Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 34

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Genfixes removing spaces before comments

I rcently discussed AWB General Fixes (Genfixes) removing spaces before HTML (i.e. invisible) comments with Neils51 on his talk page. We agreed to disagree. If I understand Neils51 (an expert on AWB) right, he seems to believe that Genfixes in this case does a valid edit, while I (a lesser editor) believe it does wrong. He nevertheless suggested I should discuss it here to obtain consensus.

Genfixes seems to automatically remove all spaces placed immediately before HTML comments. It seems to assume that spaces before such comments result in unwanted white-space. Indeed MOS:COMMENT advises to check for unwanted whitespace when adding HTML comments. This may happen under some circumstances but not always.

Help:Whitespace (I thank User:1TWO3Writer, who pointed me to this page) recommends to avoid all whitespace (in particular spaces) before an HTML comment. It looks as if Genspaces implements that recommendation, but as a HELP is not MOS, this is compulsory.

In Antoine Hamilton I added HTML comments on some of the Help:List-defined references. For example, I started a definition of a citation from Corp's article on Antoine Hamilton in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in a line reading:

<ref name=Corp2004a766lc38> <!-- Anthony Hamilton, ODNB -->

Running Genfixes changed this to:

<ref name=Corp2004a766lc38><!-- Anthony Hamilton, ODNB -->

removing the space. I find that this edit makes the code less readable. The space does not create an unwanted whitespace in the text.

WP:AWBRULES prescribes "You are expected to review every edit, just as if you were making an edit using Wikipedia's edit form when editing by hand." Edits made with Genfixes are not excepted nor are edits that do not impact on the text ("cosmetic" or "inconsequential" edits). I believe that according to the AWB rules this edit should not be made. Best would be when Genfixes would make such fixes only if they introduce unwanted whitespace. Second best is that the AWB-operator undoes such fixes. Besides, Genfixes also has a bug "Genfixes removes comma from quoted date", which was logged on Phabricator as T236729 by Tom.Reading on 28 October 2019. It also results in edits that should be reverted by the AWB operator. With thanks and best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Based on a quick experiment, I think removing the space is not necessarily harmless. If the HTML comment is not immediately followed by a space but some plain text, this genfix will remove a, often syntactically important, space. David Brooks (talk) 19:27, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Any option Bot menu in AWB tool

any other approval for to activate the bot menu with time or this option was removed. IJohnKennady (talk) 14:08, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

@IJohnKennady: Hi. I'm not sure if you are asking that: only the accounts with a bot flag (which are listed in "enabledbots" section of the Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageJSON) get the bot menu/options. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:18, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

@IJohnKennady: In order to run bots (AWB or otherwise) on the English Wikipedia, you have to request approval at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval. GoingBatty (talk) 02:08, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

False positives.txt not appearing

Hello, I was unsure about reporting this as a bug because that felt a little presumptuous. I just tried clicking on the "False" button, but the False positives.txt file was never created (yes, I'm checking it in the same directory where AutoWikiBrowser.exe is located). I even tried creating it "manually" so see if AWB would update it, to no avail. Victor Lopes ^Fala!•C 20:06, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

@Victor Lopes: I've tried this and then asked Windows to search for the file. It's at C:\Users\<myname>\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\False positives.txt -- John of Reading (talk) 20:37, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Indeed! It was there all along. I wonder why. Thanks a lot! Victor Lopes ^Fala!•C 00:47, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

How does "Wiki search" differ from the search bar on Wikipedia?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T346478

The manual seems to suggest that the "Wiki search" is similar to searching on Wikipedia. I think I am overlooking something though because I get very different results. For example, I can search for insource:"{{refbegin|3}}{{legend" here and get 96 pages to fix: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%22%7B%7Brefbegin%7C3%7D%7D%7B%7Blegend%22&title=Special%3ASearch&ns0=1

If I run the same input through AWB, it gives me well over a thousand results. I can see that I'm typing something wrong, but I don't know what? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ(talk) 07:20, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Personal opinion. I never use AWB search, because it can return weird results. For example, I get more than once some results for particular search in all namespaces, and much more results if constraining the same search for the articles only. IKhitron (talk) 19:58, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

A quick trace suggests that AWB is submitting two different search queries, with the vertical bar inappropriately treated as a separator (which also results in unbalanced quote marks). The second therefore searches for 3}}{{legend" and returns every page with both the number 3 and the word legend, the braces being treated as grayspace. I don't know why the first part returns no hits. I suspect insource:/\{\{refbegin\|3}}\{\{legend/ would work, although you seem to have fixed the 96 by now. David Brooks (talk) 02:44, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks to both of you. I discovered that JWB took the search query at face value and was able to resolve my issue that way. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ(talk) 03:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

BTW, even if this is fixed, note that grayspace handling in wiki search means that your search string could just as well been insource:"#refbegin#3#legend". Use the (slow) RE version for precision. David Brooks (talk) 18:58, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Using the tool

Hello,

I recently found out I no longer use AutoWikiBrowser when 2FA is active by receiving an error, "Failed". When I turned it off, there was no problem. But, to use AWB, must I deactivate the 2FA? Or there is something I am missing. --Victor Trevor (talk) 12:17, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

@Victor Trevor: The instructions you need are at Wikipedia:Using AWB with 2FA. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:27, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Kudos

I think this is a fantastic tool for doing repetitive work across hundreds to thousands of articles. My most recent use is in the area of re-stubbing articles so that specific stub categories can be reduced in size, replaced by "manageable" sized categories. Without this tool, many mass-action stub-related and category-related edits would be nigh on impossible. There should be some recognition of this tool for its utility. Thank you. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:08, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ceyockey: Agreed! See this for one recognition received by AWB. GoingBatty (talk) 01:28, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Start button does not work

A screenshot to illustrate my problem

Maybe I've been reading the instructions wrong, but after I create a list, configured all the options and click start, nothing happens except for the text on the bottom left corner which says "Restarting in n" (n is a changing number). Is there anything wrong with what I'm doing? ¹⁴¹Pr {contribs} 07:29, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Praseodymium-141, it will typically loop on restart if you don't have an internet connection. Assuming you do, can you, via the 'file' tab, logout and back in successfully? Neils51 (talk) 12:12, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I can log back in successfully, and I can access the internet, which means that I have a working internet connection. It still does this though. Could it be to do with VirtualBox? (I'm working from my Mac, I should've said that earlier) I have put a screenshot here. ¹⁴¹Pr {contribs} 13:13, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Might need comment from someone with a MAC who has this combination working. I'll just throw in; .NET, firewall, port forwarding... for fun. Neils51 (talk) 10:11, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Just a shot in the dark, but this is reminiscent of late 2019 when the wikipedia servers started requiring TLS 1.2 (or better) for API connections, and that needed an obscure setting (at least in my software) to change the default security protocol setting in .NET 4.5. Is it possible the Mac network stack is still ending up using a pre-TLS 1.2 protocol? (forgive the flagrant hand-waving.) Can you use a debugging proxy and inspect the first AWB connection to the servers? David Brooks (talk) 00:37, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

What is the MacOS version? Neils51 (talk) 23:41, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

MacOS Ventura I think... I'm not near my mac right now. ¹⁴¹Pr {contribs} 07:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

There seem to be issues with certain permutations. Need version info. MacOS, 13.x?, VirtualBox, 7.xx?, Windows? Familiar with Wireshark? Neils51 (talk) 11:27, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Can AWB do... ?

I've been back to using AWB after a long absence, and it continues to work great. I was wondering though if the current software can do the following things or can be modified with a module or plugin to do them:

1. Skip a specific named typo check (I manually skip ones I don't feel comfortable with, but not showing them to me in the first place would speed up my typo checking a lot).
2. Set watchlist expiry upon on saving an edit (I'd like to watch articles I edit for a few days like I can do using a script when editing on the Wikipedia website).

Thanks for any ideas. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:14, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

@StefenTower: Unfortunately not. GoingBatty (talk) 01:25, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

@StefenTower: for #1, you can take the regex(s) of the rule(s) you wish to avoid, and put them (carefully) into AWB's skip-if-contains field, or create separate find-and-replace rules for them, then pre-parse your master list to find only those few pages changed, then remove them from your master list.

You should put in a feature request for #2 at WP:Phabricator; that sounds useful.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:12, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

#2 goes hand-in-hand with m:Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Watchlists/Preference to set default watchlist expiry. AWB and similar tools could respect the default if there were one; I don't think this would even require any coding (just continue to omit the API parameter). Certes (talk) 11:50, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Virus?

I tried starting AutoWikiBrowser on my computer but my antivirus blocked it with the message "Virus detected W32/Exploit.gen". Does my antivirus software suffer from paranoia or is it a problem with the latest release of AutoWikiBrowser? Hubba (talk) 12:01, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

@Hubba: AWB version 6.2.1.0 was released over two years ago, and doesn't generate any antivirus messages for me. I suggest whitelisting AWB with your antivirus software. GoingBatty (talk) 14:02, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

AWB is Broken

So I keep getting a network error "The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel" Any clue why it's doing this?

When I try to refresh, it tells me to check my internet and see if my wiki is online even though I know for a fact that neither of these should be an issue 2601:5CB:C080:18D0:85D:2ED4:8637:C42F (talk) 05:56, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Were you using AWB to edit English Wikipedia or some other wiki? You don't seem to be logged in. Certes (talk) 09:07, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Because I’m not trying to use it here, I’m trying to use it for a Fandom.com wiki. I don’t even have an account here. 2601:5CB:C080:18D0:C115:3A0C:7CAC:F887 (talk) 22:34, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

If you're using Fandom then you should be looking for help there instead of on Wikipedia. —Panamitsu (talk) 22:39, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

You think I haven't tried to? The reason I came here was because I've gotten no help from Fandom. 2601:5CB:C080:18D0:485B:53CB:3DC6:EF03 (talk) 23:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

In order to use AWB here, your username must be added to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageJSON. Which Fandam.com wiki are you trying to edit? Does the Fandom.com wiki have a similar requirement? Do other editors of the wiki user AWB? GoingBatty (talk) 03:13, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Re: some of the responses so far, in all fairness, this is the home of AWB. On the other hand, initially mentioning the platform it is being used on would have moved the matter more expeditiously. At any rate, my question is... Have you used it on Fandom successfully before, and thus is this a new issue, or is this a first-time use? If it's first-time use, I'd check to see if you've jumped through the hoops Fandom has set up for its use there. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 02:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

To answer both sets of questions in order: I am using it on the Digimon Wiki, my account is in the link, at least two of my fellow admins use it, and I was using it for a while after some initial trouble starting. 2601:5CB:C080:18D0:485B:53CB:3DC6:EF03 (talk) 03:21, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

That link didn't work for me, but I found this link - same? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 03:44, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes. 2601:5CB:C080:18D0:485B:53CB:3DC6:EF03 (talk) 05:25, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

One admittedly unlikely circumstance that could cause the breakage would be (a) you are using a fairly old version of AWB (b) the wiki was recently upgraded to require TLS1.2 level encryption. That's if you are using Windows. If you are on a Mac, see above for a possibly different cause, still unresolved. David Brooks (talk) 14:02, 11 October 2023 (UTC) ETA: AWB and OS versions, and Mediawiki version if you know it, are always useful. David Brooks (talk) 14:27, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I thought I had the most recent one, I just downloaded it less than a month ago, I’m on Windows 7 but only because there’s not much point shelling out for like Windows 10 when it’d be cheaper to just get a new computer. 2601:5CB:C080:18D0:ED4B:2AB7:A9BF:3D4E (talk) 19:29, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

That should be the most recent version, and it supports Windows Vista or later. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:57, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm guessing the Mediawiki version is irrelevant in this case, as his fellow admins are apparently using AWB without the same issue (unless I'm reading this wrong). Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:43, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

New question. Per [1], might you be using a device managed with on-premises MDM (mobile device management)? If so, that could be the stopper. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 23:44, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

At any rate, it seems to me that the TLS-related problem you're experiencing would be the same if you were using AWB on Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project, as they require TLS 1.2. So, this likely boils down to some difference between you and your fellow admins about how you're connecting, through some kind of on-site management, or perhaps some really old equipment (particularly regarding the age of firmware inside them) being utilized in the line of connection. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:34, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

If none of the above applies, note that Windows 7 doesn't support TLS 1.2 by default. Here is how to fix that. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:50, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that fix would be relevant. The doc says "This update will not change the behavior of applications that are manually setting the secure protocols instead of passing the default flag." AWB current source sets the protocols in all (I think) the appropriate places:
ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol |= SecurityProtocolType.Tls11 | SecurityProtocolType.Tls12; David Brooks (talk) 03:12, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable and certainly lowers the odds of their Window 7 setup being the problem. But if nothing else can be found to have caused the issue, I don't think it would hurt to update their Windows 7. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 03:40, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I just updated earlier tonight though and the problem persists, the fix suggested didn't seem to do anything either I'm afraid. 2601:5CB:C080:18D0:1581:26A1:9D7F:13EF (talk) 03:59, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

So you were, "using it for a while after some initial trouble starting" and with respect to AWB, "I just downloaded it less than a month ago". Therefore is the current version of AWB the only version you have ever used? Does your "using it for a while" mean less than a month? How often do you reboot your Win7? When you say that "I just updated earlier tonight", does that mean you installed SP1, or have you always had SP1 installed? Something changed. If you didn’t install software and no other change occurred then I would have suggested rebooting your router/network equipment and/or Win7. Sometimes reviewing your system logs at/or around the time you first experienced the error can help. Neils51 (talk) 07:45, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I was barely started using it at the tail end of September when it stopped working the 6th of this month. And SP1's already installed and as far as I know, there's no reason this should be happening. 2601:5CB:C080:18D0:6491:AC9F:64D1:DCCE (talk) 04:26, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Have you tried connecting through a different network? Either something changed in your line of connection or Fandom made a change that not all client computers can tolerate, likely related to the error message you received. Ultimately, you may have to contact Fandom to sort this out. We have no way to see how you're connecting but they do. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 04:45, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Regex speed: find-and-replace vs. C#

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T350636

I decided to compare the speed of a find-and-replace rule with the identical rule in C#, both run on German Empire, thinking C# would be somewhat faster. I've found the exact opposite, however.

The following find-and-replace rule:

Find:

(\=+\s*(?:(?:Foot)?Notes|Further reading)\s*\=+)((?:\s*\*?\s*\{\{\s*(?:Wik[it]|Commons|Reflist|Refbegin|Refend|notes?list|notes|cit[ea])[^\}]*\}\}\.?|\<references\s*/\>|\s*\<ref +name[^\<\>]+/\>|\s*\<ref +name[^\<\>/]+\>[\d\D]*?\</\s*ref\>|\s*\</\s*ref\>|\s*\}\}|\s*\<\!\-\-\s*(?!\{\{(?:Wik[it]|Commons))[\d\D]*?\-\-\>|\s*?[\r\n]+[ 	]*\*[^\r\n]+)+)(\s*=+\s*See also\s*=*(?:(?:\s*\{\{(?:Portal|C?Commons|C ?cat|cc(?=\s*[\|\}])|Wik[it]|(?:col *div|colbegin|cols|div *2col|div *col *begin|div *col *start|div[ -]*col|divbegin|divided *column)[^\{\}]*\}\}[^\{\}]+\{\{\s*(?:col * div *end|col *end|div[ -]*col[ -]*end|div *end|end *div *col)|Columns\-list)[^\{\}]*\}\})*))((?:\s*\*(?:\s*\{\{\s*cite[^\{\}]+\}\}|[^\r\n]+))*)

Replace with:

$3$4

$1$2

with "Regular expression" checkbox checked, the others unchecked, "Apply No. of times" = 1, and nothing in the "If" tab, took an average of 64.75s to run over 4 runs (66, 65, 64, 64s).

The following C# module code, however, has been running (hanging), for over 30 minutes:

public string ProcessArticle(string ArticleText, string ArticleTitle, int wikiNamespace, out string Summary, out bool Skip)
{
	Skip = false;
	Summary = "Summary";
	string regex = @"(\=+\s*(?:(?:Foot)?Notes|Further reading)\s*\=+)((?:\s*\*?\s*\{\{\s*(?:Wik[it]|Commons|Reflist|Refbegin|Refend|notes?list|notes|cit[ea])[^\}]*\}\}\.?|\<references\s*/\>|\s*\<ref +name[^\<\>]+/\>|\s*\<ref +name[^\<\>/]+\>[\d\D]*?\</\s*ref\>|\s*\</\s*ref\>|\s*\}\}|\s*\<\!\-\-\s*(?!\{\{(?:Wik[it]|Commons))[\d\D]*?\-\-\>|\s*?[\r\n]+[ 	]*\*[^\r\n]+)+)(\s*=+\s*See also\s*=*(?:(?:\s*\{\{(?:Portal|C?Commons|C ?cat|cc(?=\s*[\|\}])|Wik[it]|(?:col *div|colbegin|cols|div *2col|div *col *begin|div *col *start|div[ -]*col|divbegin|divided *column)[^\{\}]*\}\}[^\{\}]+\{\{\s*(?:col * div *end|col *end|div[ -]*col[ -]*end|div *end|end *div *col)|Columns\-list)[^\{\}]*\}\})*))((?:\s*\*(?:\s*\{\{\s*cite[^\{\}]+\}\}|[^\r\n]+))*)";
	ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, regex, @"$3$4" + "\n\n" + @"$1$2", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
	return ArticleText;
}

There are no @, ", ; characters in the regex that need to be escaped, and "Skip if no changes are made" was checked for both runs.

Does anyone know why this is?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:44, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

For the record, I can reproduce this result: on my Surface 7, 46 seconds for the find/replace method, and still hanging after 3 minutes for the module code. But the C# method took me 44 seconds in a code snippet independent of any AWB context so, as you probably suspect, there's something odd in the way the module is processed. David Brooks (talk) 18:52, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

@Reedy: given what DavidBrooks said, is this a feature or a known/fixed bug (i.e. should I create a phab ticket for this)?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:43, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, I ran it under the debugger and now I'm even more confused.

First, the debugger (apparently) decompiles the module code and it turns out it's been optimized (e.g. the last two lines are coalesced, and the @"" version appears as a regular string with escaped \'s). Your version hangs on the assignment of string regex, not on executing the Regex.Replace. Hm, is it too long for either the compiler or the framework? So I chunked the long string and used concatenated literals... and now the string assignment goes through but the regex replace call now hangs. Using String.Concat is optimized to the same thing. Using StringBuilder to join the chunks also hangs in the conversion to a string. Creating a Regex object from the long string doesn't help. Not a solution to your problem, I'm afraid, but just more puzzles.

Maybe it's a C# 3.5 thing, but the decompiled code looks correct. BTW it's my local build of AWB using Framework 4.8.1 (so it's not a 4.5 problem). David Brooks (talk) 20:58, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

For those who, like me, found the above conclusion barely credible, I dug a little deeper into the low level code. Turns out that the compiler optimizes out the assignment to ArticleText, but the JITter optimizes out the assignment to the regex string and drops the string directly into the Replace call, which of course contains the hang. It looks like the VS debugger isn't too good at following run-time compiled code. So now I'm beginning to suspect that the fault lies in the version of the assembly (System.Text.RegularExpressions.dll) that contains the Regex class. It's possible, I suppose, that the compiled code binds to an older version of the Framework and that is responsible for the hang, while the find/replace version uses the runtime (Fx 4.5) built into AWB, but here we're at about the limit of where I can figure out runtime CLR bindage. In any case, there may not be a ready solution that AWB could implement. BTW, I did try hacking the source to use v4 of the language, but that didn't help. David Brooks (talk) 14:37, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

If a regular expression takes more than a couple of seconds to run on wp-article lengths of text then it will be due to catastrophic batcktracking. That's not an issue with AWB or C#, it is a fundamental limitation of how regular expressions work. Backtracking can sometimes be resolved in 10s of seconds or minutes, but it could take years on a sufficiently long input string (as it's an exponential issue). I can't really make sense of the large regex expression given, what I'd suggest to do is separate it into smaller parts and identify which clause or clauses are backtracking, then see if you can adjust them to avoid the issue.

If you are able to write a module you will probably find it is faster to find candidate text with simple regexes, then do your negative checks/exclusions on only those strings of text matched, and proceed to replace if no exclusions found i.e. breaking things down rather than one very large find/replace with lookaheads etc. That way any backtracking is limited to a very short string not the whole text of a wp article etc. Rjwilmsi 18:23, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but if it is timing out due to backtracking, wouldn't that also apply to the identical RE presented in the Advanced Find/Replace dialog? That does finish in under a minute for Tom and me. BTW, on a rainy Sunday I managed to hack AWB so that the run-time compile would use the same compiler (and System.dll) as I used to build the executable itself, in case there was some inconsistency in the details of string management, but no help. David Brooks (talk) 20:06, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, I noodled on this and found a fix. But (a) It's a source code fix; I haven't yet figured out whether the RE can be tweaked to compensate (b) I have no idea why it makes a difference (c) I have no idea if it would introduce regressions. Code in T350636.

tl;dr: during page pre-processing, AWB normalizes line endings from \r\n to \n before running the rule, but not before running the module (which comes first). Making that normalization happen before running the module restores the expected 40-50 second runtime. David Brooks (talk) 22:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Provinces of Italy

Could you, kindly, use a bot to make all "Provinces of..." into "provinces of..." (with a lowercase initial)? It is correct in lowercase, almost all sources, whether in Italian, French or other languages write "provinces" with a lowercase initial. To make it clearer, as in the "Province of Pordenone" page and not as in the "Province of Rovigo" page. Thanks in advance. JackkBrown (talk) 14:44, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: Already posted at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks#Provinces of Italy. Let's keep the discussion there. GoingBatty (talk) 15:06, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Need help with AWB

Hi, on this page, Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/History, I am trying to put the events prior to 1945 in the late modern section and the events after 1945 in the Contemporary section. I was hoping that someone can provide me with step-by-step instructions on how I can sort the events using AWB. Thank you. Interstellarity (talk) 14:20, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure AWB is the best tool (outside of generic section ordering) for chronologically re-sorting or similarly rearranging content on a page. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 20:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@StefenTower What would be a better tool to use besides AWB? Interstellarity (talk) 00:50, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Manual labor. :) Seriously, this is just one page being edited, and sometimes editing can be tedious. There's not always a tool to help us. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:58, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Maybe Excel. Neils51 (talk) 02:51, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

This does not look like a job for AWB. The information is simply not on the page: good luck guessing which section Great Recession goes in without reading the article. Perhaps you could split Modern and Contemporary into separate sandboxes, use a tool such as PetScan or Quarry to see which pages linked from each sandbox have a Category: containing four digits that are a year in the wrong era (beware: "Category:1940s whatever" may be either) and move them by hand. Theoretically, a complex AWB module might be able to do this; in practice even the ablest programmer could do it much quicker manually. Certes (talk) 09:48, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Auto saving changes to multiple pages

Hi. I'm trying to edit some repetitive text out of some files on Wikimedia Commons. Unfortunately there's thousands of instances of it. So I'm going through individual folders to edit each file which I don't necessarily have a problem with, but if I load all the files into the pages list and click save it only edits a single file at a time. So is there a way to batch save the edit to all the files in the list without having to click save thousands of times? Otherwise I'm going to have to click save 65,000 time, which I rather not do if I can just do all the edits at once. Thanks. Adamant1 (talk) 03:01, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

@Adamant1: Hi there! You could consider creating a bot. Instead of clicking save each time, you'd load the list and the bot would click save once every 10 seconds based on the rules you set up in AWB. GoingBatty (talk) 05:11, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I'll have to look into that. I'm not really up on how to create bots but it's better then nothing. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:09, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

There are people with bots who will often accept requests, handle the coding, approval process, testing, etc., if you have a well-formed proposal such as a tested AWB setup. Go to WP:BOTREQ. Dicklyon (talk) 19:13, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Vital and bannershell

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T330170
Resolved

Please see this discussion with User:Primefac about a problem with the placement of WP:VITAL. It was concluded long ago at WP:TALKLEAD that Vital Wikproject is included in the banner shell. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:55, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Thanks for the update - I've reopened the AWB request in Phabricator. GoingBatty (talk) 14:04, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:08, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: This request has been kindly resolved by Rjwilmsi. Now we just need a new version of AWB. GoingBatty (talk) 18:33, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks all (even if it's Greek to me :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I could use the new AWB release, as a while back, I had done some cleanup of talk page banners with this incorrect moving out of vital from the banner shell. Any word on when the new release is coming out? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 18:41, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Last version was released 2021, so don't hold your breath. --Trialpears (talk) 21:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Fully aware of that as I'm a long-time user of AWB, but there had been rumblings about a new release recently. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:17, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Hatnote error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T293603
Resolved

Apparently, in this edit, AWB moved the "hatnote group" shell below the actual hatnotes (rather than surrounding them), leaving an error message on the page. Can this be fixed to avoid repetition? BD2412 T 01:31, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

@BD2412: see above @ #GENFIX error - it's fixed in the sandbox, but still pending a version update.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  02:00, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Understood, thanks. BD2412 T 02:08, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Question

Why should editors request permission for AutoWikiBrowser? Should the application be open without registering? Toadette ^{(let's chat together)} 11:33, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@ToadetteEdit: Using AWB makes it easy to vandalize a large number of pages very quickly. Requesting permission gives the admins the ability to look at a user's contribution history and confirm they're here to build an encyclopedia before granting access. GoingBatty (talk) 16:52, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

GENFIX error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T293603
Resolved

In this diff, AWB's GENFIX set messed up an implementation of {{hatnote group}}. Could this be fixed to resolve the error? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:38, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

I have run into that error as well. What I saw was when AWB seeks to replace a redirect to the template, it ungroups the contents and places the {{hatnote group}} template separately beneath what it had previously grouped. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 04:46, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

It was logged as a bug a couple of years ago. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:52, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

@Sdkb, StefenTower, and John of Reading: I received an email this morning that Rjwilmsi has fixed this issue.

@Rjwilmsi: What are the plans to release an updated version of AWB with this fix (and hopefully resolve a few more bugs beforehand)? Thanks!

You would need to arrange with Reedy if you think a new AWB release is worthwhile. Rjwilmsi 17:55, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

I find it weird that AWB releases seem to be done in giant versions, rather than small updates automatically pushed out. The latter seems the more modern approach. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:00, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

@Reedy: Could we please have an updated version of AWB soon (hopefully with a few more resolved bugs)? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:27, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

@Rjwilmsi: Is Reedy the only one who can release a new version of AWB? Reedy hasn't been very active here lately. GoingBatty (talk) 22:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Effectively yes. I can do local builds but on my setup (MonoDevelop/Linux) I can't do a full clean build as Reedy has updated the AWB solution to use C# reference libraries etc. that MonoDevelop can't (yet) handle. Also the AWB release process requires changes to admin-protected pages to update release versions. If Reedy doesn't respond then I suppose I'll have to get Visual Studio set up on a spare Windows machine so I can do a full build and then hopefully we can find another admin to get the AWB version page updated. Rjwilmsi 18:27, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

This certainly points to a systemic issue. AWB ideally should be converted to an online tool (rather than a program you have to download) that can be updated constantly whenever there is a fix needed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:21, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

@Rjwilmsi: Reedy (talk · contribs) hasn't been online since 1 October, and not very often all year. I reached out to Reedy on #AutoWikiBrowser ^connect, but didn't get a response, so any help you could provide would be appreciated. GoingBatty (talk) 03:30, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

It would be nice if we can figure out a way to share build duties at least, and have more regular releases. I'm a former software developer and would like to see if I can build it, but only if all the required tools are free. That is, is Visual Studio Community enough for the task? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:41, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm also a software developer, but Java rather than C#. Regardless, I'm trying to follow the instructions here. After getting through Microsoft's gross privacy-invading processes to download an old version of Visual Studio, I now have it installed. (It was by comparison much easier to install TortoiseSVN.) I've now started VS and opened the AWB project, but I don't know what this instruction means - "When the IDE has loaded, select release rather than debug (next to the green forward arrow).". If anyone can enlighten me, that would be much appreciated. Cheers, Kiwipete (talk) 02:48, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Pending changes

On Turkish Wikipedia, Flagged revisions is actively used on all articles. I do not want AWB to make changes to pages with Pending Changes. Is this technically possible? Sadrettin (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Template:Double soft redirect being deleted

Template:Double soft redirect is in the process of being deleted per Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 December 12#Template:Double soft redirect. Apparently, AWB is set up to bypass redirects pointing towards it as a uncontroversial maintenance task, so informing this page in the event AWB needs to be updated. Steel1943 (talk) 02:07, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

We really should have automatic detection of past TfDs for discussions like this. If the arguments from the previous discussion had been raised I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been kept. --Trialpears (talk) 02:18, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

...Speaking of which, I totally forgot that I was the nominator for the previous discussion that looks like took place 7 years ago. Can't speak for the current WP:CCC situation though. Steel1943 (talk) 19:02, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Request feature: Make list of user file uploads or user created articles

In the current version of AWB 6.2.1.0, I do find Make List of "User contribs", which is nice.

But for Wikimedia Commons a "User uploads", and for Wikipedia a "User created" would be extremely handy options to alow to get the list of files uploaded by a user, or pages created... This functionality seems to be missing? I assume it could very easily added? Geertivp (talk) 19:33, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

@Geertivp: Hi there! You can use the "filing a new task" link above to request a feature in AWB. Note that there hasn't been a new official release in over two years, so you may want to seek out alternate solutions while you're waiting. GoingBatty (talk) 21:48, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, can you be more explicit? I don't see a new "filing a new task" link, or "feature request button" on this page? Geertivp (talk) 00:04, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

The "Filing a new task" link is in the first box under the Before you post section. When you land on the phabricator "New Generic Task" page there are links to the Feature Request form (I don't think there's a button). David Brooks (talk) 02:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks... task T354110 created. Menu was well hidden... :-) Geertivp (talk) 09:18, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I've been trying to think of a way you can generate a list that can be then fed into AWB. The best I could find, so far, is using this tool to generate a list of pages you created, with "View as wikitext" checked. Then copy and paste all that into a text editor to whittle down to a raw list. If you need pointers on how to do that part, I can help there too. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 20:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

You can also save that Pages Created tool's wikitext list somewhere, e.g. to Special:MyPage/my articles, then you can use PetScan to get a raw list of those links: [2] 1) change User:Me/sandbox in the Templates&links tab to your list's location, 2) check Plain text in the Output tab, 3) click "Do it!" and 4) Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C on that page. This same method also works for file uploads; you only have to change to the file namespace in that Pages Created tool and in the "Page properties" tab in PetScan. If the assessment symbols like File:Symbol question.svg in your list bother you, you can break the links by changing File:Symbol to something like File Symbol with any text editor's search and replace tool or with the edit toolbar's Search and Replace function. --JAAqqO (talk) 21:40, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Excellent - that approach certainly beats the more complicated text editing methods required for my recommendation. Thank you! Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:13, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your updates, related to Xtools. One could as well copy/paste the table into Excel "as unformatted text" (Ctrl-Shift-V). Then you don't need to remove the markup manually... Geertivp (talk) 09:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

There is also a "Download" options. What might be added here is a copy/paste button to have a tabbed list. Geertivp (talk) 10:03, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

How do I find typos depending on the English variation?

One thing with New Zealand Wikipedia is that it is incredibly common for articles to be filled with American spellings, eg "color" vs "colour". I'd like to find these typos by searching for the {{Use New Zealand English}} template and a typo, eg "color". How would I do this? I'm unsure how people search for things, and I'm unsure how to plug these search results into AWB. —Panamitsu (talk) 03:20, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

@Panamitsu: One way you could do this is make a list or articles where the source is "What transcludes page" with "Template:Use New Zealand English", which brings up 21301. You could then add some find and replace rules such as color --> colour, and click the "Skip if no replacement" box. Hope this helps, and happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 03:57, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you this works well! —Panamitsu (talk) 04:34, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeh, great to see someone else who knows we speak and write English proper-like here in New Zild :)

Could you also add this typo to your list - fiber -> fibre? (as seen in this edit). Cheers, Kiwipete (talk) 08:10, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Yep, funny thing is I actually had fiber listed but the replacement was also "fiber" so it was doing nothing. —Panamitsu (talk) 10:47, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Is there a way to have over 25,000 search results? These queries appear to have a maximum of 25,000 and I'd like to move onto the "next page" of results. Is this possible? —Panamitsu (talk) 22:58, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Not as such, but you can search for hastemplate:"Use New Zealand English" prefix:A to get a manageable number of results then repeat with Prefix:B, etc. Certes (talk) 23:36, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Make sure you exclude text in references as these may be American articles where color is the "correct" spelling for the reference title or text. Ditto names and deliberate spelling errors. - X201 (talk) 08:29, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Don't worry I've been looking out for that :) —Panamitsu (talk) 11:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

A search like this might help. Be aware of false positives such as the use of the target word in a book title or other text that should not be changed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:47, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Handing of named refs

I'd like to discuss this here before creating something on Fabricator. In doing work deleting infobox parameters and their data, sometimes the replacement of the entire line deletes a named ref with its information, thus causing the deletion to mess up the other usages of this named ref. Would it be possible for AWB to look for this in the changed result and either alert or move the ref to the next occurance of the named ref?Naraht (talk) 16:28, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Have you tried adjusting your search or your find/replace expression so that it excludes parameters with named references in their values? – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:01, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I've tried various tweeks, would appreciate ideas. Consider the following examples as to whether or not they should be deleted (parameter to be deleted is mission)

• mission=foo OK to delete
• mission=bar<ref>important</ref> OK to delete
• mission=baz<ref name=ref1>important</ref><ref name=ref2/> Generally not OK to delete, but is OK to delete if <ref name = ref1/> does not occur elsewhere in the article.
• mission=fub<ref name=ref1/> OK to delete

Naraht (talk) 08:32, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Naraht: you can use this regex to ignore parameters with a reference definition ~

\|\s*mission\s*=\s*(?![^\{\|}]*<\s*ref\s+name\s*=\s*[^<>/]+>)(?# append parameter removal regex here )

The important bit is inside the negative lookahead (?!...), and most importantly the / inside the negation set [^<>/]+, which allows <ref name=ref2/> to pass (via a double negative), but avoids <ref name=ref1>.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  10:20, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Tom.Reding Two question here. What is the "Append parameter removal regex here" and how does this distinguish as to whether a <ref name=ref1/> occurs later in the article?Naraht (talk) 15:58, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Naraht: I assume(d) you have some of your own regex to remove the parameter (and nothing but the parameter). If you do, that's where it would go.

My regex example doesn't look up nor down the page for other instances of the named ref. That's more complicated to do safely & reliably, and better suited for a custom module, as opposed to a simple line of regex.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:06, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Tom.Reding The regex is for the find and replace and replaces various combinations with pipe on both ends with a pipe. Part of the issue is that infoboxes allow for the pipe to either be before or after a parameter line as long as there is one pipe between each, so I'm looking at various combinations of multi-line matching. I'm also not sure what the ?# is. And if the check for the ref name being farther up or down isn't possible to include, I'm probably better off simply looking at the AWB difference and skipping the problematic ones.

Additionally, this is the problem, I *think* that if a non named reference containing a cite or other template in it prior to the named ref occured it wouldn't handle it correctly, but that's all due to the fact that calculating the "level" that something occurs at can be very difficult (inside a template down one level, inside a cite inside a template down two levels, etc.)

In terms of the Custom Module, how difficult would it be for AWB to be able to tell that the resulting page from a save would generate the "Cite error: The named reference bensmith was invoked but never defined" that would occur if a the named ref bensmith was removed? I found to my surprise this doesn't occur in userspace, but I think *something* could be done. (It might even be able to check before and after to indicate if the changes caused the "invoked by but never defined"

This is part of the reason that I wanted to bring it up here rather than on Fabricator.Naraht (talk) 16:43, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Naraht: there is a 'Preview' button which will show that cite error in the references, but that's a manual operation. If there's a way to grab that rendered Preview output in the custom module, then you could certainly search for the error. I don't know if it's possible to do that currently, but it would be useful.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:40, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Tom.Reding Agreed. No idea. Hopefully someone who knows the custom modules can speak to that.Naraht (talk) 15:27, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Unofficial release

Several people have been asking for a release of the latest builds. If you trust me <insert snarky comment here>, I've thrown a build of the latest release - revision 12554, dated Nov 1 - up on github. Go to https://github.com/DavidWBrooks/UnofficialAWB/releases/latest, and click AutoWikiBrowser6211.zip. You can then follow the installation instructions from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser#(2) Download. As they say, it works for me. David Brooks (talk) 23:10, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@DavidBrooks: Works well for me - thanks so much!!! GoingBatty (talk) 03:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Working for me as well. Thank you! Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 06:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Is there a list of changes for this build? Gonnym (talk) 19:44, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym: I don't remember the revision for the official 6210 release, but you can see it in Help > About. (maybe rev 12530?) Then you could look at https://sourceforge.net/p/autowikibrowser/code/commit_browser and click "Browse commits" to see the list of changes since then through 12554. GoingBatty (talk) 20:50, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

It was 12528, but 12529 isn't there any more and 12530 was just to update the version to 6.2.1.1 prior to the next release. David Brooks (talk) 15:21, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

It's interesting to know this exists, but AutoWikiBrowser users should not have to be using unofficial releases in order to avoid major problems like the hatnote grouping error. And I worry that, to whatever extent this serves as a band-aid for such problems, it's also obscuring the gaping wound of an issue that AWB has only sporadic major updates rather than regular fixes (or an online portal that gets updated automatically) and bus problem-level dependency to issue a major update. We urgently need to solve that underlying problem. Until that happens, band-aids like this risk doing as much harm (through obscuring that problem) as good. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:35, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

@DavidBrooks, @StefenTower, @Gonnym, @Sdkb: Reedy just released the official 6.3.0.0 (rev 12558). GoingBatty (talk) 21:45, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Glad to see it! I hope that we now turn our attention toward the underlying problem rather than waiting for the next crisis to come around. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:53, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to be clear what you mean by the underlying problem: do you mean the delay in releasing after a significant update? If so, "we" is the maintainers (I'm guessing specifically Reedy, yes?) That said, I'll leave my github project active, but not update it unless another crisis does arise. David Brooks (talk) 04:38, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@David Brooks, I'm not a software engineer, so my understanding is a bit limited. But as best I understand it, I see the underlying problem as the difficulty of pushing out small updates. Most tools these days are web-based, not programs that run on your computer, so updating them only requires the developers to change the website code rather than ask users to download anything. And most don't have big version releases, but rather small tweaks pushed out all the time as soon as they're ready. Most also have enough maintainers that there isn't ever a bottleneck around a single user who, as a volunteer, has no obligation (and should have no obligation) to show up. We shouldn't ever be in a situation where a problem gets noticed and reported dozens of times, and a fix coded months ago, but it never gets pushed out because that requires waiting on someone to make the next big release. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:44, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

There are several ways to think about this. A pure push version, like an app store or Windows Update, would require serious investment in upstream infrastructure as well as client-side changes. Won't happen. It might be easier to code a menu option "check for updates" and/or a popup "a new update is available; download?", but that too would require some additional upstream infrastructure, a self-installer, and possibly restrictions on where you could install it. Interesting to design, and perhaps you could copy from models like Notepad++, but not a simple fix. Why are you looking at me like that? I retired from Microsoft over 7 years ago.

That said, the evidence from the long cadence between official releases suggests that even the verification, packaging, and uploading to sourceforge are not the highest priority for the maintainers, although reedy should have the chance to comment. David Brooks (talk) 16:16, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

AWB has had an updater for years, in fact, since 2007 (and IIRC, I did most of the implementation). And it's not massively dissimilar to the Notepad++ one either.

Rewriting it as a web app is very much a non trivial task either. There's been one or two attempts, but AFAIK, haven't got very far. And AWB dates back to 2005, when web apps like this was very uncommon too. So it wouldn't have made sense at the time, and as it's a volunteer project, these things are implemented in whatever language/framework/platform the developer(s) are comfortable in.

The middle ground is moving config onto wiki pages (or similar), which results in things like Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Config. But again, it's not trivial either, especially for more complex logic. Regexes and lists are one thing. Blocks of code are another. Maybe we could just load code files from wiki, and execute them on the fly, it's not much different to CustomModules. But a great chance of users introducing bugs, security issues etc.

A problem we have here is that like many things on Wikipedia, peoples personal itches and their percieved "this is the worst thing in the world" makes it hard to work out what actually is necessary and needs doing. If AWB was causing terror across many projects, or even just enwiki, action would've been taken, and it would've been blocked. And I suspect someone would've probably then poked me from the WMF side asking nicely for me to resolve it. Reedy (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the complete response. I remember now AWBUpdater exists; I've installed it often enough. Serve me right for posting too early in the morning. But it doesn't seem to work: I ran the 6.2.1.0 version and Help/Check for Updates claims "No update available". David Brooks (talk) 18:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Try now - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAutoWikiBrowser%2FCheckPage%2FVersionJSON&diff=1196547428&oldid=1196215217 Reedy (talk) 20:56, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Works, thanks. David Brooks (talk) 22:55, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Great - thanks for the notify! Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:37, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

And I just loaded it and built it cleanly in Visual Studio 2022 without a forced upgrade to Framework 4.8. It looks like Microsoft relented on that. Can someone else confirm before I back out my build instructions? David Brooks (talk) 04:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@DavidBrooks: I just downloaded it from the official site. GoingBatty (talk) 06:06, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I realize that works; I was referring to the instructions for downloading the source and building it. Until recently the current version of Visual Studio would not build a clean copy because reasons, and now Microsoft seems to have relented on that restriction. If I'm the only person here doing this, I'll regard my experience as definitive and revert the instructions I put in place to explain the workaround. David Brooks (talk) 16:06, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I've continued to use VS2019 as it works, is available, and is supported upstream! Reedy (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't criticizing your decision, and anyway it makes (made) sense not to require users to get Network 4.8. I was just helping any possible source downloaders with only VS2022 installed, on the basis of my own experience. David Brooks (talk) 18:36, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Although I'm still trying to get over my embarrassment at forgetting AWBUpdater, may I make a modest proposal? I do find apps like Notepad++ and others annoying with their frequent "do you want to update?" popups when all I want to do is edit this file, dammit (although, rarely, some apps make it mandatory because of upstream changes). Visual Studio itself has a little flag that offers to update in the background when you eventually exit the app, which is nicer. But I do understand that offering frequent updates to general AWB users is unnecessary.

An alternative, particularly for users who need a particular itch scratched, would be a beta channel. After all, I offered a version of that above. A more frequent propagation of a stable build, accompanied by a list of recent revisions' comments, downloaded on demand from an alternate trusted source either manually or using a gently modified AWBUpdater.

I realize I'm implying extra work on the maintainers, probably Reedy, but I'll put it out there. David Brooks (talk) 16:47, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Request to change banner shell general fixes

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T358963

H AWB team! Please can the general fixes described at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes#WikiProjectBannerShell fixes (WikiProjectBannerShell) be amended as follows:

• Stop removing |blp=no. This is a valid value for the blp parameter as we are now moving the |living= parameter from {{WikiProject Biography}} into the banner shell. This is needed for dead people, otherwise the Category:Biography articles without living parameter tracking category will be triggered.
• Do not add explicit call to first unnamed parameter. We had a discussion about this recently and people felt there is no benefit to the |1=.
• Adds {{WikiProject banner shell}} if 3 or more any WikiProject templates are found. Now the primary way of assessing an article is using the banner shell, so all articles should have a banner shell, regardless of the number of WikiProject templates.

Thanks in advance — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:33, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi, to add to this, should also move "Remove diacritics from |listas=" from WikiProject Biography section to the banner shell section and move the parameter itself as part of the fixes. Plus, ideally should also remove |living= from WikiProject Biography and explicitly set |blp= in the banner shell based on it's value. If no objections to any of this, can then file something on Phabricator. Thanks. -Kj cheetham (talk) 14:53, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Could someone respond to these requests please? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:39, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Since this apparently requires a change to the AWB software, has a Phabricator issue been created? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:53, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Using article name (or a part of it) in Find and Replace

The task here is for all fraternity and sorority list articles to have the listas parameter added if they don't have one. So in Talk:List of Omicron Nu chapters , replace {{WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities| with {{WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities|listas=Omicron Nu chapters. I can grab all of the ones that I want in Category:List-Class Fraternities and Sororities articles, and skip any that already have listas. But given that the listas depends on the title, any ideas on using the article title here? Naraht (talk) 20:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Have you considered using the {{ARTICLEPAGENAME}} variable? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 20:56, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

StefenTowerSo perhaps two find and replaces.

1. WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities| to WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities|listas={{ARTICLEPAGENAME}}
2. WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities|listas=List of to WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities|

Unfortunately, AWB doesn't evaluate, so it looks like two separate passes...Naraht (talk) 21:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

StefenTower Just inserted the string {{ARTICLEPAGENAME}} (using nowiki for here, did *not* include that in the advanced find and replace) did *not* evaluate.Naraht (talk) 21:59, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Probably because you didn't substitute. Try {{subst:ARTICLEPAGENAME}}. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:07, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah! Thanx!Naraht (talk) 22:45, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Glad I could be of assistance. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:11, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Naraht, while we're here, please don't bother saving edits like Special:Diff/1208536769 - you have effected no change and (as a user clicking "save" every time) you should be skipping those pages. Primefac (talk) 09:33, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Primefac, While the change to the redirected template doesn't have a particular advantage, I believe setting the list of other templates being specifically set to 1= makes the overall bannershell template less likely to have problems with other edits.Naraht (talk) 14:17, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

@Naraht: Note in the #Request to change banner shell general fixes section above, MSGJ stated "We had a discussion about this recently and people felt there is no benefit to the |1=." GoingBatty (talk) 15:06, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

How do I find typos?

I'm finding and replacing "parking metre" - an incorrect spelling of "parking meter". When I use wiki search (text) and enter "parking metre" the search finds spellings with both "parking meter" and "parking metre", which I do not want. I only want to find the spellings errors. How do I prevent it from showing both spellings? —Panamitsu (talk) 10:01, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

@Panamitsu: Hi. That is WP:ENGVAR scenario. Metre is British English, meter is American English. —usernamekiran (talk) 11:25, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually British English distinguishes between "meter and "metre". A meter is something that measures something (speedometer, parking meter, etc), so "parking metre" is also incorrect in the Commonwealth. —Panamitsu (talk) 11:29, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

~"parking metre" insource:/[p|P]arking [m|M]etre/ - no results. Neils51 (talk) 12:24, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually parking insource:/[pP]arking [mM]etre/ gives me one hit: Timeline of South Australian history, where the correct term (intentionally) pipes to "parking metres". To Panamitsu: that was a regular expression search, which is precise but very slow and resource-heavy. The "parking" does a pre-filter. David Brooks (talk) 16:22, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Good point, I could have done this ~"parking metre*" insource:/[p|P]arking [m|M]etre/. Leave to Panamitsu to fix the article. Neils51 (talk) 23:17, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but you would have had to have foreknowledge of the plural use :-) Also you have a somewhat hybrid use of [pP] and the (almost) equivalent (p|P), not that it hurts in this case. David Brooks (talk) 00:15, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Great thanks everyone for your help/ —Panamitsu (talk) 01:40, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Trouble logging after enabling 2FA

I've recently enabled Two-factor authentication, and since then, I've encountered difficulty logging into AWB. I would like to know if there is any solution to this issue, as repeatedly disabling two-factor authentication to use AWB is quite hazardous. Thank you. GSS ^💬 15:29, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

@GSS: Yes, you shouldn't do that. See instead Wikipedia:Using AWB with 2FA. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:05, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks, John of Reading, for your suggestion. It worked! GSS ^💬 07:27, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Any way to continue editing after Escape?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T360226

After hour of editing I accidentally type Escape key. Any way to continue editing or to save changed text? Thank you. A.sav (talk) 19:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Using Escape is documented as 'stopping the editing process' and as you have discovered is quite successful. I had a bit of a play and can't see any way of successfully resuming, retaining edits. I would call that a bug and suggest you make a Phabricator request for the ability to 'continue'. I would suggest also that you wait to see if anyone else has a magic solution (unless you have exited). If doing gross editing then consider using another editor that perhaps has autosave capability then copy/paste. What can occur more often is that someone else edits in the interim and you have a conflict situation. Having your material elsewhere makes it easier to handle such situations and less frustrating. Neils51 (talk) 02:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The "Stop" button has a similar effect, but first pops up a warning about losing the "manual changes in the edit box". If the Escape key has a similar effect it should show a similar warning. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you all! --A.sav (talk) 12:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree there should be a safeguard against an accidental press (or touch) of ESC, and have filed a feature request. David Brooks (talk) 19:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Update?

Did we just update? I edited with AWB yesterday, no issues, but just now when i started up i was required to re-download the software. I don't see anything on this page or the project page indicating anything, so just wondering if there was an update and if anything i ought to know about will have changed? Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 08:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/History the last AWB release was a few weeks ago in January. Rjwilmsi 13:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Me too. I had to update it right now, but I don't know what changed in this new version. Mazewaxie (talk • contribs) 17:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

There is no new official release (6.3.0.0 is apparently current), but it looks like version 6.2.1.0 was disabled by reedy yesterday. David Brooks (talk) 17:43, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@Mazewaxie: According to the Changelog, version 6.2.1.0 was rev 12528 and version 6.3.0.0 was rev 12559. You can browse the commits between those revisions to see a summary of each change that was made to the code. GoingBatty (talk) 05:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Two questions

1) How do I append the template {{Use New Zealand English|date={{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}}}? (in a place that satisfies MOS:ORDER) I've seen several people doing this with {{Use mdy dates}} before so I know it's possible.

2) I've seen people debating whether these templates are cosmetic or not. I use the engvar templates to find and replace American spellings with New Zealand/British/Australian ones, so it may indirectly be considered not cosmetic. Am I right in thinking this way? Because I have to manually review the English variation in each article I am not considering a bot request. —Panamitsu (talk) 09:37, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

@Panamitsu:

1) Here's what I suggest:

• On the More... tab (see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual#More... for a screen shot):

• Check the Enable box
• Select the Prepend radio button (prepend adds to the beginning, whereas append adds to the end)
• Add {{Use New Zealand English|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} in the text box
• Set the box to Use 1 newlines
• Check the Sort meta data after box

• On the Options tab:

• Check Auto tag, Apply general fixes, Unicodify whole page, and Regex typo fixing (The more AWB can do, the less likely someone will consider this a cosmetic edit.)
• Add find and replace rules to change American English to New Zealand English, and check the box to Add replacements to edit summary

• Under Options > Default Edit Summaries...

• Create an edit summary such as "Added Template:Use New Zealand English and general fixes"

• On the Start tab:

• Select the Default Summary you added
• Check the Minor edit box

See my edit to 1936 in New Zealand as an example (except I forgot to check the Minor edit box)

2) I can see why some people think that adding the template would be cosmetic because it doesn't change the visual rendering of the page. However WP:COSMETICEDIT reminds us that the maintenance of hidden categories is a substantive edit.

Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 16:03, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: Except, shouldn't you have used subst: in the CURRENT... templates on line 1? I'll let you fix if necessary in case I misunderstood. @Panamitsu: hold off on that template addition, but I think I'm right. David Brooks (talk) 22:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll try this.

Yup, it should be {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}, my bad. As GoingBatty's edit didn't substitute the template it just inserted the template instead of the current month/year. I've checked the visual editor and it uses subst: for dated templates. —Panamitsu (talk) 22:18, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

@DavidBrooks: You are correct. I just copied the template from the question without reviewing it for accuracy.

@Panamitsu: Thank you for fixing the 1936 in New Zealand article I edited. Hopefully the rest of my recommendation meets your needs. GoingBatty (talk) 22:30, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

This worked! Thanks!

There are a few pages with incorrect engvar templates, such as Use British English or EngvarB. I found them using a regex and removed them, such as here. —Panamitsu (talk) 05:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

adding connected contributor template

Hello, I'm learning how to use AWB to add a connected contributor template to a bunch of pages I've edited. The how-to in "two questions" was really helpful! Talk:Lloyd_Alexander shows my first test edit. Is it okay to have the connected contributor template prepended, or is there a way to add it after the talk page banners and before general talk page discussion (this is how I normally see it added)? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:58, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes; on the More... tab, make sure the Sort meta data after option is checked. You will then prepend the template, and AWB will place it in the correct place. Primefac (talk) 12:14, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Primefac. I have "sort meta data after" checked. Can I assume that before the talkpage banners is the correct place? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:14, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

If you have it sorting after you place the banner, it *should* put them after the {{talk header}} and {{WPBS}} (pretty sure it's the last thing before discussions). Primefac (talk) 16:19, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, that's not what it's doing when "sort meta data after" is checked. I wish I knew more about how AWB works so I could troubleshoot. I tried Appending, and that just put the banner at the bottom of the talk page. I could just leave it at the top, or manually insert the edit at the desired point on the talk page below the wikiproject banners. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:36, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Weird. Just checked on a few pages; if the template is already on the page, AWB will move it to the right place. If it's not already on the page, with or without the "sort after" checked it just leaves it prepended...

At the end of the day, I don't think it really matters as long as it's on the page, so just keep prepending (especially if you have a lot of them) at the top of the page and let someone who cares about banner order sort out the rest (unless someone who hasn't noticed this conversation in the last 28 hours actually comments on the "proper" way to sort this out). Primefac (talk) 18:41, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User_manual#More... user manual use the option to "sort metadata after", then you should get the outcome needed. Rjwilmsi 09:35, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Rjwilmsi, I tested this with my own account and it doesn't work. Steps to reproduce:

• Open a Talk page in AWB
• Prepend {{connected contributor}} or {{connected contributor (paid)}} with 1 new line, sorting metadata after. For realism I copied the basic example from the /doc.
• Template is placed above other banners

On the other hand, loading up Talk:Lloyd Alexander into AWB with genfixes moves Rachel's disclosure to the proper place (but leaves mine in the "wrong" place). Primefac (talk) 11:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

OK, I see. That "sort meta data" must be the mainpage one then, not for talk pages. In which case the simple option is to load the edit then use the right click option in the edit box to reparse. Rjwilmsi 13:18, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Removal of AWB Perms

Please remove my name from the AWB check page. I haven't used it for a while and I don't see a need to use it for now. I'll make a request again at WP:RFPERM if I need it again. Thank you. Awesome Aasim 17:23, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:47, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Dab links

Hi, I am trying to fix these links at [[3]] using AWB. I read the manual on how to do this, but it is very confusing. For example, I want to change all Outline of New York links to Outline of New York (state). Can someone walk me through how I can fix this using AWB? Interstellarity (talk) 21:17, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: As they're all different (some are to sections, etc.) and there are only a dozen templates, I would be tempted to change their links manually then work through the new dabs with DisamAssist to fix the links in articles. I can help with this if you wish. Certes (talk) 08:17, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Many of these have been sorted out, and I've fixed of the remainder. I don't think AWB would have helped. Certes (talk) 18:51, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Certes: Thanks for helping out. Interstellarity (talk) 19:31, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: I found a few more, mainly in hatnotes. You may also want to move Political party strength in New York. Certes (talk) 22:40, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

 Done Interstellarity (talk) 23:06, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Replace maximum

Hi. Is there a maximum for lines "from-to" for the replace mechanism? Is there a way to enlarge it? Is there a way to save them for the next time? Is there a way to read them from a text file? Actually, I need about 1200 replaces on each page, none of them with regex, and work many days, is this possible? Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 21:43, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi, the most lines I've entered on any particular settings file is about 600. I am not sure that there is a physical limit on the number of lines allowed (aside from a hardware limitation), so just keep adding until there's an issue. And yes, you can save your settings files, which would include all of your replacements, so you can save your work and return to it another time. Sorry, there are no mechanisms for either importing or exporting entries; it all has to be done manually. Dawnseeker2000 04:57, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. But if I can save it for another time, it means the AWB will save all of them _somewhere_. Can't I open this somewhere in Notepad++, guess the format, and add more? It will be unexpected, if the format used is binary. And I vaguely remember I could read it years ago, in XML or something. IKhitron (talk) 09:35, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, I've just tryed this by "save setting as..." and it works. IKhitron (talk) 11:40, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I've never considered that option. I'll have to try it. Thanks! Dawnseeker2000 16:48, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I've got one settings file with over 8,000 lines and it runs fine. The settings files are .xml formatted and can be edited in any text editor. To me, they are moderately complex, but they can be edited directly. It should be possible to create a spreadsheet or something which would change a list of "from" and "to" to the .xml code which could be pasted into the file, but I've not tried it. I suggest opening up the .xml file and looking at it. Good luck.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:27, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you too. About how to create concrete formats in Excel, I have a lot of experience with this. IKhitron (talk) 19:30, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

If you get something which works well, I hope you will share. (smile)  SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:53, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

No problem. It will take time, but I hope I will tell you good news. IKhitron (talk) 19:55, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Removing whitespace from wikilinks causes problems

The general fixes (FixLinkWhitespace to be exact) seems to remove necessary whitespace from wikilinks. Can anyone confirm that this happens? I don't have access to AWB on en-wiki.

• Panch Kedar (more articles)

Current situation: [[India|Indian ]][[Indian epic poetry|epic]] Indian epic

What AWB does: [[India|Indian]][[Indian epic poetry|epic]] Indianepic

• Maya Higa (more articles)

Current situation: presented by[[Ally Financial| Ally]] presented by Ally

What AWB does: presented by[[Ally Financial|Ally]] presented byAlly

2001:14BA:9C94:9A00:11CF:7E9F:8A27:4B39 (talk) 02:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Leading/trailing spaces shouldn't be inside the links in the first place. Also, for the first case, you would want to avoid a WP:SEAOFBLUE.

In the first case, since India is less useful for linking, I'd do: [[Indian epic poetry|Indian epic]].

In the second case, I'd do: presented by [[Ally Financial|Ally]]

What AWB did is actually correct as far as how it's supposed to work (it assumes text and/or links next to each other stay that way, and leading/trailing spaces within links don't belong). But since we're also supposed to review any changes before saving, this is where manual edits come into play. Remember - this is a semi-automated helper, rather than a fully automated doer. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 03:10, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi there!

• For Panch Kedar, AWB's general fixes want to change [[India|Indian ]][[Indian epic poetry|epic]] to [[India]]n[[Indian epic poetry|epic]], which is still displayed as Indianepic.
• For Maya Higa, AWB's general fixes don't change ''Nerve Center presented by[[Ally Financial| Ally]]'' because of the italics. However, without the italics, AWB's general fixes would make the change as you described above.

@StefenTower: AWB is used both by humans as a semi-automated helper and by bots as a fully automated doer, sometimes with general fixes checked. GoingBatty (talk) 03:23, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I was referring to how it's used by us meatbots. :) Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 05:00, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I have added an item regarding leading/trailing spaces here. Neils51 (talk) 09:08, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

This is a GIGO issue; I would suggest AWB genfixes check to make sure ]][[ gets fixed, but on the flip side I can see valid uses in cat links etc so maybe a WP:WCW error could be created. Primefac (talk) 11:37, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there any harm in moving the space outside of the wikilink? If two adjacent spaces are created, the renderer will shrink them to one. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:33, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

We could even move the space outside if and only if there is no space there already. I suspect that this plan would produce the text the author intended more often than the current behaviour. However, it depends on context and either way the machine is guessing and a human eye is required: [[India ]]n poetry needs to be treated differently from [[India ]]is big. Certes (talk) 20:07, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to come from FixLinkWhitespace (FLW) but from SimplifyLinks (SL) because disabling FLW didn't stop the general fixes from removing whitespace from wikilinks but disabling SL did. I had to disable SL in another wiki where people use VisualEditor a lot, and the users of VisualEditor tend to leave behind tons of wikilinks with weird spacing. So, if someone else also uses the Customised "General Fixes" and wants to disable this behavior until it's fixed, they'll have to disable this:

a.AWBChangeArticleText("Simplify links", WikiFunctions.Parse.Parsers.SimplifyLinks(a.ArticleText), true);

--JAAqqO (talk) 02:04, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Persondata is dead

Since it's been nearly 10 years that Persondata is not used, AWB will drop any support for this template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:39, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

What's the context for this? What solution are you proposing? What isn't being done? Primefac (talk) 14:11, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

How to scrape from grep.toolforge.org results and compare.

I'm trying to use AWB to help answer the question of how many Greek Letter Organizations don't have the Infobox Fraternity template by using the filter. I want for all of the pages generated by https://grep.toolforge.org/index.php?lang=en&project=wikipedia&namespace=0&pattern=%5E%28%28Alpha%7CBeta%7CGamma%7CDelta%7CEpsilon%7CZeta%7CEta%7CTheta%7CIota%7CKappa%7CLambda%7CMu%7CNu%7CXi%7COmicron%7CPi%7CRho%7CSigma%7CTau%7CUpsilon%7CPhi%7CChi%7CPsi%7COmega%29+%7B0%2C1%7D%29%7B2%2C%7D%24 (there are 599 of them) don't have "template:infobox fraternity" (the list of those that do is an easy pull). Ideas? Naraht (talk) 00:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

If you get an article list from that query, then use the template transclusions from infobox fraternity you can use the AWB list comparer to get a list of articles missing the template. Rjwilmsi 09:28, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Rjwilmsi How do I get the article list from that query into AWB? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naraht (talk • contribs) 12:16, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I would just simply copy and paste them. It shouldn't take more than 30 seconds if you do it like this: 1) press Ctrl+↓ on that query, 2) place your cursor on the right side of the last entry, i.e. "599. Eta Upsilon Gamma", 3) press and hold the left mouse button, 4) press Ctrl+↑ while holding the left mouse button and move the cursor next to the first entry, i.e. "1. Phi Kappa Psi", and now the pages should be highlighted, 5) copy them to the clipboard, and 6) in AWB, right click the empty page list in the bottom left corner and choose "Paste". --JAAqqO (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

JAAqqO I chose wrong place to try to paste, I'll try there in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naraht (talk • contribs) 15:12, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Does this search work?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:52, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

That -hastemplate:"Infobox Fraternity" needs to be changed to -hastemplate:"Infobox fraternity", because Template:Infobox Fraternity is a redirect page and hastemplate doesn't ignore capitalization when the template's name is inside quotation marks. Here's a working search: 2 results. --JAAqqO (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Yet another suggestion if the suggestions above don't work: Here's a PetScan search link that has 1) pages copied from your query to the "Manual list" field in the "Other sources" tab and 2) "Infobox fraternity" added to the "Has none of these templates" field in the "Templates&links" tab: 38 results. --JAAqqO (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Trappist the monk Yes, mostly, but a few use Infobox Sorority which is a redirect and there isn't enough room in the search box (which is something I haven't run into before! I'll look at the result from yours though.Naraht (talk) 15:12, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

JAAqqO Can you add an exclusion for Disambiguation pages?Naraht (talk) 15:12, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Naraht: Sorry, I forgot to answer, but sure, I can. Maybe you already figured this out, but here it is: 9 results from the same search as before but All disambiguation pages added to "Negative categories" in the "Categories" tab. --JAAqqO (talk) 19:21, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

JAAqqO Thank you. That leaves one oddball that is fraternity related, but it is not a concern.Naraht (talk) 19:30, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Custom module

How can I find out from the Custom module that the flag "Bots / Auto save" is set? Игорь Темиров (talk) 11:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking about, but AWB does not set the bots flag, that is determined by the user account and its permissions. On the AWB menus the bot-related options are only available for bots; this includes the option to auto-save. Primefac (talk) 11:54, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Do you know what a Custom module is? Игорь Темиров (talk) 11:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

If you're talking about these, then yes; the instructions are here. Modules are great if you're doing complex processing that can't be performed by the stock features of AWB. I primarily use them for my bot when I am doing infobox changes so that they are all formatted and displayed the same way. Primefac (talk) 12:19, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what it's about. My bot does page processing, but its algorithm depends on whether the autosave flag is set or not. But this is a private question. A general question is how to check the state of the AWB's flags in the module? Игорь Темиров (talk) 12:30, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Couldn't say, but I don't think so; I don't see bots mentioned in any of the WikiFunctions. Someone more familiar with the backend code might be able to confirm or deny this though. Primefac (talk) 13:31, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

How to add a template in Talk page of articles

I have approval to run BOT in Tamil Wikipedia and executing tasks. I want to add a template in Talk pages of selected articles (selection is being done through Category). Talk pages may exist or may not be exist. I am not sure how to execute this task. If someone explain me about the steps / procedure, it will be much helpful. - Selvasivagurunathan m (talk) 20:04, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

due to... reasons

I have recently replaced, using AWB, hundreds of tautological instances of "due to health reasons" with "for heath reasons", and similarly for uses of "due to medical reasons" and "due to legal reasons". Naturally, I have excluded cases in quotations or the titles of sources.

Please consider this in your work.

Are there other, similar, phrases that need attention? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:01, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Is AWB being throttled?

Every now and then, and right now as I'm using it, AWB keeps timing out and I have to restart it one or more times to get to saving an edit. Does anyone know what's going on? These timeouts are very much disrupting my work. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:27, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

AWB does not itself apply throttles, though the mediawiki API it uses to fetch and save pages does have a throttling mechanism (maxlag) that AWB is required to follow. Though timeout issues are more likely an intermittent network issue - whether at mediawiki or your end, or in the middle I can't say. Rjwilmsi 10:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

@StefenTower: this happens with some times. But in my case, I am 100% sure that it is because of my ISP. —usernamekiran (talk) 11:31, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for responses. In my case, this seems to happen about one out of four times i use AWB, and it seems to be a mix of straight-up timeouts and error message windows that say the process was stopped at the server (I can't recall the exact words). From now on, when I encounter these problems, I will just take it as a sign to shutdown AWB and find something else to do. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 18:07, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Removing spaces in citations

Is the removal of spaces in citation templates something that's been added to AWB recently, deliberately or otherwise? There's a discussion at WP:ANI due to conflict about this being done using AWB to fix typos. NebY (talk) 14:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@NebY: I've tested AWB on Alien Resurrection. The typo-fixer only wants to add commas after two dates. The general fixer only wants to add blank lines before some of the headings. Special:Diff/1230183818 added the commas but not the blank lines. Everything else in that diff is not part of the built-in functionality, as far as I can see, and I assume is from that editor's own configuration rules. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:49, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh good, it'seassuring that AWB's not doing it generally. I'll report back. Thank you for testing! NebY (talk) 15:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

As a longtime AWB user, I will also confirm that user-created find/replace rules are involved in this case. I added my two cents to the ANI discussion. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:00, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Invisible spacing characters

In tables, it is sometimes necessary to use a special unicode spacing character to create a specific center-alignment. See the first column of the big table on this page[4].

AWB really doesn't like these. If they somehow break someone's viewing, then I can look for a different solution. But if it's just a robot being picky then I will ask for someone to adjust its programming... or get the word out to the humans that these don't need to be removed. Wizmut (talk) 07:31, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Wizmut I think there is a template for that! I think it as {{space}}? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:56, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Sold! I went with Template:Figure space. [5]

Cheers Wizmut (talk) 08:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Wizmut Perfect! I am glad we worked it out! -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:17, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Stop telling me I have talk page messages

Is there a way to stop AWB from alerting me to messages on my talk page, and opening that page in my browser?

I have looked at the user manual, but could find nothing about this. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:25, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

This is important in the case that you've made a mistake and someone is telling you to stop. Without the popup, you may never notice. ―Panamitsu (talk) 23:24, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't need to be nannied like that.

Even if what you say is true, I will be notified by other avenues

Do you have an answer to my question? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

The answer is, as far as I'm aware, no. Kiwipete (talk) 09:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not being nannied, it's a fail safe. Primefac (talk) 17:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't need to be nannied like that.

Yes you do. Everyone of us need to be. Is it annoying? Sure. But it certainly beats the alternative of AWB operators not being notified of issues and plowing through as is. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:04, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

This type of response makes me consider whether the user should have AWB access... I don't think they fully understand the mistakes that can be made and the damage that can be done with the slightest bit of carelessness or a typo. If they do, that's even more concerning that they're so annoyed at the prospect of someone catching their mistake(s) before they go too far... I've made mistakes with AWB, I think everyone who uses it enough has. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:31, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

This type of response makes me aware that you have either not read, or have not understood, what I wrote. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:31, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: I perfectly understand what you wrote. You're just wrong for thinking you're infallible and will never make mistakes with AWB. Everyone does and that's okay, but let's not pretend it's actually a bad idea for people to catch a mistake mid way through an AWB run. However, if you still think I don't understand, I'd love to hear this explained further. Hey man im josh (talk) 23:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

You assert that I believe that I am "infallible and will never make mistakes with AWB". You not only have not understood what I have said; you are fantasising. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 02:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: It's not fantasy, it's inference. Please go ahead and explain further why you don't need to be notified mid AWB run if you're making a mistake. Educate me please and thank you. Hey man im josh (talk) 02:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

And now you are fantasising that I have claimed not to need to be notified mid AWB run if I'm making a mistake. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 02:55, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Do you have anything else you'd like to say? Something actually productive instead of replying just to reply? You've said I don't understand. I would like to. So please go ahead. Hey man im josh (talk) 03:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

You have received 8 updates to your talk page in the past week, one of them from an archiving bot (I don't think those trigger the alert). So practically, I don't see how this alert can be especially annoying or disruptive. And it serves the purpose of ensuring the AWB user knows of a potential issue during their run. But am I annoyed a bit when this alert occurs? Sure I am. But I see it as a price for using this potentially disruptive/destructive tool. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 18:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

On at least three occasions in that period, when I have fired up AWB it has refused to work until it has opened up a new tab in my browser because I have talk page messages about which I have already been made aware by another tool. You not seeing how this is especially annoying or disruptive does not mean that it is not especially annoying and disruptive. It is most egregiously annoying and disruptive when those messages have been left by User:MediaWiki message delivery. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, I am not inclined to agree that this is the severe problem that you present it as, but if there was a way for it not to stop on particular messages that could not possibly be concerns about AWB use, that sounds like a good idea, if it's possible for the software to discern that. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:25, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

There is not currently a mechanism to disable the AWB talk page message notification. Once message(s) have been viewed/marked as viewed on wikipedia/wiki website then AWB stops the notification. I am not clear how to easily and reliably differentiate between messages that do and don't matter to the user's use of AWB, so I think the intended purpose still stands - require a user to view a message in case it relates to an issue with their current/recent edits. If there is community consensus that that's an unnecessary safeguard then maybe some sort of RFC could be raised, then if agreed the popup could be disabled in a new AWB release (or disabled for en-wp if scope of RFC were only that). Rjwilmsi 10:21, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

yes, it is a failsafe. For regular users, as well as for AWB bots. I think it is good to have this feature, and giving an option to turn it off would defeat its purpose. —usernamekiran (talk) 11:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

For those few of us that use an alternative account just for AWB, it is a mild nuisance to open an incognito tab and try to remember the alternate's password just to read the messages. I would love to be able to affirmatively clear the notifications from within AWB, but that is a low-priority request and frankly a "whine: it's too hard" one. David Brooks (talk) 14:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Refused to work? You can dismiss the pop up notification and keep going. Hey man im josh (talk) 02:53, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I can not. You are again failing to read or understand what I have written. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 03:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Citation needed. Hey man im josh (talk) 03:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Andy, can you clarify? Does "I can not" mean you have to make an extra click to dismiss the talk page, which is flow-disrupting? Or that after dismissing the AWB popup you still cannot keep going? (I could be making a false dichotomy, to which I am prone) The latter would be a symptom of your browser being logged in under a different one of your alternative accounts, or even not at all, but could be something else broken. David Brooks (talk) 18:31, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I mean that the statement "You can dismiss the pop up notification and keep going" is false. The only option (other than fully exiting AWB) is to click on the single button in the dialogue, which opens a new tab in my default web browser (which is logged in to the same Wikipedia account as AWB). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:00, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Others can speak for themselves, but to me "dismiss the popup notification" and "click on the single button in the dialogue" are referring to the same thing. David Brooks (talk) 21:50, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

"The only option (other than fully exiting AWB) is to click on the single button in the dialogue, which opens a new tab in my default web browser (which is logged in to the same Wikipedia account as AWB)."

Exactly as intended. Do that and you will have "dismissed the pop up notification" and can "keep going". Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Stop typo fixes changing edit summary

I'd like to stop the addition of the [[WP:AWB/T|typo(s) fixed]]: text to edit summaries when using AWB's automatic typo fixes. Is there any way to do this? Using the "lock the default edit summary" option doesn't stop it from being added. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 00:01, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

New categories

Hello. Could you tell me, please, where can I see the (new, automatic, and hidden) categories of the result? If I made a mistake, I should know when the tracking category appears. Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 19:11, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Replace maximum again

Hi. Continuing Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 34#Replace maximum, I'm here to tell that I've just finished the work. 1246 string replacements, about ten of them were added on the fly, about 2500 pages. @SchreiberBike, you asked me to call you. IKhitron (talk) 22:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Have you tried using plugins or a custom module? Игорь Темиров (talk) 03:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Not at all, just the regular stuff. IKhitron (talk) 09:17, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

When using plugins or modules, your research simply would not be needed. Игорь Темиров (talk) 10:20, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, too late. IKhitron (talk) 10:08, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Игорь Темиров, please don't criticise other people for doing things a different way. Primefac (talk) 13:00, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I suggest another way. But you criticize. Игорь Темиров (talk) 13:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

We're getting off-topic, but the two are not the same. It's one thing to say "doing it this way will also work", it's another to say "you wasted your time by not doing it this way". The first is a suggestion for another way, the second is a criticism of the original way. Primefac (talk) 18:57, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

We're going off topic. But you have problems with logic. I think IKhitron and I understood each other exactly as needed. Игорь Темиров (talk) 19:10, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Bug: HTML comment wrongly moved during general fixes

In this diff, you can see how "General fixes" moved a comment from beside the issue to which it referred, to the wrong point in the article. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:26, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

In my experience, this is a longstanding bug where AWB disturbs html comments in this and other ways. It needs to be smart enough to leave them alone. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 17:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Giving up using AWB to do periodic talk page cleanups

Due to a couple issues with AWB, talk page cleanups have become too impractical to do:

1. It removes "blp=no" for bio articles of dead people. Even though might be considered a default in terms of display of the template, removing this parameter adds the talk page to a problem category.
2. It inserts "|1=" when that is no longer the usage suggestion in {{WikiProject banner shell}} and removed by bots when making other changes.

I don't know how to make AWB skip doing these changes without removing part of the reason I'm using AWB: for talk page-related general fixes. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 18:10, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Already reported on Feb 10, see archive 34. Tracked as T358963 but no fix yet. David Brooks (talk) 21:34, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, and I see I replied to that topic. I guess I had a "Mr. Short Term Memory" moment. Glad it's being tracked at least. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 03:40, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

two factor authentication login issue

After I have enabled two factor authentication, I am unable to login in the autowikibrowser. While trying to login a pop up comes up telling aborted. What is the solution for this issue. ? Balaji ^{(Let's talk)} 08:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Balajijagadesh see Wikipedia:Using AWB with 2FA. — xaosflux ^Talk 08:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the language code does not match during authorization? Игорь Темиров (talk) 04:00, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@User:Xaosflux. thanks it worked. -- Balaji ^{(Let's talk)} 08:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

AWB not saving edits

I'm using AWB on Fandom and am trying to do a find and replace edit. I can get it to find an applicable page and it shows the correct edit to be made, but when I press Save, it says Saving... and gives a restart timer. I can't get it to actually make the change. Any suggestions? Fluffbutter (talk) 17:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@Fluffbutter: I'm not sure, but I think some fandoms require permission to use AWB. If it's not that problem, it may be your ISP. I used to have that problem a lot of times. Try using some other connection for making a couple of edits, like your mobile hotspot. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:24, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I got it to work! I had to update the Bot Password permissions. Fluffbutter (talk) 23:38, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Tweak needed to keep hidden note next to {{Short description}}

Often a short description of "none" will be followed by a hidden note, as follows:

{{Short description|none}}<!-- "none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see [[WP:SDNONE]] -->

Sometimes these is a space between the template and the note. Either way, AWB wants to move that hidden note to the end of whatever templates are on top of the page. Can it be tweaked so that it leaves it where it is? Cheers! BD2412 T 20:40, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

HTML comment moved in an undesirable way

In this AWB edit, an HTML comment was moved from its proper location – next to the template that it applied to – to a place that makes less sense. It appears that AWB's general fixes may be programmed to make this undesirable change. Can someone please disable this change or explain what I am missing? Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:51, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't see the section above. Here's a diff, anyway. You can see in the subsequent edit after that diff that the move was perceived as an AWB error by Pigsonthewing, the AWB editor. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Fileformat is invalid

When I update Wikipedia pages containing non-latin characters (e.g. Arabic), I often (not always) get an error message. "The fileformat is invalid" ("Filformatet är ogiltigt" in Swedish, my language). Heading in the error message: ArgumentException in ArticleTextBox.OnHandleCreated

The rest is:

**description**: 
**workaround**: 
--------------------------
<table><tr><th>Exception:</th><td>`ArgumentException`</td></tr>
<tr><th>Message:</th><td>`Filformatet är ogiltigt.`</td></tr>
<tr><th>Call stack:</th><td><pre>   vid System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox.StreamIn(Stream data, Int32 flags)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox.StreamIn(String str, Int32 flags)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox.set_Rtf(String value)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox.OnHandleCreated(EventArgs e)
   vid WikiFunctions.Controls.ArticleTextBox.OnHandleCreated(EventArgs e)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmCreate(Message& m)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.TextBoxBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox.WndProc(Message& m)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   vid System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)§/pre></td></tr>
</table>
**OS**: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
**version**: AutoWikiBrowser (6.3.0.0), WikiFunctions (6.3.0.0), revision 12558 (2024-01-16 20:38:04)
**net**: 4.0.30319.42000
**duplicate**: 
**site**: https://sv.wikipedia.org

Note: I had to replace < with § before /pre in the last row of the table in order to get a nice display.

In most cases, when I press "Continue Working", the error message disappears and I can continue. In rare cases, all content in the page is erased so I end up with an empty page. Not so nice...

Can I avoid this by any setting or is it a bug that should be reported (never done Phabricator reporting so I start here). Any suggestions would be highly appreciated! Kitayama (talk) 13:23, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

unable to load module

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T371647

Hello. Few weeks ago, I made a clean reinstall of Windows 10. A couple of days ago, I was trying to load a custom module, but I got following error:

Compiler executable file csc.exe cannot be found.
**description**: 
**workaround**: 
--------------------------
<table><tr><th>Exception:</th><td>`InvalidOperationException`</td></tr>
<tr><th>Message:</th><td>`Compiler executable file csc.exe cannot be found.`</td></tr>
<tr><th>Call stack:</th><td><pre>   at System.CodeDom.Compiler.RedistVersionInfo.GetCompilerPath(IDictionary`2 provOptions, String compilerExecutable)
   at Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeGenerator.FromFileBatch(CompilerParameters options, String[] fileNames)
   at Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeGenerator.FromSourceBatch(CompilerParameters options, String[] sources)
   at Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeGenerator.System.CodeDom.Compiler.ICodeCompiler.CompileAssemblyFromSourceBatch(CompilerParameters options, String[] sources)
   at System.CodeDom.Compiler.CodeDomProvider.CompileAssemblyFromSource(CompilerParameters options, String[] sources)
   at WikiFunctions.CustomModules.CustomModuleCompiler.Compile(String sourceCode, CompilerParameters parameters)
   at AutoWikiBrowser.CustomModule.MakeModule()</td></tr>
</table>
**OS**: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
**version**: AutoWikiBrowser (6.3.0.0), WikiFunctions (6.3.0.0), revision 12558 (2024-01-16 20:38:04)
**net**: 4.0.30319.42000
**duplicate**: 
**site**: https://en.wikipedia.org

After that, I installed the .NET framework, I located the csc.exe file, and updated the system environment variable/path. Still, I am getting the same error. Any suggestions? —usernamekiran (talk) 04:28, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I am on Windows 11 and have csc.exe in the following locations:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\csc.exe

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\csc.exe

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\csc.exe

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v3.5\csc.exe

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\csc.exe

C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_netfx-csharp_compiler_csc_b03f5f7f11d50a3a_10.0.22621.1_none_52bef3eed921ca5e\csc.exe

C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_netfx35linq-csharp_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.22621.1_none_78c17abe07e8090b\csc.exe

C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_netfx4-csc_exe_b03f5f7f11d50a3a_4.0.15912.0_none_78ce8a6e35a89ad2\csc.exe

C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_netfx4-csc_exe_b03f5f7f11d50a3a_4.0.15912.322_none_6ee01ba4a5a0f42b\csc.exe

C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_netfx-csharp_compiler_csc_b03f5f7f11d50a3a_10.0.22621.1_none_9a6c2ac5ed9df364\csc.exe

C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_netfx35linq-csharp_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.22621.1_none_1ca2df3a4f8a97d5\csc.exe

C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_netfx4-csc_exe_b03f5f7f11d50a3a_4.0.15912.0_none_c07bc1454a24c3d8\csc.exe

C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_netfx4-csc_exe_b03f5f7f11d50a3a_4.0.15912.322_none_b68d527bba1d1d31\csc.exe

I'm not sure which of these is used by AWB, but I have no problems executing a C# script. Kiwipete (talk) 08:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kiwipete: thanks. Would it be okay if I ask you to see what's path to csc.exe in system environment variable? Mine points to C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.xxxxx (I don't remember the exact version) I had added it manually. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:35, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran - sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by "path to csc.exe in system environment variable". Where do you get your value of "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.xxxxx" from? That might give me a clue as to what to search for. Regards, Kiwipete (talk) 08:01, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I just started to configure a new Surface Pro, Windows 11 on ARM64, and have the same problem. Two old, well-established x64 Win10 systems are working OK with the same copy of AWB. Adding the path to a version of csc.exe to the PATH environment variable (per-user version, but that shouldn't matter) doesn't help, and in any case it's not set on my other systems. It seems that something weird is happening in the CSharpCodeProvider class, but I'm not set up to investigate yet.

I assumed it had something to to with either Win11 or ARM/x86 emulation, but Usernamekiran has neither. BTW, the WinSxS copies are irrelevant; that is the Windows secure component store used during update or recovery.

I'll try to set up for debugging and see what else I can find. It may take a few days. David Brooks (talk) 14:19, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@David Brooks: Hi. On my desktop I have Win 10 pro, and on (older) laptop, home edition. I had made clean re-install on both the systems around the same time, I think in first week of March. I am having the same problem on both the computers, both of them x86. I tried changing "user", as well "system" path, didn't work. @Kiwipete: I am currently not on windows, so I am writing this based on my memory. If you search in the Windows search bar for "system environment variable", you will see the tool for that, after clicking on it, in the new window, there would be an option "environment variables" at the bottom. If you click on it, there would be another new window, on it, there would be "system variables", and "user variables". if you edit "PATH" section, there should be the values we are looking for. —usernamekiran (talk) 07:03, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran, @DavidBrooks, thanks, I now understand what you are looking at. In the Environment Variables, I have a PATH user variable (for my account) set to "%M2%;%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%MARIADB_HOME%\bin;%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;". These are mainly applications I have configured myself. I also have a PATH system variable, set to "%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\OpenSSH\;D:\jZip;D:\PuTTY\;D:\TortoiseSVN\bin;". When I open a command prompt, I get the following resulting PATH variable: "Path=C:\windows\system32;C:\windows;C:\windows\System32\Wbem;C:\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\windows\System32\OpenSSH\;D:\jZip;D:\PuTTY\;D:\TortoiseSVN\bin;D:\apache-maven-3.9.8\bin;D:\jdk-11\bin;D:\MariaDB 10.4\bin;C:\Users\pete\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;". Note I don't see any directory containing csc.exe that I mentioned above listed in the PATH. When I try "where csc" or "where csc.exe", I get the response "INFO: Could not find files for the given pattern(s).". Sorry if that's still not much help. Kiwipete (talk) 08:54, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

For Windows 10 there is no need to install all the old .NET versions. Installing the current .NET 4.x.x as provided by Windows Update should be fine. I suspect installing the older versions may have created a conflict. When you have the custom module screen open in AWB what option are you using in the Language field (C# 4.0 would be expected) / hhave you tried all of the C# ones if multiple? Also you might check registry path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\MSBuild\\ToolsVersions\\ as that is apparently the path that will be used. Rjwilmsi 12:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

The only option provided in AWB is 3.5, and that refers to the language version, not the compiler version. Newer compilers will observe the (more restricted) language of older versions because reasons.

But thanks for your hint and technical insight. On the new system there is only a \ToolsVersions\4.0 key. I added a 3.5 key and populated it with a string value MSBuildToolsPath:C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\ and it works. Clearly the language version is driving the lookup. Just check that the directory exists in your system and has a csc.exe. If you don't like editing the registry (and it still makes me uneasy after 18 years at Microsoft) then maybe installing the 3.5 Framework will work, if you can find it. Or not.

I think this is a Microsoft bug, given that the CSharpCodeProvider class does offer down-level language versions. At best it should hunt the ToolsVersions key for a value >= the language version. Or at least the restriction should be documented. I'll whine at my former colleagues. David Brooks (talk) 14:26, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

p.s. on my new system, C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\FrameworkArm64\v4.0.30319\ works as well (and is theoretically more efficient). David Brooks (talk) 15:00, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Update: apologies, that was an incomplete fix. Because AWB is still a 32-bit app, if you are running on a 64-bit system, you should add the 3.5 key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions alongside the 4.0 that you should find already there. Add a MSBuildToolsPath value as above. It wouldn't hurt to add it to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions anyway in case you come across other 64-bit apps with the same problem.

Also, I was talking nonsense about the compiler version. This is the 4.0 executable, which can compile up to c# 5.0 I think. Sorry about that. David Brooks (talk) 20:36, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, last say on this, really. The easiest way of making this work, for now, is to install Framework 3.5, which is not usually available on a brand-new system. You can download it directly from here, or you can get it from the "Turn Windows features on and off" dialog if you can find it. A maintainer has already checked in the 4.0 update to the source tree, so the robust fix should be available eventually. Apologies for running all over the place; real life has been intruding this week. David Brooks (talk) 18:54, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

thanks, framework 3.5 resolved the issue. thanks a lot, David! —usernamekiran (talk) 13:35, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

If you haven't already downloaded 3.5, there is now no need; the latest (6.3.1.0) version fixed it. David Brooks (talk) 15:37, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Unauthorized Access Exception error

Prompted by the discussion above, I just updated AWB. Windows 11 prompted me to run it as administrator, which I did.

Then when I tried to run the programme, I got an "UnauthorizedAccessException" error, with the exmplanation "Access to the path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\AutoWikiBrowser\AWBUpdater.exe' is denied."

Before I open a Phabricator ticket, is this a known issue/ easily fixed? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:20, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Try look Search -> Local Security Policies -> Software Restrictions Policies -> Additional Rules; and check if exists any "path" type rules that prevent execution of certain files or access to certain folders. IndyJr (talk) 17:18, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@IndyJr: Thank you. I presume you mean search in settings in Windows 11? There is no result - other than a web search - for "Local Security Policies". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Win11. But I've the Pro version, perhaps these settings doesn't exists in the Home version. IndyJr (talk) 18:10, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

AWB Permission error

I've had permissions to use AWB since march of this year and I've used it as I said I would to add champion templates to the bottom of results pages for sporting events. However when logging in today I'm getting a permission error that says "This user doesn't have enough privilleges to make automatic edits on this wiki." I'm still on the check page for having permissions and I don't believe I broke any of the rules so I'm slightly confused. Brandon Downes (talk) 16:07, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I just came here to add the same thing. I've been using AWB for years and have the current version but I'm getting the same message. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 16:12, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh ok I'm less concerned now and it's probably just an error. Hopefully it gets fixed soon. Brandon Downes (talk) 16:20, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Same here. I used it last week without problems. Christian75 (talk) 16:21, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I've been getting this off-and-on today too. Don't think I've seen it before. A partial work-around is to try to keep at least 1 AWB instance logged in successfully, and hope the power/UPS/battery stays on, and sleep/hibernate instead of rebooting, if possible.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:21, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

That's a very Jurassic Park we've-never-shut-down-the-system sort of approach. Primefac (talk) 16:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

And, in my case, impossible. I only use it two or three times a year. Looks like I picked the right day. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 16:32, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I was using it 12 hours ago so it's a pretty recent thing Brandon Downes (talk) 16:22, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

It might be WP:THURSDAY. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:33, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah, the developers are aware - phab:T372017 -- John of Reading (talk) 16:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Same here, and I got my saved settings deleted too for some reason. Sp1dey ^💬 19:00, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The permissions failure is because of a change to the server software that didn't fully take into account the needs of apps like AWB: phab:T371977. There does seem to be little progress. I don't think that addresses Sp1dey's setting though. David Brooks (talk) 19:07, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I’m not sure if there is a connection between the two issues. After receiving the permissions error this morning, I was able to access AWB after restarting my computer. However, when I checked the settings I had saved, I noticed that the most recent changes were gone and there was a version from a few days ago. Moreover, everything was perfectly normal yesterday; both AWB was working and there were no issues with my settings. AWB started to give error again this evening. Of course, as I mentioned, this could just be a coincidence. Sp1dey ^💬 19:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I am getting this permissions error on every site but Wikipedia (for which I have had an AWB instance open nonstop for quite some time). BD2412 T 19:32, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

This won't be any interesting for nobody - but - same error here. Emptywords (talk) 19:47, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

And yet another one here. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:44, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Might as well add on to the pile - another here. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 02:03, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Ditto, as either LindsayH or Kahtar, the ID i've been using for AWB for a decade. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 05:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

There is a new release 6.3.1.0 which appears to work. Within AWB, use "Help > Check for updates" to upgrade to it. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I've just downloaded 6.3.1.0 and it is working for me. Kiwipete (talk) 09:35, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 10:34, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

On other wikis it doesn't work, search for "AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageJSON" even on wikis where registration is not required and where, obviously, the file doesn't exist. --Pil56 (talk) 11:01, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Not working on sv.wikipedia. I get "Check page filed to load" - even after creating the check page. Kitayama (talk) 12:49, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Amended the JSON-file. Was: only enableduser Now: Both enabledusers and enabledbots. Now log in works for both users and bots. Kitayama (talk) 13:24, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes that works now. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 11:20, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

It works! Thank you so much. Sp1dey ^💬 11:25, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Heads up to maintainers: the main download page still has 6.3.0.0 on the big green button. David Brooks (talk) 15:37, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I suggest adding something like this to the top of Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser and Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual for a while:

PrimeHunter (talk) 12:24, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Though not a Wikimedia supplied utility, should AWB and other commonly used apps not be part of any change test protocol? Or does that need a specific request? Neils51 (talk) 14:36, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: It works for me now after updating to version 6.3.1.1.   — Jeff G. ツ 10:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Not working on ta.wikipedia.--Kanags (talk) 11:14, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jeff G. Yes, version 6.3.1.1 sees to fixed it. Veracious ^(•‿•)^ 07:46, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Even 6.3.1.0 fixed it for me. -- Auntof6 (talk) 17:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I haven't used AWB prior to this and only got user rights a week or so ago. I updated to 6.3.1.1 but the error still comes back Kowal2701 (talk) 18:04, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Issue with template "fix"

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T367178

The change to {{banner shell}} should not have happened in Special:Diff/1241032103. It's not on WP:AWB/TR so I'm not really sure why it got replaced. Thoughts? Primefac (talk) 10:05, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I have an old copy of the AWB sources on my hard drive. The source code module TalkPageFixes.cs has a hard-coded list of known redirects BannerShellRedirects, which needs updating now that {{banner shell}} has been retargeted. Rather than get AWB fixed [again] it may be simpler to update all the Talk pages that use {{banner shell}} so that the bug does not occur. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:27, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Fun. I'll throw up a WP:AWBTASKS request. Primefac (talk) 10:39, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Okay, should be sorted now. Primefac (talk) 12:45, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Not directly related, but there is an another outstanding fix for banner shell edits, described here. It only requires deleting a few lines of code, ahem. I've linked the tickets in the interests of only opening the patient once. David Brooks (talk) 19:46, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Unauthorized Access Exception error

Prompted by the discussion above, I just updated AWB. Windows 11 prompted me to run it as administrator, which I did.

Then when I tried to run the programme, I got an "UnauthorizedAccessException" error, with the exmplanation "Access to the path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\AutoWikiBrowser\AWBUpdater.exe' is denied."

Before I open a Phabricator ticket, is this a known issue/ easily fixed? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:20, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Try look Search -> Local Security Policies -> Software Restrictions Policies -> Additional Rules; and check if exists any "path" type rules that prevent execution of certain files or access to certain folders. IndyJr (talk) 17:18, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@IndyJr: Thank you. I presume you mean search in settings in Windows 11? There is no result - other than a web search - for "Local Security Policies". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Win11. But I've the Pro version, perhaps these settings doesn't exists in the Home version. IndyJr (talk) 18:10, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Restored from the archive; the issue persists. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:05, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm curious why it is trying to find the updater in Program Files (x86). Is that where you put the install? Anyway, it's possible you have the same problem as explored above. Find the folder with the AWBUpdater.exe file, right-click on the file, Properties. If the dialog offers you an Unblock checkbox, check it and OK. Does that help? If so, you should probably do the same with all the exe's and DLLs in the release. David Brooks (talk) 21:02, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is installed in 'Program Files (x86)'. I did as you suggest and there was no "unblock" option. The file was read-only, so I removed that, but it made no difference. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:14, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Question regarding certain replacements

Hi, I want to make this type of replacements inside a template, is it possible by AWB:

• {{TEMPLATE|123|XYZ}} -> {{TEMPLATE|page=123|text=XYZ}} (i.e. shift unnamed parameters into named ones)
• {{TEMPLATE|2=XYZ|1=123}} -> {{TEMPLATE|123|XYZ}} (i.e. organize ordering of unnamed parameters)

Thanks, —Svārtava (t/u) • 09:49, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

If your use cases will always appear in the orders you describe, then sure, using regex:

• ({{TEMPLATE\s*\|\s*)([^|]*)\|([^}]*)}} → $1page=$2|text=$3}}
• ({{TEMPLATE\s*\|\s*)2=([^|]*)\|1=([^}]*)}} → $1$3|$2}}

That being said, if a template takes both named and unnamed parameters (e.g. {{{1|{{{page|}}}}}}) then AWB should not be used to do this, as it is a cosmetic and unnecessary change and would be contrary to our rules of use. On the other hand, if a template is being replaced or otherwise updated then it is probably okay. I'd like to more details mainly so I could make sure I'm giving you the best advice for the edits you're seeking to make. Primefac (talk) 10:30, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the reply, those were very helpful (I needed to some template updating/standardizations on Wiktionary, for which I asked). I dealt with cases not always appearing in the order I described by adding the alternate sequence in another row. The use of variables as you showed will also be very useful in future. —Svārtava (t/u) • 10:02, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

ARM64 build

I recently purchased a Surface Pro running on an ARM64 processor, and rebuilt AWB to run natively. It certainly seems zippier than the standard x86 build running under emulation, especially on startup. If you are interested, I threw a release up at https://github.com/DavidWBrooks/UnofficialAWB/releases/latest. No plugins; let me know if that's a problem. Also it targets .NET Framework 4.8 instead of 4.5, but that shouldn't be an issue. David Brooks (talk) 17:49, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Defer only template redirect substitution?

Hey—I've become self-conscious of the template redirect substitution and personally find it unduly disruptive to always perform when using AWB. Is there a way to disable only template redirect substitution while keeping every other fix enabled? Remsense ‥ 论 20:09, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense: I don't know the answer. But one difficulty is that some other parts of the AWB code assume that certain template redirects have been replaced - see Special:Diff/755659122 and Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects/Archive 1#Emptied. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:32, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Hum, thank you for making me aware of this stumbling block. Remsense ‥ 论 07:55, 25 September 2024 (UTC)