This is the discussion page for the AWB project. It is also the place to discuss using the AWB program itself (if you need help, or have a question about AWB, etc.). Where to make specific types of reports or requests is explained in the Before you post section below. Before asking questions, please read the Frequently asked questions below.
Try to report bugs in the current version of the software. Update to the most recent version and check to make sure your bug has not been reported already on this page. See "How to Report Bugs Effectively" for advice on how to write bug reports.
Before posting anything related to non-Wikimedia Foundation wikis, verify that the site is running a recent version of MediaWiki with enabled Bot API. Older versions of MediaWiki or without the Bot API are not supported. Be sure to mention the exact URL of your wiki.
Request a feature details
Please use the feature request button to add new feature requests. This format allows the developers to keep track of feature requests. Take some time to search the archives, both on-wiki and on Phabricator to check whether a similar request was previously discussed.
When I start it up I get one of the following errors:
"The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.", or
"To run this application, you must first install one of the following versions of the .NET Framework..."
This error means your computer does not have the .NET framework version 2 installed properly. You can choose from various versions for download here, or you can run Windows Update and select version 2 of the .Net framework from the "Optional Updates" section, if you want the choice made for you.
Many Wikimedia projects and languages are supported, see the "User and project preferences" option in the general menu. Other languages will be added on request, though at the moment the interface is always in English. You are also able to use AWB with third-party wikis: Options > Preferences > Site, you can change the wiki there. The wiki must support the Bot API required by AWB. This means that it should have latest HEAD version of MediaWiki or something close to that. The wmf-deployment branch is also recommended, as this is what is currently live on WMF sites.
Under Windows Vista (and newer), AWB is using wrong font size, which results in clipped text and lost buttons and options, (see example here). How to fix it?
Solution #1: Go to "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display" and switch resizing of the fonts to 100%.
Solution #2: Right click on AutoWikiBrowser.exe --> Properties -> Compatibility (tab) --> enable the "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" option or for Windows 10, if available, select System (Enhanced).
AWB puts stubs after categories, though categories are always rendered the last by MediaWiki?
According to WP:STUB#Categorizing stubs, by convention they are placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last. If your wiki uses another order, please let us know here.
I don't like or use Internet Explorer; please use Firefox instead.
AWB does not use Internet Explorer per se. It does, however, use the same web browser control (MSHTML) as Internet Explorer; the equivalent Firefox component does not provide the needed functionality.
How do I open the page in another browser if I can't use the one in AWB?
Right click on the edit box in the bottom right side of your screen. Select "Open page in browser".
How do I edit a page that doesn't exist?
Uncheck "Ignore non existing pages" in the "Skip articles" box.
How do I skip certain articles?
Use the "Skip if contains" and "Skip if doesn't contain" on the "Skip" tab
Can't you leave up a "stable" version, so I don't have to download new versions?
It is important to keep people up to date with the latest versions, because their use of the software doesn't just affect them, but the whole of Wikipedia. As any bugs that remain will be trivial, hopefully releases won't be too frequent.
How can I stop AWB clicking when it changes pages?
This is a Windows sound theme setting. This page explains how to turn off the clicking sound.
Alternatively, delete the following key from the Windows registry:
AWB randomly crashes upon page load on my system, and I always use a browser other than Internet Explorer when using Wikipedia.
You may have installed custom scripts incompatible with IE. Wrap the contents of your monobook.js into conditional:
//Detect IE5.5+
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE")==-1)
{
// Previous contents go here
....
}
I get Just In Time Debugger Messages when loading AWB/loading pages.
In Internet Explorer, go to Tools → Options → Advanced. Make sure 'Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer)' and 'Disable Script Debugging (Other)' Are both checked. Press apply and close.
Why does AWB run very, very slowly if I try to make changes in the edit window on larger pages, especially pages with long lists or tables?
If running on Windows, exit the Speech Recognition software that is built into some versions of Windows; don't just turn it 'Off', you must 'Exit' the software if you have started up Speech Recognition.
When I do a clean install of AutoWikiBrowser the application seems to find old setting data somewhere. I'd like to do a really clean install. Any ideas?
Clean up your registry and remove the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings\Application Data\AutoWikiBrowser" (Windows XP) or "C:\Users\user name\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\" (Windows 7). Note that the application data folder may be hidden.
AWB prompts that there is a newer version but won't update
Check the version number of your AWBUpdater.exe. The current version is 2.4.0.0. If you have an older version, you have to download the latest AWB version and make a clean install.
Which .NET Framework version do I have?
You can find your .NET Framework version in Help → About box.
Where are the default settings stored?
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\AutoWikiBrowser
Windows Vista onwards: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\Default.xml
I cannot copy text from the diff window using the Control+C keyboard shortcut.
You must have Microsoft.mshtml.dll available for AWB to use for this functionality to work. You can try downloading the file (there are a number of third-party websites offering DLL file downloads) and putting it in the same folder as AutoWikiBrowser.exe. This is reported not to work for all users, presumably due to .NET Framework problems.
Is there any way to set AWB to not use https? (GFW blocks 443 port)
In preferences, set project to "custom". Set the left box to http. In the webpage box, type en.wikipedia.org/w/ (English Wikipedia) or zh.wikipedia.org/w/ (Chinese Wikipedia). Note that leaving off the /w/ will result in a "root element missing" error.
How do I login to AWB with accounts enabled with two-factor authentication?
I'm finding and replacing "parking metre" - an incorrect spelling of "parking meter". When I use wiki search (text) and enter "parking metre" the search finds spellings with both "parking meter" and "parking metre", which I do not want. I only want to find the spellings errors. How do I prevent it from showing both spellings? —Panamitsu(talk) 10:01, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Panamitsu: Hi. That is WP:ENGVAR scenario. Metre is British English, meter is American English. —usernamekiran (talk) 11:25, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually British English distinguishes between "meter and "metre". A meter is something that measures something (speedometer, parking meter, etc), so "parking metre" is also incorrect in the Commonwealth. —Panamitsu(talk) 11:29, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
~"parking metre" insource:/[p|P]arking [m|M]etre/ - no results. Neils51 (talk) 12:24, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually parking insource:/[pP]arking [mM]etre/ gives me one hit: Timeline of South Australian history, where the correct term (intentionally) pipes to "parking metres". To Panamitsu: that was a regular expression search, which is precise but very slow and resource-heavy. The "parking" does a pre-filter. David Brooks (talk) 16:22, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, I could have done this ~"parking metre*" insource:/[p|P]arking [m|M]etre/. Leave to Panamitsu to fix the article. Neils51 (talk) 23:17, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but you would have had to have foreknowledge of the plural use :-) Also you have a somewhat hybrid use of [pP] and the (almost) equivalent (p|P), not that it hurts in this case. David Brooks (talk) 00:15, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Great thanks everyone for your help/ —Panamitsu(talk) 01:40, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've recently enabled Two-factor authentication, and since then, I've encountered difficulty logging into AWB. I would like to know if there is any solution to this issue, as repeatedly disabling two-factor authentication to use AWB is quite hazardous. Thank you. GSS💬 15:29, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
After hour of editing I accidentally type Escape key. Any way to continue editing or to save changed text? Thank you. A.sav (talk) 19:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Using Escape is documented as 'stopping the editing process' and as you have discovered is quite successful. I had a bit of a play and can't see any way of successfully resuming, retaining edits. I would call that a bug and suggest you make a Phabricator request for the ability to 'continue'. I would suggest also that you wait to see if anyone else has a magic solution (unless you have exited). If doing gross editing then consider using another editor that perhaps has autosave capability then copy/paste. What can occur more often is that someone else edits in the interim and you have a conflict situation. Having your material elsewhere makes it easier to handle such situations and less frustrating. Neils51 (talk) 02:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The "Stop" button has a similar effect, but first pops up a warning about losing the "manual changes in the edit box". If the Escape key has a similar effect it should show a similar warning. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you all! --A.sav (talk) 12:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree there should be a safeguard against an accidental press (or touch) of ESC, and have filed a feature request. David Brooks (talk) 19:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Did we just update? I edited with AWB yesterday, no issues, but just now when i started up i was required to re-download the software. I don't see anything on this page or the project page indicating anything, so just wondering if there was an update and if anything i ought to know about will have changed? Happy days, ~ LindsayHello 08:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. I had to update it right now, but I don't know what changed in this new version. Mazewaxie (talk • contribs) 17:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no new official release (6.3.0.0 is apparently current), but it looks like version 6.2.1.0 was disabled by reedy yesterday. David Brooks (talk) 17:43, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Mazewaxie: According to the Changelog, version 6.2.1.0 was rev 12528 and version 6.3.0.0 was rev 12559. You can browse the commits between those revisions to see a summary of each change that was made to the code. GoingBatty (talk) 05:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1) How do I append the template ((Use New Zealand English|date=((CURRENTMONTHNAME)) ((CURRENTYEAR))))? (in a place that satisfies MOS:ORDER) I've seen several people doing this with ((Use mdy dates)) before so I know it's possible.
2) I've seen people debating whether these templates are cosmetic or not. I use the engvar templates to find and replace American spellings with New Zealand/British/Australian ones, so it may indirectly be considered not cosmetic. Am I right in thinking this way? Because I have to manually review the English variation in each article I am not considering a bot request. —Panamitsu(talk) 09:37, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Select the Prepend radio button (prepend adds to the beginning, whereas append adds to the end)
Add ((Use New Zealand English|date=((subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME)) ((subst:CURRENTYEAR)))) in the text box
Set the box to Use 1 newlines
Check the Sort meta data after box
On the Options tab:
Check Auto tag, Apply general fixes, Unicodify whole page, and Regex typo fixing (The more AWB can do, the less likely someone will consider this a cosmetic edit.)
Add find and replace rules to change American English to New Zealand English, and check the box to Add replacements to edit summary
See my edit to 1936 in New Zealand as an example (except I forgot to check the Minor edit box)
2) I can see why some people think that adding the template would be cosmetic because it doesn't change the visual rendering of the page. However WP:COSMETICEDIT reminds us that the maintenance of hidden categories is a substantive edit.
@GoingBatty: Except, shouldn't you have used subst: in the CURRENT... templates on line 1? I'll let you fix if necessary in case I misunderstood. @Panamitsu: hold off on that template addition, but I think I'm right. David Brooks (talk) 22:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I'll try this.
Yup, it should be ((subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME)) ((subst:CURRENTYEAR)), my bad. As GoingBatty's edit didn't substitute the template it just inserted the template instead of the current month/year. I've checked the visual editor and it uses subst: for dated templates. —Panamitsu(talk) 22:18, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@DavidBrooks: You are correct. I just copied the template from the question without reviewing it for accuracy.
There are a few pages with incorrect engvar templates, such as Use British English or EngvarB. I found them using a regex and removed them, such as here. —Panamitsu(talk) 05:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
