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This is the discussion page for the AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) project. It is also the place to discuss using the AWB program (for help, questions, or general inquiries about AWB). Specific guidelines on where to make particular reports or requests are provided in the § Before you post section below. Before asking a question, please refer to the read the § Frequently asked questions below.

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
31, 32, 33, 34

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by .

Before you post

Do you want to ...

Please use

Report a bug or request a feature in AWB?

Check reported bugs on Phabricator before filing a new bug report. You do not need to create another account there; just log in with your global Wikimedia account. See this MediaWiki wiki page on how to report bugs and request features on Phabricator.

Report a bug

Try to report bugs in the current version of the software. Update to the most recent version and check to make sure your bug has not already been reported on Phabricator. See How to Report Bugs Effectively for advice on how to write bug reports.

Before posting anything related to non-Wikimedia Foundation wikis, verify that the site is running a recent version of MediaWiki with enabled Bot API. Older versions of MediaWiki or without the Bot API are not supported. Be sure to mention the exact URL of your wiki.

Request a feature details
Please use the feature request button to submit new feature requests. This format helps the developers track and manage requests efficiently. Before submitting, take a moment to search the archives—both on-wiki and on Phabricator—to see if a similar request has already been discussed.

Report an incorrectly fixed typo?

Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos

Request approval to use AWB?

Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/AutoWikiBrowser

Ask a question about AWB or ask for help?

This page

Frequently asked questions

When I start it up I get one of the following errors:
"The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.", or

"To run this application, you must first install one of the following versions of the .NET Framework..."

This error means your computer does not have the .NET framework version 2 installed properly. You can choose from various versions for download here, or you can run Windows Update and select version 2 of the .Net framework from the "Optional Updates" section, if you want the choice made for you.
Does AWB run on Linux or Mac?
- AWB runs reasonably under Wine. See details here
  AWB might also run under Mono.
- AWB (Windows) with Unix scripts can be done with Cygwin or Virtualbox
- On the Mac, AWB is not natively available, but an option is to use virtualisation with Parallels Desktop for Mac (subject to meeting supported operating systems requirements) and then run Microsoft Windows virtually with AWB as the Windows instructions above. Note this option is not free, as a license is required for both Parallels Desktop for Mac and Microsoft Windows. An alternative visualization method is to use the free VirtualBox, see also Comparison of platform virtual machines.
- You can use the JavaScript Wiki Browser instead.
Does AWB work on other projects and languages?
Many Wikimedia projects and languages are supported, see the "User and project preferences" option in the general menu. Other languages will be added on request, though at the moment the interface is always in English. You are also able to use AWB with third-party wikis: Options > Preferences > Site, you can change the wiki there. The wiki must support the Bot API required by AWB. This means that it should have latest HEAD version of MediaWiki or something close to that. The wmf-deployment branch is also recommended, as this is what is currently live on WMF sites.
Under Windows Vista (and newer), AWB is using wrong font size, which results in clipped text and lost buttons and options, (see example here). How to fix it?
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T103506
- Solution #1: Go to "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display" and switch resizing of the fonts to 100%.
- Solution #2: Right click on AutoWikiBrowser.exe --> Properties -> Compatibility (tab) --> enable the "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" option or for Windows 10, if available, select System (Enhanced).
AWB puts stubs after categories, though categories are always rendered the last by MediaWiki?
According to WP:STUB#Categorizing stubs, by convention they are placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last. If your wiki uses another order, please let us know here.
I don't like or use Internet Explorer; please use Firefox instead.
AWB does not use Internet Explorer per se. It does, however, use the same web browser control (MSHTML) as Internet Explorer; the equivalent Firefox component does not provide the needed functionality.
How do I open the page in another browser if I can't use the one in AWB?
Right click on the edit box in the bottom right side of your screen. Select "Open page in browser".
How do I edit a page that doesn't exist?
Uncheck "Ignore non existing pages" in the "Skip articles" box.
How do I skip certain articles?
Use the "Skip if contains" and "Skip if doesn't contain" on the "Skip" tab
Can't you leave up a "stable" version, so I don't have to download new versions?
It is important to keep people up to date with the latest versions, because their use of the software doesn't just affect them, but the whole of Wikipedia. As any bugs that remain will be trivial, hopefully releases won't be too frequent.
How can I stop AWB clicking when it changes pages?
This is a Windows sound theme setting. This page explains how to turn off the clicking sound.

Alternatively, delete the following key from the Windows registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.Current
AWB randomly crashes upon page load on my system, and I always use a browser other than Internet Explorer when using Wikipedia.
You may have installed custom scripts incompatible with IE. Wrap the contents of your monobook.js into conditional:

               //Detect IE5.5+
               if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE")==-1)
               {
                   // Previous contents go here
                   ....
               }

I get Just In Time Debugger Messages when loading AWB/loading pages.
In Internet Explorer, go to Tools → Options → Advanced. Make sure 'Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer)' and 'Disable Script Debugging (Other)' Are both checked. Press apply and close.
Why does AWB run very, very slowly if I try to make changes in the edit window on larger pages, especially pages with long lists or tables?
If running on Windows, exit the Speech Recognition software that is built into some versions of Windows; don't just turn it 'Off', you must 'Exit' the software if you have started up Speech Recognition.
When I do a clean install of AutoWikiBrowser the application seems to find old setting data somewhere. I'd like to do a really clean install. Any ideas?
Clean up your registry and remove the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings\Application Data\AutoWikiBrowser" (Windows XP) or "C:\Users\user name\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\" (Windows 7). Note that the application data folder may be hidden.
AWB prompts that there is a newer version but won't update
Check the version number of your AWBUpdater.exe. The current version is 2.4.0.0. If you have an older version, you have to download the latest AWB version and make a clean install.
Which .NET Framework version do I have?
You can find your .NET Framework version in Help → About box.
Where are the default settings stored?
- Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\AutoWikiBrowser
- Windows Vista onwards: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\Default.xml
I cannot copy text from the diff window using the Control+C keyboard shortcut.
You must have Microsoft.mshtml.dll available for AWB to use for this functionality to work. You can try downloading the file (there are a number of third-party websites offering DLL file downloads) and putting it in the same folder as AutoWikiBrowser.exe. This is reported not to work for all users, presumably due to .NET Framework problems.
Is there any way to set AWB to not use https? (GFW blocks 443 port)
In preferences, set project to "custom". Set the left box to http. In the webpage box, type en.wiki.x.io/w/ (English Wikipedia) or zh.wiki.x.io/w/ (Chinese Wikipedia). Note that leaving off the /w/ will result in a "root element missing" error.
How do I login to AWB with accounts enabled with two-factor authentication?
You should use a bot password. Despite the name, they aren't just for bots. See Wikipedia:Using AWB with 2FA.

Discussion

Special:Tags

Is there a way to apply Special:Tags (e.g. talk banner shell conversion) to AWB edits? If so, does it consume the already-precious summary buffer? ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 17:04, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple blank lines

Hi, this is related to a change I want to do on Wiktionary, is there a way by AWB to change multiple blank lines to a single blank line? Sample:

====Synonyms====
* [[EXAMPLE]]


====Derived terms====
* [[TERM]]

to

====Synonyms====
* [[EXAMPLE]]

====Derived terms====
* [[TERM]]

Svartava (talk) 08:11, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can make a strict regex rule to replace (\n\*[^\r\n]+\]\])\s*\n\s*\n\s*\n\s*(==) with $1\n\n$2, which will reduce 2 or more blank lines down to 1.

You can also make a more liberal rule to replace (\n\*[^\r\n]+\]\])\s*\n\s*(==) with $1\n\n$2, which will also expand from 0 blank lines up to 1. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 09:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is a simpler replacement: find (\S\n)\s+(\n\S) → $1$2. Primefac (talk) 13:13, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

~~What about WP:STUBSPACING?~~ Oh yeah, now that WP:STUBSPACING is automagic, that's probably safe. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 14:40, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for your help :)) Svartava (talk) 17:46, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hatnote order

This afternoon, Primefac pointed out to me that certain edits I was making were putting the hatnotes in wrong order in a set of articles, as here.

Think is, I was running a similar task last night, and this and other similar edits came out OK. And the only thing I've changed between now and then is uploaded a new list of articles. I've changed none of the AWB settings I was using.

Any idea what might be causing the discrepancy? --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 17:42, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think that AWB itself is changing the order of these hatnotes? Could you include the regex you're using to add the {{Use mdy dates}} template? Kiwipete (talk) 18:59, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Kiwipete: Apologies, I've been out all day. Came home and did a little tinkering to see if I could isolate more of the issue before I came here.

To answer your question: I simply put "{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}" into the "Append/Prepend text" window, marked "Prepend", and checked the box "Sort metadata after". In every instance over the past few days where I have checked and double-checked, that has been sufficient. (To answer your other question: AWB wasn't changing the order of anything. Rather, in this instance it's properly sorting the metadata after introducing the new hatnote. In this instance, it is not. It is inserting the hatnote and moving on. (A module might fix this, and I haven't had the time to experiment with it today.))

HOWEVER: I found the issue again on another television article from another batch: see here.

The two incorrect articles are about television seasons, and I'm wondering if the problem has something to do with the {{italictitle}} template and its siblings. That's the only common denominator I can think of.

(And please excuse any lack of clarity in my response here - I am severely non-technological, and consequently it's a minor miracle that I've gotten as far as I have in targeting this issue.) --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 07:17, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why did you add a blank line between {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}} & {{Infobox Arizona Legislature here? ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 20:41, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tom.Reding: Wrong "newlines" setting, sorry. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 07:10, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Any updates on running this to ground? (Reupping this so it doesn't disappear into the ether.) --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 03:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have made changes today to AWB that should correctly support sorting of {{Use mdy dates}}. I'll release another AWB snapshot later today. I have specifically NOT implemented support for MOS:ORDER point 2 ({{DISPLAYTITLE}}, {{Lowercase title}}, {{Italic title}}) because the text "some of these may also be placed before the infobox or after the infobox" means that I can't see a clear rule AWB can apply for those. Rjwilmsi 14:15, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should have limitation on certain parameters of templates

AWB should have restriction on certain parameters of citation templates. see this diff. It has put a space after comma at url parameter and causes CS1 error. It's ok to have AWB on title parameter of citation templates.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 18:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also consider this diff.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 18:08, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@KEmel49: AWB is very configurable and is used for different tasks by different editors. Problems with AWB edits should be raised first with the editor making them.

@BD2412: Do your regular expressions have something to stop them editing URLs? I tack (?<!https?://[^ \|\{\}\[\]\<\>]*) on to the end of some of mine, and that works 99% of the time. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I generally just eyeball it. 99% of the time, there are just one or two clear errors on the page. What would actually help more would be for the changes to show up more prominently in the AWB edit window. Give me a few minutes and I'll mock up a concept. BD2412 T 19:23, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that was more than a few minutes, but I would like the AWB window (top image) to look more like the Wikipedia edit window (bottom image):

In fact, what would be ideal would be for the entire URL to be highlighted in the AWB window when an edit was changing its structure, and/or for AWB to have an alert for that in the alert window. BD2412 T 21:47, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can't save at all

When I try to save any edits with AWB, it justs says "Saving", then "Restarting in 10", waits 10 seconds and re-scans the same page. No edits are made, and nothing appears in the log. Every time I click save, the wait increases by five seconds. Milo8505 _(talk) 19:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

None of your edits appear to show an AWB tag so has it ever worked for you? Neils51 (talk) 21:50, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, I have just been given permission recently, but I am on the checkpage.

Maybe it's something silly I'm doing wrong, as I'm a complete beginner in this program.

Any help much appreciated.

Milo8505 _(talk) 06:33, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was something silly indeed. I had not given my bot password sufficient permissions

Facepalm.

My issue is

Resolved

Thanks!

Milo8505 _(talk) 06:42, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wheel arrangement

This edit was flagged up as an error, see edit summary of following edit. John (talk) 20:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64 pinged me on a couple of these as well, however they are hard to spot against various other edits. Perhaps the regex could be rejected if the article contains the string 'locomotive' or similar? Neils51 (talk) 00:39, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As that's from typo fixing, I suggest the issue is raised on typos talk page. Rjwilmsi 09:40, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What does "new" mean?

On the bottom right there are the numbers "pages/min", "edits/min", "edits", "skipped" and "new". What does "new" mean? I've read the manual but can't seem to find it in it. ―Panamitsu (talk) 00:04, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Number of pages created i.e. new pages. Rjwilmsi 15:22, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean creation of a page on Wikipedia? That's odd. It said 1 new page for me yesterday but I had not created any new pages. ―Panamitsu (talk) 22:29, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is what it means. AWB increments the new page count before doing the page save (new page creation), so if new page creation fails (e.g. page is salted) then the count could be falsely high. Also, given that the MediaWiki API doesn't raise edit conflicts for self-edit conflicts, one way this could happen would be to prepare an edit to a non-existent (new) page in AWB, in the meantime actually create the page and save an edit in browser, return to AWB and Save. I think the API will accept the second edit via AWB without error, and AWB will think that counted as a page creation as the page didn't exist when AWB loaded it. I'm not saying you did either of those, they're just examples of how the New pages count in AWB could be off. Rjwilmsi 10:48, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Database scanner alternatives

Are there any alternatives to the AWB database scanner - in particular, one that can be run on Mac? JWB is a decent alternative for some AWB features, but I haven't been able to find an alternative for this functionality. Thanks – Anne drew (talk · contribs) 16:46, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New AWB snapshot

For anyone wanting to use AWB with fixes since last release (August 2024), I've uploaded a new release snapshot here. You will need to download yourself, it's not a release so AWB Updater won't find it. Rjwilmsi 19:03, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The hatnote issue referred to above is still present - I just tried the new release. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 03:32, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I hadn't looked at the hatnote issue until today. Try again with the AutoWikiBrowser6312-12712.zip uploaded just now. Rjwilmsi 18:14, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rjwilmsi: Thanks. I'll take a look at it tonight and see what I can see. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 18:36, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mobile?

Any chance of ever having a mobile version? Hyperbolick (talk) 08:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First, the current implementation won't work. It is built on the .NET Framework and will only run on Windows, or (I think) Mono. Also, it is covered in "chrome"; many interaction points and text windows that wouldn't fit on a mobile screen.

Instead, think through what tasks you would like a mobile version to do (others might come up with a different list) and how the UI and the attendant workflow would work. It would probably be easier to start from the current mobile browser, although there is platform-neutral code in the WikiFunctions library you could filch.

Others have suggested the JWB web-based version, but I have no opinion on that. David Brooks (talk) 18:58, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

iarchive prefix, delete _??

In running AWB on Animal welfare in Nazi Germany, genfixes changed [[iarchive:bonzoswaranimals0000camp_y0p5/page/82/mode/2up|Bonzo's War: Animals Under Fire 1939-1945]] to [[iarchive:bonzoswaranimals0000camp y0p5/page/82/mode/2up|Bonzo's War: Animals Under Fire 1939-1945]] (note the removed underscore after 000camp. While the changed link worked, I don't think it should have been changed since the internet archive URL that it goes to is https://archive.org/details/bonzoswaranimals0000camp_y0p5/page/82/mode/2up (note the URL has the underscore) (I didn't save, but that was in the proposed changes.) I don't think underscores should be dropped in things prefixed with [[iarchive: Not sure if this is a bug, will report on Phabricator if it is.Naraht (talk) 03:56, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. The code that processes the URL expects the string between the two delimiters ( colon and pipe) to be without spaces so the underscore gets put back! Placing '%20' there will also see it resolved to an underscore for IA to us. The AWB underscore replacement is generic, it's often seen replacing non-required underscores in section links (that editors have placed). So, yes, bottom line, a pointless edit that though does no damage (except use clock cycles) will confuse editors and generate these discussions. The template 'iarchive' should really be removed from the 'consideration' list. Good luck with Phabricator, maybe post the reference. Neils51 (talk) 20:15, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So iarchive is a kind of interwiki/project link then but to external content. I thought those were called magic links but I think a magic link is/was slightly different. Does anybody have a link to a central page where all of these are documented (I found reference to imdbtitle: as well)? There may be others that AWB needs to ignore for link formatting if their link content is effectively an HTTP path. Rjwilmsi 09:46, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever they are usually called, they are documented at mw:Manual:Interwiki#Interwiki links to other projects. The list for enwiki (API call) is surprisingly long, but that includes all the "proper" interwiki links as well. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:33, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for that. Far too many to make a specific list so I've done something broad to skip any such links from link whitespace formatting. Fixed in rev 12713, will be included in next release of AWB. Rjwilmsi 18:43, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]