt changed their image URLs again, breaking our test again. HILARIOUS, DA. Anyway, it's fixed now, so come at us, bro.
• [AO3-3958] - We also added a test to check if titles containing &, >, or < are properly displayed when editing a work and series.

Known Issues

See our Known Issues page for current issues.