MESSAGE BOARD

The message board is for use by members to post general messages to the group, such as links to new group threads, announcements, questions, offers, invitations to local discussion...etc.

Thank you, Dan, for continuing to admin our book home-away-from-home, Club Read!

First informative message: We're open!

Thanks Dan!

dan cant find your page but I am not on that list of members. do you need mor info?

my 2026 thread is u p thought I posted this already but cant find it all are welcome......!https://www.librarything.com/topic/376693#n9054596

Hello all--Sorry to be a bother, but I am determined to make 2026 the year I figure out how to add pictures to my thread and become competent at doing so. I know there are instructions somewhere on LT, but can't find them. Can anyone post a link to picture-posting instructions? Thanks so much!

>7 arubabookwoman: I always use this wiki from the 75ers group. If you want to use a personal photo, you have to have it uploaded to the web somewhere - you can't just add it from your personal photo library. I usually upload mine to my Gallery on your LT personal home page and then use the "copy image address" and the html code from the wiki.
This is one of those things that LT just is not very user-friendly with, IMO.

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Basic_HTML_/_How_to_do_Fancy_Things_in_Y...

>8 japaul22: you beat me to it. thanks!

>8 japaul22: I've been able to add personal pictures from my desktop computer (not phone) by doing this:

--From HOME, Go to GALLERY
--In the right column, click on ADD PICTURE
--Click on "Choose File", which takes you to your computer's files
--Navigate to your photo file. I usually copy the file to my Desktop first, to make it easier.
--Once added to the Gallery, you just right click on the picture to get "Copy Image Address" and then you can add that address to the html

>10 kac522: yes, I do that too and that’s what I meant, but you explained it much better!

>8 japaul22: and >9 dchaikin: Thank you so much for the link. But I have a problem already. How do I get the image URL? The instructions say to right click on the image to get the URL, but I use an iPad only and there is no right click function on the iPad. I have uploaded the image I want to both my gallery and my junk drawer, but can't figure out how to get the URL. Sorry to be so dense.

>10 kac522: and >11 japaul22:--Thanks for this additional information. I have uploaded the image to Gallery, but don't know what replaces the "right click" function on the iPad. Do you have any ideas?

Thanks much again!

>12 arubabookwoman: Sorry, I'm not an iPad user, but I'm sure someone around here will know.

>12 arubabookwoman: I don't have an ipad either but try this: To copy a link on an iPad, press and hold the link until a menu appears, then tap "Copy." You can then paste the link wherever you need by pressing and holding in the text area and selecting "Paste."

>14 labfs39: I tried that. In one instance (on my old 2025 thread where I was practicing) I got a link (in blue) which if you click will bring you to the image. In the other instance (on my 2026 thread) I tried typing in the link and using it as the URL and I got the small blue box with the question mark.

>15 arubabookwoman: Did you copy the complete link? Can you post the link you are using here so we can figure out what went wrong.

Hi Annie-- (Crossing fingers) here is the link:

https://pics.cdn.librarything.com//picsizes/17/08/17082960-r-h2400-w2400-pv25_63...

When I copy that link as the URL I get the blue box.

There is one too many / but that should not be a problem and the link looks fine otherwise and opens just fine.

Can you show the html code you are using to make the image show up (skip the opening and closing symbols - just what you put between them?

img src="https://pics.cdn.librarything.com//picsizes/17/08/1708960-r-h2400-w2400-pv25_63... enclosed in the

To test your copy, i sometimes open a new tab in Safari and paste. The address should paste and the picture should show up. Then you know you have the right address

But if you’re getting a blue link here, it probably means your html code is wrong somewhere. Be careful of “fancy” quotation marks. You need "plain" ones. Ipads may default to fancy ones.

I think that this may be because the image does not really exist under this name but gets calculated and there is protection in deep linking (or something like that). If no one else looks at it tonight, I’ll chase it down for you tomorrow when I am on a proper laptop and not on the phone. :)

Here’s a screen shot of the correct code and the preview image resulting. Does it help?

>21 dchaikin: For some reason, the blue link would not let me copy and paste (I can usually do that on the iPad) so I have had to type it manually. From a past attempt at posting pictures a few years ago I knew about the "fancy" vs "plain" quotation marks (b/c I think iPads do default to the fancy ones) and I definitely have the plain ones on.

>22 AnnieMod: Annie I really appreciate your efforts. I know I am a computer dunce, but I really want to be able to post pictures once in a while.

Wow Dan! But where did you get all the numbers afterpv25_63? (i.e. the rest of the bottom line). They did not show up for me.

>25 arubabookwoman: i clicked on the link, which works. Then i copied the address from there.

If it helps, here’s a link to a wiki page on how to do cool things in your posts: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Basic_HTML_/_How_to_do_Fancy_Things_in_Y...

Generally, on my iPad, I touch and hold the image itself, then choose copy. That gets the link to the image itself.

As for quotes, if you hold on the quotation mark button, a small menu pops up with various versions. The middle one is the “plain” one.

Thanks Dan and Jim--I think I have finally got it to work. The problem was the link I got ended with the last line on Dan's screenshot >23 dchaikin: with pv25_63...I thought that was the URL not realizing that the 3 dots meant there were more numbers to the URL. I knew enough t to know that was a weird URL, but not that it was incomplete. Once I did the equivalent of right click on the incomplete URL (which I also just learned how to do) I was shown the complete URL. It is not very intuitive , and I could not have done it without the help of everyone here--So a big Thank You!

BTW the picture is of my 2 fur babies.

>28 arubabookwoman: yay!

>28 arubabookwoman: Great! Glad it worked out.

>28 arubabookwoman: They are so adorable with their bows. They must miss you!

>28 arubabookwoman: I had the same issues last year learning how to post pictures. It really is NOT very intuitive. Having to use HTML code is 10 years or more out of date! Every time I post a picture, I have to go find another picture I have posted, edit the comment, and copy the HTML code to use in a new post.

One additonal note - you can set the size you want the picture to be by putting either height=(a number) or width=(a number) inside the forward angle bracket and after the quotation marks surrounding the URL. I generally put height=300 and preview it to see if I want it a bit larger (or smaller). So the code would end with
...jpg" height=300>

Tom Gauld issues a warning (via The Guardian)

>34 rasdhar: 🙂

UGA Press Announces African Language Literatures in Translation Series

https://www.ugapress.org/uga-press-announces-african-language-literatures-in-tra...

This is exciting!

>36 rasdhar: I'm very intrigued and their first title, The Mad by Ignatius T. Mabasa, looks interesting. I hope they can publish more than one a year.

>36 rasdhar: Fabulous! Thanks for posting this link, Rasdhar. It's highly likely that I'll want to buy or borrow these books from UGA (the University of Georgia) Press, and I'll be on the lookout for The Mad by Ignatius Mabasa, along with the other books in this series, as I just signed up for emails from UGA Press.

ETA: The Mad was actually published in July. There was only one paperback copy available on Amazon so I went ahead and ordered it, although Amazon does say that more copies will be available soon and it's available in ebook format.There doesn't seem to be a release date for The Swallowers of Bones by Ali Hilal Ali, the next book in the series.

Thanks, I've wishlisted The Mad.

Hey there! Speaking of photos (as folks were several months ago here), I noticed today that a whole lot of photos have suddenly disappeared from my thread. Or, I should really say, the links to these photos are suddenly broken. These are photos I loaded onto my gallery from my hard drive and then linked to on my CR thread, like my New Orleans photos and one or two photos of my dog. They've been up and viewable for months in most cases. Is there some known glitch happening on LT that I'm not aware of, or is it something to do with my gallery photos?

None of the cover images linked to the work pages of the books I've read seem to be affected. It's only photos from my gallery. Any ideas? Or am I just the last person to be finding out about something that was announced already?

Thanks for any and all help/suggestions.

>40 rocketjk: Are they still in your gallery? That’s worth checking on in the bug report group. Or the New Features group. Or the Frequently Asked Questions group.

>40 rocketjk: I noticed the same thing today. I couldn’t work out what$ the problem was and I redid the photo links that I thought were important, and for some posts I just deleted the link to them, and left post photo-less.

I think it may be because there’s a new LT feature for showing photos, and I had intended to investigate it, or to report a bug. But I am pretty sure it’s because there’s been alterations with the new feature that I think Cindy mentioned yesterday. Note the broken gallery photo links appear only with old links. A gallery photo in a my post of May 9 didn’t disappear.

New code often breaks old code. So I suspect that when updating the code for the new photo feature something got broken. If I have enough energy tomorrow I’m going to investigate.

>41 dchaikin: Mine were all still in my gallery. I checked. I fixed the one set were annoying me such as my thread header I just typing the URL. This leads me to believe that it’s a compiler problem and the new feature was only tested for itself and not for old photos linked the old way.

>40 rocketjk: so i found one photo of mine like that and maybe awkwardly fixed it.

- it wasn’t appearing on my thread. I just had a blue icon with a question mark it

- so i checked my profile and gallery and saw the picture.

- so i clicked on it. And then the picture wasn’t there. Just an empty box!

- so i clicked edit. The picture loaded. It went through a loading step. I simply canceled.

- i reloaded my page, the picture now shows up for me.

If you look at the bottom of a post that you have just written, you will see a little image icon for adding images. It seems to me that this new problem of broken image links has occurred since this new feature has been released. It is a very common problem when code is altered. It’s called a side effect, except if you are Apple or Zuckers it is called a feature.

>43 kjuliff: i don’t really know what a compiler problem means. I was wondering if the photos “went to sleep” - meaning that the photo was unused on the cloud and so was maybe “moved to cheaper, slower storage tiers (e.g., cold storage)”. When i clicked edit, it may have been loaded to “active”. Not sure…

>40 rocketjk: i put in a bug report

https://www.librarything.com/topic/384282

>46 dchaikin: No I don’t think the images “went to sleep” I tried refreshing the pages that had the problem and didn’t fix it. But rewriting the HTML did which probably forced to reconfirmation of that section of code. The only difference I could see was that of the date of the message and not the date of the picture in the gallery.

When you write code, it is in a computer language and this is compiled into machine recognisable code. If something is new in the original human-written code there can sometimes be side-effects.

In any case, I’ve reported this problem in the LT Bug Collections group and will report back. The reason I think it’s a compiler problem, is that it is only happening on pre 5/10 gallery image links. Using the old technique of searching pictures into posts still works at old posts using the same method showing broken links. I’m thinking that the post pre-May 10 we’re not subject to reconfirmation. Rewriting the same message fixes the problem - that is, the message is somehow reconciled with the new code.

>47 dchaikin: >40 rocketjk: My bug report is here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/384281#9196251

>49 kjuliff: two reports! Hopefully we will get some attention…

For the new feature of adding images to posts see Add images to Talk messages.

Meanwhile Dan’s method of fixing seems the easiest.

I don't like the new way of adding images, because I have no control over placement. I plan to keep using the HTML method, and I hope those broken image links fix themselves...

To be clear, I've never used the new way of adding photos. My process is to

*Upload the photo from my hard drive to my gallery.
*Right click on the photo from my gallery and select "Copy Image Address."
*Insert the html code for images onto my post. (I have a word doc with my most often used codes.)
*Paste the image address for the photo I'm posting into that code.

This process has worked for me since 2008 until a couple of days ago.

I rather think they have moved to a new database or system, and the image previews, which are normally stored in a buffer, need to be regenerated. Some of the images are starting to come back already.

>53 rocketjk: I understand. I’ve never used the new way either. I just mentioned it because it seemed to me that the problem you reported was the same as I’ve had. And given my knowledge of “side effects” ie bugs I came to a conclusion . Such problems ofter happen when a new feature is introduced. I speculated that it could be because of the new feature that the old way was no longer working, in retrospect.

If you now insert a picture from the gallery as before, it will now work. Or try Dan’s method or mine to get your old posts showing the images again.

Or wait for our bug reports to get traction.

>54 FlorenceArt: Thanks. That supports Dan’s idea. He has forced his images to “wake up”.

>55 kjuliff: Sure, I understood what you were saying. I was just clarifying how I put my photos up. I do appreciate your information and my strong guess is that you're on the right track in terms of the cause of the issue.

>56 kjuliff: Dan's process didn't work for me, unfortunately. I went through the steps he enumerated in >44 dchaikin: with one of my vacation photos and it still doesn't show up in my CR thread.

>47 dchaikin: & >49 kjuliff: Thanks for sending in those bug reports.

>48 kjuliff: I'm unsure of what you mean by "rewriting the HTML." Do you mean deleting the HTML code and corresponding address for the image and then just replacing it with the exact same thing? ETA: OK, now I see. If I just recopy the address for the photo in my gallery and repaste it into the html code in my thread, the photo reappears. A bit of a pain in the caboose, but I'll gradually get that done for my various thread photos over the next couple of days if they don't start coming back on their own by some mysterious process. Thanks!

>57 rocketjk: yes exactly that. I did it on a few important images such as my recent thread header, but others I just deleted the link all together. It’s fairly typical of computer programmers to add features, and to not think about how people did it in the old way- legacy code and data often get overlooked when new features introduced.

The images on my thread are back, I didn’t do a thing. Guess whatever was wrong is being fixed.

>59 FlorenceArt: Mine are back as well, today. Glad they got that sorted.

A few, but far from all, of mine are back. I'll see what it all looks like tomorrow.

>61 rocketjk: have you seen the LT message?: https://www.librarything.com/topic/384282#9196531

>61 rocketjk: also, when I look at your latest thread, all the images pop up

>62 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. I'm getting ready to go out to dinner but I'll take a look at that message later tonight.

>63 dchaikin: That's strange. I just tried the same thing and most of my photos are still broken links.

>64 rocketjk: It’s a cache issue. See that link

>65 dchaikin: >64 rocketjk: Jerry, new posts - posted after the release of the new feature - will work with the legacy method most of us use.

Something obviously went wrong sometime earlier this month and I speculate that there was a change to the system when the new feature for images which neither you and I use, was implemented.

Dan, last I looked the bug issue was not closed, and a person who said it was a cached problem was not a programmer but just a participant in the thread on Bug Catchers. If it were simply a cache problem, a reload of the post should fix it. I tried reloading and it didn’t work. What worked was a retyping of the HTML which forced the system to reinterpret the post with the new software.

Why would it suddenly become a cache issue? There has to have been some change and I speculate that it was because of the change occurring as a result of the new feature. New posts do not have this problem. Nor do posts where the HTML code is retyped.

I far as I can see there was no warning about images disappearing and there has been no answer from developers.

But I am sure it will be all fixed in time and as to the cause I still do not know as I haven’t seen any explanation from the LT establishment.

>66 kjuliff: ConceptDawg is an LT developer. Please read his comment again.

>67 dchaikin: OK. Thanks. So many people write in with opinions that I can never tell who they are. I did check @ConceptDawg and he just seemed to be a regular member. I checked to see the status of the bug it was still open. But I am assuming it is closed as he did say it was fixed.

>68 kjuliff: " . . . he did say it was fixed."

Maybe, but my personal photos are still not showing up on my thread. The images of book covers show up just fine, but only one that's linked to my gallery has reappeared other than the one photo for which I cut and pasted the photo address again.

>69 rocketjk: I believe you. I stand by my professional opinion that something went wrong when LT code or data storage was altered that affected image-loading. We were not notified of the problem, and the case in the bug catcher forum has not been closed. It cannot be a coincidence that early in May photos from the members galleries started to give errors in old posts.across browsers and platforms. It may be an LT cache problem and I do hope that it is indeed fixed and only taking a long time as the system refreshes pages. Certainly individuals cannot fix the problem by refreshing their individual pages. I tried that.

At least it seems they fixed the other problem at the same time, which was much more annoying to me. I’ve been getting "server not reached" errors repeatedly. Seems OK now.

If it's a cache issue, have you tried clearing your cached images?

P.S. I can see all of your images, Jerry.

>71 FlorenceArt: i’ve been getting that all the time too. And it’s still happening.

>73 kjuliff: Yes, I rejoiced too soon!

>72 labfs39: Really? You can see all the photos on this post? https://www.librarything.com/topic/377295#9141956

Why can't I, then? All but two are still showing up as broken links for me.

>74 FlorenceArt: if it continues too much longer I’ll put in a bug report.

>75 rocketjk: Jerry, I can see them all. Can you try a different browser?

>77 kjuliff: OK, yes. I tried it in Firefox instead of Safari and they're all visible. Goodness, how I love the interwatchamacallits. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.

>75 rocketjk: Yes, I can see them all. Please try clearing your cache.

>79 labfs39: I hit Control-F5,* as per the direction on the bug thread, and nothing happened. Otherwise . . .

"Please try clearing your cache."

Do what, now?

* Does this work on a MacBook? Or is that the procedure for a PC?

>80 rocketjk: That is for a Windows machine.

For a MacBook web browsing: Clear the cache directly through your browser settings for the best results:Safari: Open Safari, click Safari in the top menu, select Settings > Privacy, and click Manage Website Data. To wipe everything, go to History > Clear History.

Google Chrome: Click the three dots in the top right corner, go to Settings > Privacy and security > Clear browsing data. Check Cached images and files and click Clear data.Firefox: Click the hamburger menu in the top right corner, go to Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to Cookies and Site Data, and click Clear Data.

To clear the cache in Firefox on a Mac, open the menu (three horizontal bars) in the top right, select Settings > Privacy & Security > Cookies and Site Data > Clear Data..., then ensure "Cached Web Content" is checked and click "Clear". Alternatively, use the shortcut Command + Shift + Delete to open the "Clear Recent History"

>81 kjuliff: "Clear History"

Oh. Clear history. Why didn't folks just say so? That I do frequently.

Anyway, I just checked and all my photos have reappeared on their own. Hurray!

>82 rocketjk: Oh. Clear history. Why didn't folks just say so? That I do frequently.

I didn't say clear history, because it is different than clear cache. Personally I don't clear my history that often, but I do clear my cache. Clearing history deletes your browsing history, clearing cache deletes all the images and other files that your computer has temporarily stored to making loading faster. Clearing history improves your privacy, clearing cache improves function. Users are often given the option to delete all or just delete one thing (history, cookies, cache). If you have only been deleting your history, then clearing cache would have helped in this situation.

I'm glad you can see your images again.

>83 labfs39: "I didn't say clear history, because it is different than clear cache. Personally I don't clear my history that often, but I do clear my cache."

OK. How does one clear one's cache on a MacBook?

>84 rocketjk: see here

I think uou know this, but for others:
To clear URL browsing history only on a MacBook -Safari, click History in the top menu bar, select Clear History, choose a time frame, and click Clear History to confirm.
If you use a different browser:
Google Chrome: Click History in the top menu, select Show Full History, and click Clear browsing data.

Firefox: Shift + Command + Delete keyboard shortcut. and then select options.

Sorry, double double posts so deleted them. Problem with “Post” response lag.

>74 FlorenceArt: Are you still having the slow page loading problem? Mine is getting worse - when I click “post” it doesn’t seem to work, and if I try again it double-posts.

>84 rocketjk: Thanks. I did that, and it worked, though it also cleared my history and cookies, I think, meaning I have to re-sign in to all my sites, like LT, that require passwords. That's no big deal, though, and there's a lot of cache in knowing how to clear my cache.

This, of course, is not the same as clearing my short term memory, which since my dose of Covid a couple of years back is more or less on automatic pilot. However, I can still tell you about every embarrassing thing I've done or said since the age of about 10. It's just that things that come in now often fall right out like a coin slipping through a hole in the bottom of my pants pocket.

>90 kjuliff: I’ve been having problems with posting, yes. Sometimes my post seems to disappear, and usually it has been posted, it once it disappeared for good (maybe I did something wrong that time though). Mostly my problem is that when I click on a link or try to access the site, I get a "site not responding" error

>93 FlorenceArt: Thanks for letting me know. I’ve been having a lot of problems posting and previewing. Sometimes when I click Preview, it doesn’t show the current message. It is as if the page freezes. Today I clicked several times before I got the post successful message, and then I saw they were four identical posts It is starting to annoy me. What type of device are you using and which browser?

>94 kjuliff: iPad with Safari mostly.

>92 rocketjk: Clearing your cache does not delete your saved passwords. Your browser's cache only stores temporary website data (like images and page layouts) so pages load faster. Your actual passwords are saved in a separate database (like your browser's password manager or macOS Keychain Access).

>95 FlorenceArt: OK thanks. I’m going to put in a bug report. I’m using iPad and Chrome..

>93 FlorenceArt: Done - this is what I reported -
“ I am getting "site not responding" errors and/or page freezing. Another member is also reporting this problem. Sometimes when I hit the Preview button, the edited post doesn’t show up. Often when I hit Post it doesn’t go back to this thread but just sits there and appears to be inactive, so I don’t know if the post has posted. Sometimes I’ll lose a whole post because it didn’t post and other times I get duplicate posts because I’ve hit the post button twice because there was no response back. Device/browser used.- iPad with Safari and Google Chrome.

I have cleared my casche on base browsers. It appears this problem has started to appear after the new features were introduced. I hope this can be resolved.. TIA.”

>96 kjuliff: " Clearing your cache does not delete your saved passwords."

I don't know what to tell you. I followed the procedure described in the link you provided in >85 kjuliff: and my saved passwords were deleted. As I said, though, no big deal.

>99 rocketjk: well thanks for the warning. I along with Florence am experience loading problems, and disappearing and duplicate posts. When I submitted the bug report, I got a duplicate post and someone answered me and told me and I got a duplicate post. Another person answered me and said they had a problem of images not appearing. The world of IT is Murphy’s rule writ large.

>99 rocketjk: What you lose are the cookies telling the site who you are, so you don’t have to log on each time. You do have to reenter your passwords in that case, but if you saved them in the keychain it’s easier.

>99 rocketjk: >65 dchaikin: So after all that I have to let y’all know it was in fact a compiler problem. I have it from the horse’s mouth,
Ah. Yeah. This was a bump. We had somehow left open one of the language versions of LibraryThing. When our sysadmin closed it, he by mistake closed, um, everything. It should be fine now.
See Tim’s comment here

>101 FlorenceArt: "What you lose are the cookies telling the site who you are, so you don’t have to log on each time."

I see. That makes sense. But you lose those cookies only, and not the ones that advertisers use to identify you?

"but if you saved them in the keychain it’s easier."

Right. Hence my "it's no big deal" comment.

>103 rocketjk: If you delete the cookies, you also lose the commercial ones. I was only trying to explain, clumsily, that when you said you lost your passwords Kate thought you were talking about saved passwords in the keychain, when in fact you were talking about cookies.

>104 FlorenceArt: Correct
>103 rocketjk: Cookies generally do not contain your actual passwords. Cookies save a unique, encrypted Session ID or an authentication token.

The New York Times has published at list of 100 best books of this century, compiled from a number of writers etc. Now they are offering a chance for readers to nominate their books. Here is the link to the page where you can submit up to 10 books you think should be on the list. Note that it is paywalled, so only for NYT subscribers.

>106 kjuliff: Thanks for posting that link, Kate. I'll look at my LT library for 5 star reviews, try to recall which 5 star books I read from 2000 until I joined LT in June 2006, and try to come up with a Top 10 list.

>106 kjuliff: are they taking global books

>108 cindydavid4: I am not sure, I assume so.

ETA I downloaded a PDF which I could email you so you could see what the NYT had selected. But I can’t upload a PDF to LT. It looks like they are mostly books by American and English writers. Message me at your email address if you would like me to send you the PDF..

FYI - to everyone who was thinking of reading The Hours by Micheal Cunningham, please check in on the thread @rhian_of_oz started here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/385020#

This comes from January when we discussed a group read for June, like now, but which everyone but Rhian forgot about. For those like me who still want to read it, we're making plans for July or August. Even if you were interested, but no longer plan to join, let us know.