Covers Missing

Logged on this morning and found that most of my covers are missing.

Windows 10
Firefox 150.0

Most of your books appear to have covers.

Were the missing covers from Amazon? Amazon covers can disappear if Amazon stops carrying the book. (They can also change without notice.) Only member covers chosen by you are really stable.

There can be temporary problems if the image have troubles.

Withour details of specific covers that are missing, it is hard to see what the problem is.

According to this graph: https://www.librarything.com/stats/surly/covers
You have 1663 Amazon covers which could change at any given time, and 211 books with no cover.

Which section is the problem?

Also, when you say "your covers" do you mean covers uploaded by you, or just covers on your books? Do you see other images on LibraryThing? Even if it's just covers, it sometimes happens that someone blocks images from a domain—either you do it, or your network administrator.

The covers of books in my Home page "Recently Added" section are mostly missing
On the first page of my library, while there should only be one book with no cover there are now 42.
These covers were there yesterday when I logged off.

Since your library is private, I've sent you a private message, showing you what I see, but I'm seeing covers for 11/12 of your recent covers. (This seems a better thing to focus on that the first page of your library—this being a larger number, and I'd need to know what collection you were in, what your sort was, etc.)

What do you see? White covers? Your own default cover? Broken-image images?

If you see any, can you name the book (here or in private message).

My guess it that you have the Amazon domain disabled.

Do you see the following image?

>6 timspalding: Odd that you say my library is private, I just checked and it is marked public.
I'm viewing my library as 'All Collections' and sorted in descending entry date order, i.e. the first book on the list is the last book entered.
I image what I see is broken-image covers.
I do see the cover for "The Road to Disunion, Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854", the second book on the first page of my library.
I do not see the the image you attached.

>7 surly:

Oh, sorry. Didn't someone else say it was private? I didn't check.

>1 surly: Hmm, your Firefox browser is the beta version (150) but I logged in as you on the same setup and see the cover image Tim posted, so that's not it.

If it's what Tim suspects, can you double-check the following?

1. Allow LibraryThing in Firefox:
- Click the menu button (three horizontal lines) → Settings → Privacy & Security
- Under "Enhanced Tracking Protection," scroll to "Exceptions" and click "Manage Exceptions"
- Add: https://www.librarything.com, then click "Save Changes"

2. Allow images from LibraryThing & Amazon:
- In Firefox Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to "Permissions"
- Next to "Block pop-up windows" and related settings, click "Exceptions" for the relevant permission
- For image blocking specifically: type about:config in the address bar, accept the warning, search for permissions.default.image and ensure it's set to 1 (allow all images), OR install an extension like "Image Block" to manage per-site exceptions
- Alternatively, visit each site, click the padlock icon in the address bar → "Connection secure" → "More information" → "Permissions" tab, and set image permissions to "Allow" for:
- https://www.librarything.com
- https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com

3. Add LibraryThing as a Trusted Site in Windows:
- Open Control Panel → Internet Options → Security → Trusted sites → Sites
- Add: https://www.librarything.com, then click "Add" and "Close"

You'll want to restart your Firefox browser after running the above steps, then let me know if your covers are showing up or not?

>9 kristilabrie: The good news: Covers are back after trying option 1. Thank you!

The bad news: using Connections is not working as it did. Previously, if I was on page (whatever), I would click on a member name to check if any combinations were necessary. If none were necessary, I'd then click the back arrow in Firefox to take me back to the same page I just left. Now, it always takes me back to the top of page 1.

Yes, I know: all he does is complain.

The bad news thing must be unrelated, yes? Or did you test it immediately before making the change in option 1?

Either way, I think you'll want to open a new bug report. We welcome bugs and complaints of all types and sizes. :)

Firefox has really turned into the new IE browser. It is just not compliant with anything. All of these resources have CORS headers on. They should be displaying just fine and working its way through the security, but it looks like Firefox is even ignoring those. We'll see if we can get a workaround.

>12 conceptDawg: Basically, changes to defaults are being ignored. For instance, on the combining works screen, I usually select the abbreviated view. Exiting a combination screen used to take me back to the selected abbreviated view. Now (i.e. starting today after installing Firefox 150) exiting now is going back to the detailed view.

>10 surly: "Yes, I know: all he does is complain."

As I'd expect from your username.

>13 surly: That sounds like your cookies aren't being saved.

>13 surly: FF 150 is in beta, there's bound to be some odd things happening on that account. If you're not actively reporting issues to them, I'd wait for official updates and not bother with betas

>16 SandraArdnas: Sadly, Firefox 150 became the official release -- out of beta testing -- on April 21.

>17 gilroy: Not to me, I'm still on 149 and it updates automatically. Perhaps I should turn off the update until, it stops breaking things in that case

I'm also missing the amazon cover images on the first page (and others).
FF 150.0

#1: I need to change all covers to member covers.
#2: start using another browser (not chrome) suggestions welcomed for a win 11 laptop

does it make a difference that I have adblocker extensions on FF?

>19 skittles: I'm using Firefox 150 (as of 23 April, I think; not the first day it was released) on a MacBook Pro running MacOs Sequoia 15.7.4 .

Firefox is the only browser I've used for LT since I joined 13 months ago, and I usually update it within a week or two of being asked if I want to update.

I am seeing my covers (Member uploaded or uploaded by me) just fine, including ones I did last night and ones I did before I upgraded to FF 150.

Maybe FF is buggier on a Windows machine?

Edited 26 Apr 2026 to add:
I've got the following extensions running on Firefox:
• Adblock Plus
• DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials
• Firefox Multi-Account Containers
• Privacy Badger
• uBlock Origin
• Wayback Machine
• Web Archives

>20 LeslieWx: I'm on a machine running linux mint with FF 150 and adblock plus. Since a couple of days I am seeing the same effect.
Covers I uploaded myself are shown, Amazon covers (from amazon de, amazon uk and amazon us) are not shown. Tim's image in message 6 is also not visible to me.

I have temporarily disabled ABP. No effect.
As suggested I added both LT and amazon to the expections list. No effect.
In about:config the suggested setting is already on 1.

>21 WarInHeaven: Thanks for the additional data!

Your post also made me realize that I forgot to add extension to my report. About to fix that.

>9 kristilabrie: I'm also having this issue on Firefox and tried these steps, and the only thing that worked was disabling Enhanced Tracking Protection for LT. Only the covers from Amazon are effected; there are no issues with self-uploaded or other member-uploaded covers. Disabling tracking protection feels like an imperfect solution, but I'm not a web designer or anything like that, so I don't know how any of this really works.

System details:
OS: MacOS Tahoe 26.3.1 (a)
Browser: Firefox version 150.0 (64 bit)
Extensions:
- uBlock Origin
- DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials
- Facebook Container (not active on LT)

>23 CaramichaelD: Hmm. Interesting.
I used Chatgpt to see if there is a way around this issue:

Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks requests to Amazon’s image servers because they’re tied to tracking domains (often things like images-amazon.com or related CDNs). Unfortunately, the book cover images and the tracking infrastructure are often served from overlapping domains, so Firefox blocks the whole request.

Use custom filter rules (better control)
With an extension like: uBlock Origin
You can:
- Allow specific Amazon image domains
- Still block known tracking endpoints

It gave me some instructions how to set this up.
It is late where I am, and I am tired.
So I will look at this tomorrow afternoon.

Here are Chatgpt's instructions:

--------------------------------------------------------

You’re running into the annoying reality that Amazon serves images and tracking from overlapping infrastructure, so the trick in uBlock Origin is to allow just enough for covers while still blocking obvious tracking endpoints.
Here’s a practical, working approach rather than a brittle “perfect” list.

1. Allow Amazon image/CDN domains (for book covers)
Add these to your “My filters” → allow rules:

@@||images-amazon.com^$image,domain=librarything.com
@@||m.media-amazon.com^$image,domain=librarything.com
@@||ecx.images-amazon.com^$image,domain=librarything.com
@@||covers.openlibrary.org^$image,domain=librarything.com

Why these:
• m.media-amazon.com → most modern Amazon covers
• images-amazon.com / ecx.images-amazon.com → legacy but still used
• covers.openlibrary.org → fallback covers (non-Amazon, safe to allow)
The $image restriction is important:
it allows images but not scripts or trackers from those domains.

2. Keep tracking blocked (don’t whitelist these)
Make sure you are NOT allowing (and ideally explicitly blocking):

||amazon-adsystem.com^
||googletagmanager.com^
||doubleclick.net^
||scorecardresearch.com^
||amazon.com^$third-party,script
||ssl-images-amazon.com^$script

These are typical tracking / ad / analytics endpoints.

3. Optional: tighten further (advanced)
If you want to be stricter, you can force “images only” from Amazon domains:

||amazon.com^$third-party
@@||m.media-amazon.com^$image,domain=librarything.com
@@||images-amazon.com^$image,domain=librarything.com

This:
• Blocks everything Amazon by default
• Re-allows only images for LibraryThing

4. Debug if covers still don’t load
Use uBlock’s logger:
• Click uBlock icon → “Open the logger”
• Reload LibraryThing
• Look for blocked red entries related to Amazon images
If you see a new domain (Amazon changes these occasionally), just add another @@||...$image,domain=librarything.com rule.

Reality check
There isn’t a perfectly clean separation here:
• Amazon doesn’t neatly split “tracking vs images”
• So this is a best-effort compromise, not a perfect privacy wall
But this setup:
• Restores covers
• Keeps most tracking blocked
• Doesn’t guarantee zero data leakage to Amazon

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OK. I think I've got it working.
But it is still a trade off between functionality, practicality, and security.

Because in order for these settings in uBlock Origin to actually work, you will have to either disable private browsing of disable ETP (enhanced tracking protection) manually every time.

What I discovered while testing:
-------------------------------------------------
I tried it first in a private browsing session in FF.
That will work, but you will have to disable ETP by hand every time you use LT.

Then I tried to add exceptions in Settings > Privacy & Security > Enhanced Tracking Protection > Manage Exceptions.
But when Private Browsing is on, these exceptions will be ignored.

When you disable private browsing in Settings > Privacy & Security > History, it will see the ETP exceptions and use them.

In closing:
---------------
You can either disable the ETP by hand (and then use/not use uBlock to stop the tracking)
Or, you can disable private browsing and use Exceptions for ETP (again with or without uBlock to stop the tracking)
Or, you can choose to no longer use Amazon covers. (and leave ETP and private browsing on)
Or, ... switch to another browser? (Not going down that rabbit hole for now)

I just want to let everybody know that we are looking at this and we're trying to find solutions that are general enough that we can use across LibraryThing. In the meantime, the only thing that I can tell you is that Firefox is the cause of this. Switching to another browser will solve the issue. I know that's not what people want to hear, but it's currently, the only solution that we have although we are continuing to investigate .

I'm not willing to do that. (I could, but won't)
I'll just change whatever covers aren't showing up to member covers (which I should have done anyway.)
I've added covers before, I'll add them again.

ETA: I'll switch to duckduck browser.

>26 conceptDawg: While I tried Chrome which does show covers without tweaking, the previously mentioned 'setting in Connections not sticking' is an issue there as well.

>26 conceptDawg: With respect (because you're the one who knows how all this software works under the hood, and I'm not) I'd just like to point out that I'm on Firefox 150.0 on a Mac OS 15.7.4 (with extensions Adblock Plus, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Firefox Multi-Account Containers, Privacy Badger, & uBlock Origin) and I'm unaware of having any trouble seeing covers.

>24 WarInHeaven: Your catalog is private, so I'll say this publicly: Please do not post anything from ChatGPT or any other "AI" source. The information is likely bad and helps no one.

In bug report threads, we users need to provide specific info about a problem to the staff. LT staff are perfectly capable of searching all corners of the internet themselves as needed.

>30 karenb: I do not intend to do the staffs work for them. I already work a 60 hour week in the IT. And have been for 30 years. No time to do extra work.

I was specifically responding to @CaramichaelD, who for as far as I can see is not IT-staff. Nor are you staff, as far as I can see from your profile.

Let me be clear about this:
I do not trust AI blindly. But I do use it from time to time. As a tool. Just as I use a dictionary or a wiki or a browser.
It is like using a gun. As long as you know what you are doing it is safe. But there is always a chance for self mutilation.
Because I have had bad experiences with AI myself, I check any answer I receive from an AI myself through thorough testing. Which was the right thing to do, because the answer needed extra tweaking. As I also posted.

Again:
I do not expect anyone who does not know what he, she, or it is doing IT-wise, to replicate this. But @CaramichaelD indicated he was already using uBlock Origin. So I didn't think there would be a problem there.

Lesson learned.
From now on I will keep silent, stay private (reminder to self!) and not bother the other users with my IT-insights.
Everyone have a nice day.
(This will be my last post)

>31 WarInHeaven: No, it's all good. We're happy enough to filter through the fluff vs. useful reports. And as long as you say something like "Claude told me this" or "AI says this:" it's enough to give us a clue. We are using it internally for all kinds of things like this anyway, so it's not a surprise. But, in general, LT members tend to be a little more anti-untagged-AI than some places so just make sure you label AI content/comments as such.

>31 WarInHeaven: ANd for what it's worth, your post was very helpful.

>1 surly: Same here - I've uploaded a number of covers over the years, but with well over 2000 with Amazon or other linked covers, all disappeared on the same day. Did Amazon change something? Very frustrating . . .

>34 PastorBob: No, I'm assuming that you are using Firefox as your browser?
If so, your first option is to disable "Enhanced Tracking Protection" on LibraryThing (and possibly also amazon) so that it will load amazon covers while you are on LibraryThing.

How to fix:You can do this by clicking on the little shield icon next to the URL in the browser, then turning off "Enhanced Tracking Protection".

You may have to close and reopen the page for it to take effect. (I'm not seeing this on MY version of Firefox, so I'm flying blind here)

Hm. I use FF 150 and haven't noticed any cover trouble lately. Now, I don't use Amazon covers for my own books, but since plenty of people do oughtn't I see it for other books? Or are Amazon covers deprecated for use as work covers or something?

Not related to covers, but related to the latest FF update: is anyone else experiencing strange issues of buttons, links and such not working on a newly opened page? Once I reload it, it works fine. It's also not consistent, but sporadic. As far as I can tell, only on LT, specifically CK fields

Not something I’ve noted, no. Haven’t been doing much CK work lately, mind.

>37 SandraArdnas: I haven't noticed anything in the last few days. FireFox 150 on Mac, OS Sequoia.

Which OS are you running FF on?

>32 conceptDawg: & >33 conceptDawg: Good to hear that is was of some use.
I agree that people should always mention what source they used. be it AI, a website, or a book.

My appologies to all if I flew off the handle.
I am currently part of an IT-project, that is reaching it's critical phase. We are all a bit overextended. :-)
So my customer relations skills are suffering a bit. Sorry about that.

Karenb's reaction felt a bit like a slap on the wrist by nurse Ratchett. (sorry: pavlovian reaction on my part)

As the saying goes: "You can catch more flies witrh honey than with vinegar."
That applies to this AI-issue as well.

@karenb: Telling people off for using AI, does not stop them from using AI. They will just stop mentioning that they used it. And then we will all be farther from home. Like it or not, AI is here for the foreseeable future. You will just have to learn to deal with it as best you can.
If you distrust a post, ask them for their source if they haven't mention it already.
Or if it is an IT-related post, check if they tested it themselves and what the results were.
And if you really don't trust a source personally, then ignore it.
No harm done.

Again sorry I exploded and acted like a churlish child.

>39 waltzmn: Windows 10

It's very strange. As far as I can tell, clicking the edit pencil always works, but then when I edit the CK field Save does nothing, it's like I'm clicking on random part of the screen with no link/button. When I reload the page, it works again. Same for those 'show more' links in CK. It often just ignores the click until I reload the page

My export is stuck and states "You have 1 export waiting or in progress. Please wait for these to complete before starting a new export. 1 currently processing." Please help!

>43 tfraumeni: This isn't the thread for dealing with import/export. I can tell you that this is a common problem. But search for threats about export problems to look for tips and help. You may have to wait for the staff to prod things along, but it's better to tell them a thread that isn't about covers.

>43 tfraumeni: Contact staff. There's a link at the bottom of every page 'Contact'