[FanFicFare] Metadata Management for Fanfiction

[storybrookebooks]

I've been following the instructions from this website to set up my FFF.

https://maelstrom.quest/2026/02/24/calibre-fff-guide/

[culytera]

Originally Posted by storybrookebooks

Is there anyway for me to look into why it's not downloading for me? I'm not using any VPN.

If it makes a difference, every time it shows it's downloading, my mouse turns into the spinner and the application is marked as not responding.

EDIT: got the third error again

AO3 still has issues, you'll just have to wait. You can monitor its status here.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by storybrookebooks

I've been following the instructions from this website to set up my FFF.

https://maelstrom.quest/2026/02/24/calibre-fff-guide/

Came from Reddit's AO3 subreddit, I presume?

Sadly AO3's still having issues so it'll be weird until ts resolved.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by storybrookebooks

Hello, this is my first time using FFF and I've been running into a bunch of errors.

I checked the ao3 status page and it says the outage is resolved now so I believe the issues I'm running into is unrelated to it.

Every time I try to download by URL (with only one URL) I'm given one of these 3 errors:

HTTP Error in FFF '525 Server Error: <none> for url: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44...igate'(525)

HTTP Error in FFF '403 Client Error: Forbidden for url: https://archiveofourown.org/users/login'(403)

HTTP Error in FFF '403 Client Error: Forbidden for url: https://archiveofourown.gay/users/login'(403)

This is best posted in the FFF plugin thread and not here.

[ownedbycats]

If you use Generate Covers, this will adjust your cover profile based on the length of a title - no need to regenerate when the text runs off the image

[archiveofourown.org]
generate_cover_settings:
 ${title} => .{1,18} => AO3-ShortTitle
 ${title} => .{60,} => AO3-SmallText
 ${title} => .{30,} => AO3-MediumText

[WinterPhoenix]

I’m trying to configure FanFicFare to automatically add a "View Discussion" link to the end of each chapter when downloading from XenForo-based forums (like Sufficient Velocity, Spacebattles, or Questionable Questing).

These forums have a native feature where adding #post-footer-[post_id] to the end of a thread URL takes you directly to the discussion immediately following that chapter's post.

For example, if the story URL is: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.co...-title.114834/
And the chapter post ID is 27101733, the discussion link looks like this: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.co...ooter-27101733. In the thread url, it doesn't technically need the title, just the id number, like so: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/114834/.

Currently, I use chapter_start to add a standard chapter link, which works perfectly:

[epub]
chapter_end:<p class="skip_on_ffdl_update"><a class="small" href="${url}">Chapter Link</a></p>
 </body>
 </html>

However, I am struggling to format the discussion link. I tried using replace_metadata to turn the chapter URL into a footer link like this:

[forums.sufficientvelocity.com]
add_to_replace_metadata:
 url=>#post-(\d+)=>#post-footer-\1
chapter_end:<p class="skip_on_ffdl_update"><a class="small" href="${url}">View Discussion</a></p>
 </body>
 </html>

This doesn't work because FanFicFare's per-chapter url variable outputs a direct post URL (e.g., https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/33848687/). Even if I extract the post ID via regex, I cannot find a way to append it to the base story URL rather than the post URL. Attempting to use storyUrl inside the chapter_end like so:

[epub]
chapter_end:<p class="skip_on_ffdl_update"><a class="small" href="${storyUrl}">Chapter Link</a></p>
 </body>
 </html>

just results in a broken link that points nowhere, as follows:

<p class="skip_on_ffdl_update"><a class="small" href="">Chapter Link</a></p>
 </body>
 </html>

I say some promising leads on adding new variables that might be able to combine here:

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

snip

Couldn't quite fit them together in a way that was working.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated! A pointer towards a list of valid metakeys might be helpful too, couldn't find one anywhere.

[WinterPhoenix]

It seems like this isn't actually possible to do with 100% accuracy, as posts which aren't on the first page of a thread require a page number which can be changed by individual user settings or an author moving things around.

[Athenano]

I have noticed that if the ao3categories is empty from ao3.com, FanFicFare seems to fill the field/column with the fandom(s). Does anyone know how to stop this? I have not made any changes to the personal.ini other that point ao3categories to a custom column.

[culytera]

Originally Posted by Athenano

I have noticed that if the ao3categories is empty from ao3.com, FanFicFare seems to fill the field/column with the fandom(s). Does anyone know how to stop this? I have not made any changes to the personal.ini other that point ao3categories to a custom column.

You can check plugin-defaults.ini, maybe the default settings have something to do with that behavior?

## Some adapters collect additional meta information beyond the
## standard ones.  They need to be defined in extra_valid_entries to
## tell the rest of the FanFicFare system about them.  They can be
## used in include_subject_tags, titlepage_entries,
## extra_titlepage_entries, logpage_entries, extra_logpage_entries,
## and include_in_* config items.  You can also add additional entries
## here to build up composite metadata entries.
## archiveofourown.org, for example, fills genre (a standard
## entry) as the composite offreeformtags, ao3categories in
## include_in_genre.  If there's ever more than 4 series, add
## series04,series04Url etc.

## AO3 doesn't have anything it calls 'genre'.  The adapter used to be
## hardcoded to include the site specific metadata freeformtags &
## ao3categories in the standard metadata field genre.  By making it
## configurable, users can change it.
include_in_genre: genre, freeformtags, ao3categories