[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[applegaa]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

I can duplicate.

Probably got broken by either the new chapter metadata saving or preserve deleted chapters changes.

I'll look into it.

Thanks!

It's happening with ScribbleHub as well. I'm not sure if the problem is in each adapter or something shared they each call, so wanted to mention it.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2026-10-31
- Fix continue_on_chapter_error with fff_chapter_data
- Update translations

[Atherton25]

Found a new minor bug in the camoufox usage. It’s not a huge deal, but stumped me for a few minutes. When I started it, it gave me a login prompt and would NOT let me log in. I even changed my password to their new standards (apparently that had changed since I originally made the account) and tried it with the new password.

I know that Royal Road doesn’t require login, but I was using it. Once I disabled my login the prompt no longer popped up, and camoufox seemed to work actually getting to the fic download.

Personally, I don’t mind, I was just using the login to track story reading progress (or at least downloaded story progress) but it tries to logon first, and since that’s not working, it blocks download if login is enabled. I’m sure it’ll pop up elsewhere that it’s ‘not working’ when it has something to do with the login not being allowed, and then the story won’t download.

Don’t know if you want to disabled the login when using camoufox or look into it directly and allow logins to work, but thought I’d let you know.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by Atherton25

Found a new minor bug in the camoufox usage. It’s not a huge deal, but stumped me for a few minutes. When I started it, it gave me a login prompt and would NOT let me log in. I even changed my password to their new standards (apparently that had changed since I originally made the account) and tried it with the new password.
...

I'm not seeing that.

I comment out username/password, no login attempt, downloads story.

I uncomment username/password, login succeeds, downloads story.

I'm using normal foreground metadata collection from story URLs.

[Atherton25]

When you said you had no issues, I installed Calibre on my laptop (recently reinstalled linux on the laptop, and hadn’t loaded calibre at all) as well as loaded the latest version of FFF. So, completely fresh install. I am using Linux, Ubuntu 26.10 on both my desktop and laptop.

I brought over some of my settings for RoyalRoad, and tried it.

First install timed out, I presume because it was installing camoufox, the next one asked for username/password (I did make sure it was correct in settings). I tried it and it didn’t like them (same as my previous tries on my desktop), tried three times and it didn’t let me in.

Yes, using email and current password (double checked with manual login in the website).

Commented out my user/pass in settings and it worked fine. Well, it took a little while for 162 chapters of the fix I was trying https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/158801/ – but that’s no problem for me.

The current settings I am using are simple (I removed user/pass)

[www.royalroad.com]
 use_browser_cache:false
 use_camoufox:true
 use_camoufox:directimages
 include_author_notes:false
 replace_br_with_p: true

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by Atherton25

When you said you had no issues, I installed Calibre on my laptop (recently reinstalled linux on the laptop, and hadn’t loaded calibre at all) as well as loaded the latest version of FFF. So, completely fresh install. I am using Linux, Ubuntu 26.10 on both my desktop and laptop.
...

If it consistently and only blocks you from logging in, I can't think what it would be other than something specific to your account. (I assume you are already using your email address as username for RR since that change was quite some time ago.)

I have seen with RR and other sites sometimes that if you access the site manually in browser first it will satisfy cloudflare or whatever and then FFF will work.

I can try the attached version that turns Camoufox 'warmup' back on. It adds ~20sec to the first fetch to 'warmup' by getting some small number of random common public pages first.

It never made any difference for me but to take more time. If it helps you, I will add an optional setting for it.

[Atherton25]

That seems to have done it.

I'm not sure why it would matter because of where I am. I didn't mention it, but I also was logging in from work with my laptop. I can almost guarantee no one here is using/abusing Royal Road since it's a prison. I hit the site a couple times before and after my initial tries to download from here, and never had any sort of captcha/cloudflareprompts pop up, so it's just odd to me that it would need the warm up.

I'll remote in to my home computer and try it too,

[Atherton25]

Well, It doesn't work at home with that new update. That's so strange.

Don't worry about it, you've already spent too much time on it, for something that doesn't effect me more than peripherally I don't use the log in other than for tracking from my account when I'm reading on my phone/tablet - which is quite rare, I generally put it in Calibre and read it on an ereader. I'll just turn off the login function. I may create a new account and just test it to see if it's my account, my IP (which would be odd since it didn't work the first couple times at work) or something else.

I checked home and I'm not running any VPN today, as that has occasionally caused me problems when Cloudflare is involved. I also did log in on a browser before tried it too, just to be sure.

It just is odd to me that it only happens when logging in. Well, if it does come up with someone else then you'll know they're not the first.

[applegaa]

Originally Posted by Atherton25

That seems to have done it.

I'm not sure why it would matter because of where I am. I didn't mention it, but I also was logging in from work with my laptop. I can almost guarantee no one here is using/abusing Royal Road since it's a prison. I hit the site a couple times before and after my initial tries to download from here, and never had any sort of captcha/cloudflareprompts pop up, so it's just odd to me that it would need the warm up.

I'll remote in to my home computer and try it too,

CloudFlare tends to use a 302 temporary redirect to their verification page, which works by utilizing the lack of security in modern browsers to do things like monitor mouse movement. My computer is slow enough that I can see the page before it redirects back to the original URL, but it typically doesn't stop and wait for me to actually do anything.

It also messes with the reload button, as it now has stuff from the verification page that I get prompted to resend. I would guess that is what the warm up clears out.

I'll probably test it tonight when I do my regular updates.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2026-10-31
- Add do_camoufox_warmup optional feature
- Fix continue_on_chapter_error with fff_chapter_data
- Update translations

## Camoufox (https://camoufox.com) is "An open source anti-detect
## browser built for AI agents."  Calibre(v9.16+) uses it for news
## feed recipes which FFF can also use.  Originally introduced for
## royalroad proof-of-work blocking, it also works with fanfiction.net
## and (possibly) AO3.  Can be set to 'true' or 'directimages' to
## directly download images.  That seems to work better with
## royalroad.
#use_camoufox:false

## Set do_camoufox_warmup:true to 'warmup' Camoufox on start (fetches
## common pages from a few common public sites).  Adds 15-30 seconds
## to first Camoufox fetch.  Because FanFicFare uses a singleton
## pattern to insure only one Camoufox instance runs per process, the
## first fetch to use Camoufox will determine if warmup is done or
## not.  If you need warmup, it will be most reliable to set it in
## [defaults] to apply to all sites you have use_camoufox:true.
#do_camoufox_warmup:false

## Camoufox Examples:
#[defaults]
#do_camoufox_warmup:true
#[www.royalroad.com]
#use_camoufox:directimages
#[www.fanfiction.net]
#use_camoufox:true

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by Atherton25

Well, It doesn't work at home with that new update. That's so strange.

I didn't see this until I'd already added the feature. But it was pretty small anyway.

I'm pushing the monthly release back until Monday at least, since we're still getting weird reports like this.