[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[watani]

So I'm getting a weird issue right now with Spacebattles in that if FFF uses only reader mode to get the fic there aren't any problems, but if for some reason it decides it needs to switch to not using reader mode there's a 403 client error that pops up when it tries to request a specific post.

There are two fics I've encountered this issue with:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...sover.1212002/
https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...sekai.1237355/

Edit: For clarification, I have had no problems with the majority of the fics I've tried. Just these two.

Edit 2: The first fic just suddenly worked now, but the second one is still having problems. First fic also switched over to just using reader mode, so the issue does seem tied to when FFF is not using reader mode.

[JimmXinu]

I downloaded two stories ~2 hours ago, ~20 chapters each with no problems. I then downloaded your first linked story, no problem.

Most of the way through your second linked story, I did start getting 403. On literally the last chapter.

Which continues to 403 despite not seeing that happen consistently for other stories or posts. Is that the same 'specific post' you mention?

I don't have an explanation or solution. I don't see anything weird about that post.

I would speculate maybe that a 'too much' traffic blocking response was cached somewhere in cloudflare for that post? Changing to a VPN didn't appear to help. It loads fine in browser, even when not logged in.

EDIT: Set continue_on_chapter_error:true if you don't to get the parts that did work.

[watani]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

I downloaded two stories ~2 hours ago, ~20 chapters each with no problems. I then downloaded your first linked story, no problem.

Most of the way through your second linked story, I did start getting 403. On literally the last chapter.

Which continues to 403 despite not seeing that happen consistently for other stories or posts. Is that the same 'specific post' you mention?

I don't have an explanation or solution. I don't see anything weird about that post.

I would speculate maybe that a 'too much' traffic blocking response was cached somewhere in cloudflare for that post? Changing to a VPN didn't appear to help. It loads fine in browser, even when not logged in.

EDIT: Set continue_on_chapter_error:true if you don't to get the parts that did work.

Yes, it is that specific post that was also causing me issues.

I noticed that the reader mode for the apocrypha of that fic is currently broken, only showing one post a page and the page selection of the whole thread. It's probably linked to the forum backend update they did recently. My hope is that it'll resolve itself eventually like the first fic did, but thanks for the workaround.

[JimmXinu]

Interesting. I, also, have that one post missing from Reader mode in browser. I'm also seeing the Cloudflare challenge more often in browser on SB today.

I suspect you are correct that it's some how broken in the site's DB.

[zencricket]

Some of my books have not been updating and the logs have the following message:

"FanFicFare doesn't recognize chapters in existing epub, epub is probably from a different source. Use Overwrite to force update."

I found out that I had unknowingly broken these books and made them unable to be updated.

One of the sites for my books is unreliable in how it does chapters, so sometimes I am forced to download a single chapter. Then I would use Calibre's Edit Book to copy the new file to the old book, rename the file to the next in sequence, and then use the Arrange Into Folders function to put them all in the same folder. This is what broke the books, because I did not use the expected folder name. The default is blank (which puts them in the root folder) and I did not see a problem with it, not recognizing the link to the update problem. By that time, too much time had elapsed for me to make the connection.

Finally, I downloaded the update as a new book and compared the two using Edit Book and noticed the folder difference. Putting the original book's text files in a folder named OEBPS fixed the issue.

During my investigation, I did find a warning about folders when editing epubs in the github wiki, too. So, this information is covered there—sort of. I thought it might be of some use to explain it more completely. I don't know if this qualifies as a FAQ, maybe I am the only one dumb enough to do this.

[ownedbycats]

How do add a second author to story?

[culytera]

I couldn't find the option for this, is it possible to prevent FanFicFare from downloading static images and/or gifs and keep the src attribute in its original link instead? An author I download from likes to add gifs on the chapter notes so the epub filesize is already at 252 MB. I don't mind just having the reader download the images on-the-fly instead.

EDIT: Would it also be possible to have a section in the INI for a specific author, much like specific story URLs?

This is the same author who, apart from adding gifs on chapter notes, likes to add a ton of tags for all their works so I thought instead of adding the same titlepage settings per story URL, I would just have a specific section for them.

EDIT2: I forgot I can just use the INI snippet for at least the specific titlepage settings

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

How do add a second author to story?

Edit the metadata in calibre?

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

How do add a second author to story?

Poorly.

replace_metadata:
 author=>^(.*)$=>\1\,Other Author
# authorUrl and authorId are immutable

authorHTML will have a bad link for the second author.

authorHTML: 'authorHTML': "<a class='authorlink' href='http://author/url'>Test Author aa</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='None'>Other Author</a>"

You can use replace_metadata on authorHTML, too, if you want to fix that? I honestly don't know what the knock-on effects might be.

Personally, I add 'aka OtherAuthor' to Tags and/or the author text: author=>Nimodes=>Nimodes aka Greyff

Originally Posted by culytera

I couldn't find the option for this, is it possible to prevent FanFicFare from downloading static images and/or gifs and keep the src attribute in its original link instead? An author I download from likes to add gifs on the chapter notes so the epub filesize is already at 252 MB. I don't mind just having the reader download the images on-the-fly instead.

Not currently--if include_images:false, <img> tags are all removed.

I hesitate to add a feature to keep <img> tags w/o download because of how complex the epub update image code is.

Is this something other users would find useful?

Originally Posted by culytera

EDIT: Would it also be possible to have a section in the INI for a specific author, much like specific story URLs?

While I agree that would be nice, it's been considered more than once in the past and rejected.

Off the top of my head, reasons included, but not limited to:
Multiple authors on some sites/stories,
No unique author url on some sites/stories,
Author changing name on some sites also changes url/id,
Author url/id not collected immediately on some sites/stories.

[culytera]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Not currently--if include_images:false, <img> tags are all removed.

I hesitate to add a feature to keep <img> tags w/o download because of how complex the epub update image code is.

I see. For now I'm just manually deleting the images/gifs inside the epub and replacing all instances:

Find: img alt="" longdesc="(.+)" src=".+"
Replace: img alt="" src="\1"

And that restores the original links to the images/gifs.

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

While I agree that would be nice, it's been considered more than once in the past and rejected.

Understandable, for my use-case the INI snippet is enough anyway and it's only for one author.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by culytera

I see. For now I'm just manually deleting the images/gifs inside the epub and replacing all instances:

Find: img alt="" longdesc="(.+)" src=".+"
Replace: img alt="" src="\1"

And that restores the original links to the images/gifs.

That's fine(ish) for finished works.

The (ish) part is that alt isn't always going to be empty. I would do:
Find: longdesc="(.+)" src=".+"
Replace: src="\1"

But if you do that and then update with FFF, FFF will download all those images again.

I'm curious enough to investigate this further, so I may have a test version with an option to keep <img>s soon.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2026-07-12
- Add option keep_img_tags - keep <img> tags when include_images:false

Only applies when include_images:false.

Like so:

[https://storyurl]
include_images:false
keep_img_tags:true

From defaults.ini:

Spoiler:

## include images from img tags in the body and summary of
## stories.  Images will be converted to jpg for size if possible.
## include_images is *only* available in epub and html output format.
## You can also set include_images:coveronly to exclude images in the
## story text but still include specific cover images or
## default_cover_image, force_cover_image, or use_old_cover cover
## images.
include_images:true

## If include_images:false, and keep_img_tags:true, keep <img> tags
## and make their src attributes absolute URLs.  Normally, <img> tags
## are removed when include_images:false
#keep_img_tags:false

Note, due to INI section priority choices made long ago, if you want to apply this to an entire site, you must use [site:epub] (or other format):

[forums.spacebattles.com:epub]
include_images:false
keep_img_tags:true

([storyurl:format] is not a valid section.)

Note2, keep_img_tags:true effectively adds 'src' to keep_html_attrs. But so does include_images:true, so I doubt it's a problem.

Note3, doing an update after changing keep_img_tags to false, will either download or remove <img> tags depending on include_images.

[culytera]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

New Test Version Posted
2026-07-12
- Add option keep_img_tags - keep <img> tags when include_images:false

Thank you! Works perfectly.

[ThistleProse]

Hey, so something funky is happening and I'm not sure why?

For some reason, after the 10th July, my personal.ini stopped excluding author's notes and such when I download a fic from AO3

exclude_notes: authorheadnotes, chaptersummary, chapterheadnotes, chapterfootnotes, authorfootnotes, inspiredlinks

Is the code I have, and it was working. The last story I can confirm was downloaded that has AO3 notes on site doesn't have them in the fic, I downloaded on the 10th (my timezone). But all the stories I downloaded today (13th, my timezone) retained their Author's notes and other such commentary.

I'm not sure how to fix it, because I don't think I actually changed anything, so I'm really very confused haha.

FanFicFare version 4.59.0 & Calibre 9.11