Error when opening new story

[slenderknight1]

When opening a new story i get no words and it says 1-1 chapters when in bio it says 20

[PlytonRexus]

I tried a PWA PoC a week back. The idea was to make Cloudflare think the app was a browser, then pass the received captcha to the user to be solved. Similar to what @genious7 had tried initially.

IIRC, Cloudflare shouldn't assess you every time a page is loaded. Using that, once in a while, the user solves the captcha, and when the page is loaded, we run a script to extract the contents of that page and display it in the app's UI.

The obvious limitation is that downloads of entire stories wouldn't be possible. In fact, very little automation is possible. Every process will require a user's interaction. Maybe somebody can work something there? Regular fetch calls were not possible, so I had tried using Puppeteer.

[lightningHoneypot]

Maybe this could give some hints? https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFare/wiki/BrowserCacheFeature

[slenderknight1]

Is there any update or progress in fixing the app?

[lightningHoneypot]

Is there any update or progress in fixing the app?

I don't think so :( as they said:

Regarding fixing the issue, I've decided to give up for the moment since I can't think any way around the issue.

there are some solutions, the original https://github.com/Anorov/cloudflare-scrape has not been updated for two years. and there is the updated version: https://github.com/VeNoMouS/cloudscraper

but that person (VeNoMouS) has

has disabled issues, and shuts down any comments on PRs about functionality. source: https://github.com/Anorov/cloudflare-scrape/issues/406

and their response is just downright rude (https://github.com/Anorov/cloudflare-scrape/issues/406#issuecomment-755756639), but hey I might be missing something or I might be wrong on something, I don't know. Not going to dig up old bad dirt. But what I can tell is that if one goes to https://github.com/VeNoMouS/cloudscraper (as of writing this message), one can see that there is no place to open issues.

However, both cloudflare-scrape and cloudscraper are not free, as they will create this message:

Detected a Cloudflare version 2 challenge, This feature is not available in the opensource (free) version.

There are some suggestions here: https://github.com/Anorov/cloudflare-scrape/issues/406#issuecomment-754799513

Yup Tonnes and tonnes of issues about it not working, and no update from the owner in many months. Pretty sure it's dead. Some folks moved over to https://github.com/VeNoMouS/cloudscraper/ but I believe that's moved over to a subscription model where you have to contact the owner over discord? and the owner has disabled issues, and shuts down any comments on PRs about functionality.

I've not seen a lot of other options around.

Some folks have said to use scrapy-splash: https://github.com/scrapy-plugins/scrapy-splash/issues/92#issuecomment-680050082 but I'm not sure how that goes. There's some JS options around, again, not sure whether they're working: https://www.npmjs.com/package/hooman (last update 5 months ago, repo issues say it's broken, dev says he'll work on it, but is very busy https://github.com/sayem314/hooman/issues/34#issuecomment-703052304) https://www.npmjs.com/package/cloudflare-scraper (last update 6 months ago, repo issues say it's broken) https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ctrl/cloudflare (last update 8 months ago, repo archived, suggests ) https://www.npmjs.com/package/cloudscraper (last update a year ago) Browser based solutions: https://github.com/FlareSolverr/FlareSolverr That last one sounds like the best bet to me. It's a docker image that spins up browsers to do the request, so it's going to be slow and quite memory-heavy. But development seems active, latest commit to master was 5 days ago. But I've not tried it myself.

[canerolu2019]

So this app literally just died then? No fix will be given anytime soon.. And here i was hoping a fix might be impplemented into the app but guess not it seems.. It looks like im stuck using the official version then.. Oh well. As the saying goes "All good things comes to an end".

[lightningHoneypot]

So this app literally just died then? No fix will be given anytime soon.. And here i was hoping a fix might be impplemented into the app but guess not it seems.. It looks like im stuck using the official version then.. Oh well. As the saying goes "All good things comes to an end".

It is not about the app "dying", it's just that there is an obstacle that is so out of reach that the developer is having a hard time finding a solution for a workaround; that being the cloudflare anti-bot checker.

And being a developer is not that easy, from what I experienced from my limited time experience on computing science, all of programming is problem solving. Even in an open source project, it still takes time.

So, the problem that we are experiencing in this app is this:

• Accessing fanfiction.net is easy, accessing the stories in fanfiction.net is where the problem starts to begin. As there is a cloudflare check now.
• Luckily, the check only seems to be done once when accessing the first story an user clicks/taps on (when using a browser), after that the user CNA access any stories they want. However, there is up until a certain amount of time the user will have to be subjected to another cloudflare check.
• Therefore, there needs to be some sort of "middle man", "emulator", or proxy that can do the exact same thing or something similar to a browser. Once that is done, the "middle man" is able to fetch the data from fanfiction.net and send it back to this app.

Think that's easy? If it were that easy the dev would have solved it a long time ago already.

[canerolu2019]

So this app literally just died then? No fix will be given anytime soon.. And here i was hoping a fix might be impplemented into the app but guess not it seems.. It looks like im stuck using the official version then.. Oh well. As the saying goes "All good things comes to an end".

It is not about the app "dying", it's just that there is an obstacle that is so out of reach that the developer is having a hard time finding a solution for a workaround; that being the cloudflare anti-bot checker.

And being a developer is not that easy, from what I experienced from my limited time experience on computing science, all of programming is problem solving. Even in an open source project, it still takes time.

So, the problem that we are experiencing in this app is this:

• Accessing fanfiction.net is easy, accessing the stories in fanfiction.net is where the problem starts to begin. As there is a cloudflare check now.
• Luckily, the check only seems to be done once when accessing the first story an user clicks/taps on (when using a browser), after that the user CNA access any stories they want. However, there is up until a certain amount of time the user will have to be subjected to another cloudflare check.
• Therefore, there needs to be some sort of "middle man", "emulator", or proxy that can do the exact same thing or something similar to a browser. Once that is done, the "middle man" is able to fetch the data from fanfiction.net and send it back to this app.

Think that's easy? If it were that easy the dev would have solved it a long time ago already.

i can understand your point, however didnt he say he has given up on the app? Also i dont think the app will survive at this point.

[lightningHoneypot]

i can understand your point, however didnt he say he has given up on the app? Also i dont think the app will survive at this point.

Read this carefully:

Regarding fixing the issue, I've decided to give up for the moment since I can't think any way around the issue.

For the moment

That means he is putting the project aside for now. Unless they explicitly said that the project is abandoned, I still hold up hope that there is a fix.

[canerolu2019]

i can understand your point, however didnt he say he has given up on the app? Also i dont think the app will survive at this point.

Read this carefully:

Regarding fixing the issue, I've decided to give up for the moment since I can't think any way around the issue.

For the moment

That means he is putting the project aside for now. Unless they explicitly said that the project is abandoned, I still hold up hope that there is a fix.

Ah so thats what it meant, i though he abandoned the project for good. I suppose there has been some misunderstanding. I didnt read his announcement carefuly and assumed it wrong.. Anyway also i didnt say per se that the app is indeed "dead" i just thought it wrongfully. Anyway lets still hope that fix will still come, whenever @genious7 decides to do the fix and finds the solution. :)

[lightningHoneypot]

well, it's been three months since the last post of this issue maybe if possible, look into tachiyomi's implementation? https://tachiyomi.org/help/guides/troubleshooting/#diagnosis

Or even check the solved fanficfare

https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFare/issues/703

[genious7]

The FanFicFare is not useful in this scenario, since they are using the browser cache as a solution. That being said, good catch on the Tachiyomi; they definitely have an android-compatible solution. I'll look into it.

[canerolu2019]

Any update so far??

[hallowknight99]

I don't think so.

On Fri, 6 Jan 2023, 08:59 thedragneel124, @.***> wrote:

Any update so far??

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/genious7/FanFictionReader/issues/84#issuecomment-1373365247, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASKQOYB5GKU2YUDRNS5BITDWQ7NG3ANCNFSM5GXJ7D4Q . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

[lightningHoneypot]

The FanFicFare is not useful in this scenario, since they are using the browser cache as a solution. That being said, good catch on the Tachiyomi; they definitely have an android-compatible solution. I'll look into it.

If you have the chance to do so, tell us what's the problem. Maybe the Tachiyomi people can help to a certain extent.

[Luminatrix-eng]

Any update so far??

At this point, no and we shouldn't expect any. The developer has done an awesome job trying to fix it and for awhile it worked, but ff.net site changed things again to prevent third party readers from being able to download stories.

Fanfiction.net site is a lost cause. I suspect that what happened was the original owner of the site sold his site for $$ to someone else or an entity. My research turned up that some Chinese entity in China may be the owner of Fanfiction.net site and are using it as a cash cow with advertisements plastered all over their page. They can't get ad revenue if third party readers download stories hence cloudflare bullcrap. There are millions of site visits per month which makes fanfiction.net site a place for ad revenue for milking cash.

Long story short, FF.net is a lost cause. I would like to thank @genious7 for his time and energy to try fix the app, because for the brief period of time that the app was working again and I updated stories, my depression lifted and I was in a good place. Thank you!

[thinkpad4]

Xing Li is the founder of FanFiction.Net. He and several people, including some UCLA students, developed the site in fall of 1998. That might be the "Chinese entity" you are thinking of

[slenderknight1]

So have this app died ? Or is there any updates for this app

[canerolu2019]

So have this app died ? Or is there any updates for this app

it seems like its been dead for good. I guess we can say goodbye to this app.

[lightningHoneypot]

So have this app died ? Or is there any updates for this app

it seems like its been dead for good. I guess we can say goodbye to this app.

I guess it is dead for a long time now, I will create a guide on what I use currently. It will take some time to do it, so hold up!

[slenderknight1]

What do you currently use? LightningHoneypot

[hallowknight99]

I use the officaly app. It has came along way in 3 years to the point where it is similar. The only issue is searching for a catergory without crossover enabled by default.

On Thu, 14 Sept 2023, 6:00 am slenderknight1, @.***> wrote:

What do you currently use?

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/genious7/FanFictionReader/issues/84#issuecomment-1718766201, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASKQOYGO3WW6FZKULXVDXY3X2KFODANCNFSM5GXJ7D4Q . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

[lightningHoneypot]

What do you currently use? LightningHoneypot

Sorry for late reply, but I use JimmXinu's FanFicFare in kovidgoyal's calibre, and bypassing the cloudflare checks using FlareSolverr. I read the epubs using koreader.

[lightningHoneypot]

I use the officaly app.

You mean the official app? If so, I haven't create an account, that's why I didn't use the official app.