[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[DevilsReject97]

Originally Posted by DevilsReject97

Was searching through due to this very issue - is there an install for dummies for flaresolverr? I'm not a Python/Docker user, so I wanted to ask. Really appreciate all the work you do and I'm grateful for any assistance.

So managed to find the installer and got it installed per the instructions, but metadata retrival with FFF seems to crawl now with flaresolverr running. Is this normal?

I've added the code from the previous comment into my personal.ini as suggested.

[MidnightRose]

Originally Posted by MidnightRose

Is there any way to keep style attributes in <table> elements? I'm already using add_to_keep_html_attrs:,style, but it seems not to work on tables.

Actually ignore this. I changed literally nothing other than putting a copy of my personal.ini in my user folder (And adding said user folder to a new %HOME% environment variable because windows doesn't have one by default) and now the tables have the formatting correctly.

I am very confused but it's working so whatever.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by DevilsReject97

So managed to find the installer and got it installed per the instructions, but metadata retrival with FFF seems to crawl now with flaresolverr running. Is this normal?

Basically, yes.

Originally Posted by MidnightRose

Actually ignore this. I changed literally nothing other than putting a copy of my personal.ini in my user folder (And adding said user folder to a new %HOME% environment variable because windows doesn't have one by default) and now the tables have the formatting correctly.

I am very confused but it's working so whatever.

The Calibre FanFicFare plugin uses personal.ini from inside your plugin settings, not a copy anywhere on disk.

(This forum is specifically for calibre plugins.)

[DevilsReject97]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Basically, yes.

Thank you, and I appreciate the response. Is there anything I can do to speed it up or perhaps configure that would eliminate any unnecessary processes?

I pretty much just read from Novelfull only.

I saw your Github closed post from about 2.5 weeks ago that you referenced an old closed post from 3 years ago about Novelfull/flaresolverr. Ironically, I've never run it until now, never had issues with FFF and Novelfull until about 2.5 weeks ago... been using both for over 3+ years...

It all started right after 8.8 Calibre/4.48 FFF came out (because I updated my books on 07/29 and they worked, but updated the software the following weekend)... pure coincidence probably, but very odd timing all the same.

Really appreciate the work btw, it's a great feature that works very well.

With running flaresolverr, is it possible to go after other sites like Novelbin or FreeWebNovel?

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by DevilsReject97

I saw your Github closed post from about 2.5 weeks ago that you referenced an old closed post from 3 years ago about Novelfull/flaresolverr. Ironically, I've never run it until now, never had issues with FFF and Novelfull until about 2.5 weeks ago... been using both for over 3+ years...

We've been seeing these issues for 4+ years on various sites. You were lucky to not have issues until now.

Originally Posted by DevilsReject97

With running flaresolverr, is it possible to go after other sites like Novelbin or FreeWebNovel?

No.

[indecisivemess]

Thanks that makes more sense to me now! The freeformtags show up on the first page of the fanfic but when I try to customise the subject tags to allow specific ones through, it doesn't show up. I also tried just adding all the freeformtags under subject tags and they don't show up either.


Having all the freeform tags on the first page is perfect. What I would like is to have a custom column with all the freeformtags that I allow to show up (I tried to follow the FFF wiki to let specific ones through). So for some reason it's reading all the freeformtags for the first page, but isn't picking out my customised freeformtags that I want to show up in tags and the custom column

My personal.ini is the same as the screenshots I sent, only the things you've suggested have been changed.

For the Ships, I've done everything you mentioned and it still won't show up in the tag browser or the ships custom column. The column exists but is on 0 despite me testing with a variety of fics.

[culytera]

Originally Posted by indecisivemess

Thanks that makes more sense to me now! The freeformtags show up on the first page of the fanfic but when I try to customise the subject tags to allow specific ones through, it doesn't show up. I also tried just adding all the freeformtags under subject tags and they don't show up either.

If your include_subject_tags line still looks like:

include_subject_tags:
 freeform_tags
 etc.

Then you're not actually including anything, it should be "include_subject_tags:freeformtags"

And move the freeformtag metadata changes under replace_metadata. However, you also have an extra entry called filtered_freeform_tags so you'll have to decide which one you'll actually want to add.

Originally Posted by indecisivemess

For the Ships, I've done everything you mentioned and it still won't show up in the tag browser or the ships custom column. The column exists but is on 0 despite me testing with a variety of fics.

I made a quick test with your exact Ship column settings and all ships showed on mine so I don't know what you're lacking since I don't know your full setup.

[applegaa]

Originally Posted by indecisivemess

For the Ships, I've done everything you mentioned and it still won't show up in the tag browser or the ships custom column. The column exists but is on 0 despite me testing with a variety of fics.

If it's literally showing a 0, it sounds like you picked the wrong type for the column when you created it.

- Andrew

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Okay.

AO3 will get removed from that page entirely if it's still problem free in a month or two.

Since nobody's screaming, I'm hopeful the other AO3 changes didn't break anything in FFF.

525 errors still happen from time-to-time, possibly related to high traffic and multiple updates, suggest leaving it for now. I just switch to gay when I run into problems and back in the morning.

As a note, I also edited this page to add a link to the Metadata Management thread.

[ownedbycats]

Question: While cleaning up old storyUrl sections, I found an AO3 story with a replace_metadata on the title and an always_login:true.

I can't remember why I used always_login. The story isn't restricted, and I have password saved in ini anyways. I don't have hide warnings/additional tags flagged in my account settings. I don't use bookmarks. It's not my own anonymous story. Package date is last year, so not weird leftover test from site issues.

Anything else that can be changed?

[ownedbycats]

Also, I've been moving my storyUrl sections to a custom longtext column (#fanficsettings) to declutter my personal.ini. Most of them are finished/hiatused stories anyways so I can just copy it in when needed.

This made me wonder if it'd be possible to add feature to read the storyUrl sections from the column directly. Probably not worth it to implement, considering that I'm the first to ask and possibly the only one who'd use it.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Question: While cleaning up old storyUrl sections, I found an AO3 story with a replace_metadata on the title and an always_login:true.

I can't remember why I used always_login. ...

Maybe it was locked then? Maybe you bookmarked it and wanted that recorded?

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

This made me wonder if it'd be possible to add feature to read the storyUrl sections from the column directly. Probably not worth it to implement, considering that I'm the first to ask and possibly the only one who'd use it.

Possible? Yes. Likely? No. I've considered that before, but I don't think the added complexity and added troubleshooting issues are worth it.

[ownedbycats]

I was trying to move some ini stuff from [archiveofourown.org] to [storyUrl] (so I could store it). It didn't work:

[archiveofourown.org]

include_in_series:series,collections
include_in_collectionUrl:"abc"
include_in_seriesUrl:seriesUrl,collectionUrl

exclude_metadata_post:
## Removes placeholder collectionUrl if unused
 collectionUrl==abc

## DruidX - The Steel Undone (8060)
[https://archiveofourown.org/works/32834998]
add_to_exclude_metadata_pre:
 series==Misc Other Oblivion Fics
 seriesUrl==https://archiveofourown.org/series/2277245

add_to_include_metadata_pre:
 collections==TES Summer Fest 2021

add_to_replace_metadata:
 collections=>.*=>TES Summerfest 2021
 collectionUrl=>abc=>https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tesfest21

This set series name to to Misc Other Oblivion Fics [12], TES Summerfest 2021TES Summerfest 2021 (at least the URL got set correctly) and I have no idea what I did wrong.

EDIT: If change to series=>.*=>TES Summerfest 2021 I get TES Summerfest 2021TES Summerfest 2021. I don't know.

ANOTHER EDIT: Anchors fixed it. Also include_in_series(Url) is simpler. The one thing I still don't understand is why the exclude failed.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

EDIT: If change to series=>.*=>TES Summerfest 2021 I get TES Summerfest 2021TES Summerfest 2021. I don't know.

ANOTHER EDIT: Anchors fixed it. Also include_in_series(Url) is simpler. The one thing I still don't understand is why the exclude failed.

Need begin/end of string anchors since python3 came along. I assume that's what you mean in your second edit.

add_to_replace_metadata:
 collections=>^.*$=>TES Summerfest 2021

Exclude of series needs to include the number-in-series in the string. Anchors added to not match "Another Misc Other Oblivion Fics", etc.

add_to_exclude_metadata_pre:
 series=~^Misc Other Oblivion Fics \[\d+\]$

I had to add this to get your collectionUrl to work. (collections is added in defaults.ini):

add_to_extra_valid_entries:,collectionUrl

[LeWyKi]

Hi, I've been trying to download a few stories from [fireflyfans.net] and for most of them the plugin is working perfectly. There's just a few stories that return an error with comment "list index out of range", e.g. this story: bluesun.aspx?bid=10996
I've looked at the Calibre debug and got this:

FFF: INFO: 2025-08-22 17:00:59,174: calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.jobs(381): Exception: {'title': 'Sight', 'author_sort': ['TEMPUS'], 'author': ['TEMPUS'], 'comments': 'Chapter of Sight. The jedi come. River gets a dream of the future.', 'good': False, 'status': 'Error', 'showerror': True, 'calibre_id': None, 'begin': None, 'end': None, 'comment': 'list index out of range', 'url': 'http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=10996', 'site': 'www.fireflyfans.net', 'series': 'FIREFLY', 'added': False, 'pubdate': datetime.datetime(2006, 6, 12, 0, 0, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(seconds=7200), 'CEST')), 'publisher': 'www.fireflyfans.net', 'uniqueurl': 'http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=10996[None-None]', 'listorder': 4, 'collision': 'Update EPUB if New Chapters', 'is_adult': False, 'username': 'NoneGiven', 'password': '', 'totp': None, 'icon': 'dialog_error.png', 'all_metadata': {'category': 'FICTION', 'genre': 'General', 'characters': '', 'ships': '', 'warnings': '', 'extratags': 'FanFiction', 'author': 'TEMPUS', 'authorId': '', 'authorUrl': 'http://www.fireflyfans.net/profileshow.aspx?u=', 'lastupdate': 'Last Update Year/Month: 2006/06, Last Update: 2006/06/12', 'series': 'FIREFLY', 'seriesUrl': '', 'language': '', 'status': 'Completed', 'datePublished': '2006-06-12', 'dateUpdated': '2006-06-12', 'dateCreated': '2025-08-22 17:00:05', 'rating': '', 'numChapters': '1', 'numWords': '', 'words_added': '', 'site': 'www.fireflyfans.net', 'publisher': 'www.fireflyfans.net', 'storyId': '10996', 'title': 'Sight', 'titleHTML': "<a class='titlelink' href='http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=10996'>Sight</a>", 'storyUrl': 'http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=10996', 'sectionUrl': 'http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=10996', 'description': 'Chapter of Sight. The jedi come. River gets a dream of the future.', 'formatname': '', 'formatext': '', 'siteabbrev': 'fffans', 'version': 'FanFicFare v4.48.0', 'authorHTML': "<a class='authorlink' href='http://www.fireflyfans.net/profileshow.aspx?u='>TEMPUS</a>", 'seriesHTML': 'FIREFLY', 'langcode': '', 'output_css': '', 'cover_image': '', 'newforanthology': ''}, 'tags': ['FanFiction', 'General', 'FICTION', 'Completed'], 'updatedate': datetime.datetime(2006, 6, 12, 0, 0, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(seconds=7200), 'CEST')), 'timestamp': datetime.datetime(2025, 8, 22, 17, 0, 57, 897223, tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(seconds=7200), 'CEST')), 'calibre_columns': {}, 'outfile': '/tmp/calibre-fdg7njxr/fanficfare_ro6qqwxs/Sight-TEMPUS-478kme67.epub'}:list index out of range
	Traceback (most recent call last):
	  File "calibre_plugins.fanficfare_plugin.jobs", line 249, in do_download_for_worker
	    writer.writeStory(outfilename=outfile,
	  File ".../calibre/plugins/FanFicFare.zip/fanficfare/writers/base_writer.py", line 237, in writeStory
	    self.writeStoryImpl(outstream)
	  File ".../calibre/plugins/FanFicFare.zip/fanficfare/writers/writer_epub.py", line 384, in writeStoryImpl
	    self.story.getList('authorId')[0],
	    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^
	IndexError: list index out of range

So looks like some authors don't have an authorId if I'm reading this right. What can I do?