error connecting to server in app

I can’t seem to connect to the server in from the app. Other apps on my phone seem to be working, even when I turn on airplane mode and just use wifi. Is there a server down? I didn’t see any reports of one, but maybe i’m looking jn the wrong spot.

Thanks for the report and sorry for the trouble. Can you tell me:

- what app do you have, the iOS or Android version?
- what is the exact error message you're seeing?
- when do you see the error message: before trying to log in on the app, just after loading the app/logging in, when trying to reach a particular page within the app, after running a search? I need specific steps for how and when you're seeing the error so I can try to reproduce the issue. If it's a search that's throwing the error, I need to know which data source/s you are searching (from your Home > Account page) and exactly what you're searching from the "Add to Catalog" page.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I have the iOS app.
the error says: There was an error connecting to the server. Check your network or proxy settings.
It happens when I go to All Collections and Your Library. My other Collections are blank. The other day, and moments ago, it happened when I clicked on Add to Catalog. Just now Add to Catalog worked as expected but I still have the trouble in the Collections. This is all before I search for anything, just when I click on the title and go to those pages.

I have deleted and reinstalled the app 3 or four times, including just moments ago.

I remember a somewhat similar problem when I had a book with very weird characters in it - the collections that contained it were erroring out weirdly. Looking at your library, https://www.librarything.com/work/1108104/book/9297986 has some badly transferred characters. Can you try to change the title of this book to clear them (and/or replace with the correct ones) and see if that won't help?

That seems to have worked! thanks.

>5 hjem: Awesome

>2 kristilabrie: That is an old problem that seems to resurface now and then -- you may want to chase it down with the developers. If you look at the Editions page: https://www.librarything.com/work/1108104/editions/9297986, there are two entries there with weird encoding (� all over the title). These are the ones causing issues :)

>6 AnnieMod: Thanks!

Reopening this since it still needs to be addressed.

I have this issue in the iOS app and I removed all messy characters from my books. Are there any other fixes? Or are the following characters not accepted?:

//*#()!?”

I also use the app on an Android and there, my collections page spins forever without loading.

Reopening the bug, sorry. This is my first post as I’m a new user.

Thanks for reporting this. We'll take a look and get it fixed.

I don’t know if it matters but I did upload a list of books via a CSV that only contained book titles and authors. It was one of the first things I did before scanning all the books I own. But I did remove any broken characters from the titles and checked twice.

This is embarrassing; my last message made me realize I didn’t check the authors column for weird characters. Both apps work now. My apologies!

Hi there

I am having the problem I see a few people complained about. I was signed in to the app but kept getting the network error message when I tried to use it over several days. I tried deleting the app and reinstalling it twice and I've tried signing in again and again but the credentials my computer accepts get this message in the app: The data couldn't be read because it isn't in the correct format. The data is not in the correct format. (null)

I really love having LibraryThing with me on the go. I hope there is a solution available.

Thanks,
Souci

>13 souci: Sorry for the trouble. Can I ask which app are you using, iOS or Android? What is your device's OS? What page/s were you seeing the error message on: immediately upon logging into the app, or only when you tried to view certain pages (if so, which ones)? Thanks!

We have similar problem on our Catalogue.
From the app, if we click on "Your Catalogue" > then "Authors" > appears the following error "Received bad data from the server. Please try again."
We have the last version of the App and we tried to run it on Ios and Android.
Looking foward to a solution,
thanks all in advance

I wonder if it's similar to >4 AnnieMod: in any way, if you have "weird" characters in your author names and that's causing an issue... I see brackets, slashes, quotations, parentheses, pluses, diacritics (and more) in your authors that could be potential culprits although it's hard to say.

I was able to reproduce your issue, though, logging into your account and going to the "Authors" page:

>16 kristilabrie: Are you referring to >13 souci: or >15 Ruch-Partner:?

>15 Ruch-Partner:, I will usually reference the post if it's not directly before the one I'm making. I still have questions for >13 souci: I'm waiting to hear back on.

>18 kristilabrie: Okay, I just wanted to make sure. :)

Thank you for your reply io will fix all the name and leaves just letter (withour accents).

>16 kristilabrie: Good evening, we're still experiencing the same problem when we try to access the full list of authors in the app, we still get the 'error connecting to the server' message. We don't use many special characters within our authors list.
Is there any other reason, why this can not be displayed?
Thank you for your further help with this!

>21 Ruch-Partner: Sorry for the continued trouble! I would need one of our developers to take a peek and see if they can see what's causing the issue at this point. That said, just one mishandled character could prevent the entire Authors page from loading properly, so it could be that. (Or, it could be something else we have yet to discover.)

This is still on our list, though I'm afraid I don't have an immediate timeline on when this can get looked at. I appreciate your extended patience.

I'm also having this issue on the iOS after importing over 1,100 books from Goodreads. I can't possibly go through that many titles to look for odd characters.

>25 That_Bee: I'll take a look at your catalog and see what I can track down.

>25 That_Bee: Can you give me a little more information about what is going wrong for you? I've loaded your catalog in the iOS app and have no issues looking through all of the collections, searching, and looking at individual books.

Let me know exactly where you are having problems and I'll look into them.

Marking back to "Needs discussion" - no changing, @LTBugBot!

I just imported 2677 books and am having the same issue in the app. I can see everything in a web browser but not the app. I assume it’s because of weird characters as mentioned above but it will take a long time to go through all my books! Any quick fixes?

>31 timspalding:

iPhone or Android?

>30 DarlaHall: I just logged into your account on the iOS App and I can see your library. If you're still having trouble, after you give us the app you're using (see >31 timspalding:), which page/s in the App are not showing your library for you? Are you seeing any error message/s and if so what do they say?

I have the same error, but only when adding books via scanning the barcodes and only on certain, seemingly arbitrary, books. I'll scan six or seven books in a row -- usually, they all add to my library without any problem, but occasionally one will show this error if I click on it from the list of recently added books. There's a Retry button, but if I press it, I get the same error. But if I scan the book again, it'll work without a problem. It's very annoying, and it's been happening for months.

>33 inpariswithyou: Thanks for explaining this. It makes me think that we're missing an api server somewhere in one of our configurations. I'll check on that.

@conceptDawg No problem. I'm a software engineer myself, so I know how hard it can be to hunt down a bug. For what it's worth, it hasn't been happening that often as of late, although the books I scan in quick succession do occasionally show up with a collection missing or two. (For instance, I'll scan in six books quickly into To Verify, Fiction, and Location: Fiction, and one of them will only have two categories instead of all three, etc.)

I just tried to use the app, and received the same "there was an error connecting to the server. check your network or proxy setting and retry" message as previously mentioned in this thread. iOS 26.2 app on my iPhone 13 pro, recently updated. The "add to catalog", "news" and the "account" pages are working, but not the catalog function. but nothing else. Currently logged in on a desktop windows machine with no issue. I have just removed the 2 diacritical marks and the one non-period punctuation from my authors list. (previously Týr, Æther Realm, Siouxsie & the Banshees). I've given it a half hour or so to work back through to the app, with no success.

same here for me nothing i have tried has given any success

Is this ever going to be fixed? I am currently experiencing the same issue, suddenly. Hunting for any non-English characters in names of authors and book titles that might be causing the issue is crazy when you live in a country that relies heavily on diacritics.

>36 Fritillary99: same for me. i can’t access to catalogue

>36 Fritillary99: >37 monkkm: >38 dariosu: >39 JacquesDavid: This is an old report, so I'm hesitant to say it's the exact same issue. Please follow along at this bug report: https://www.librarything.com/topic/378238, we're working on it!

Edited for clarity.

Fixed. It was a doozy. The app is very hard to debug. I'm going to be very happy when the new app is out.

Thank you for a prompt fix!