Is anything working on study content pages for you?

Today when studying, I can get the text content (thank goodness), but nothing else seems to work. The notes bar on the right won't open. I can't click on a footnote in the scriptures and have it open to the content. No icons on the top bar do anything (print, bookmark, settings, etc.). Images are also not showing. I'm in a private browsing session (as usual). I've tried the scriptures and the Liahona.

I know I need to submit feedback to get anyone's attention who can fix it, but it's so broken that I'm wondering if other people are having the same problem or if it's just me.

I seem to be noticing a pattern that the church tends to release breaking changes just before the weekend.

Have you tried using incognito mode? Church webpages have a problem with cookie buildup that manifests itself in odd ways.

I get a similar issue with an error 500. I try to bring up the scriptures through a web browser, they work intermittently. I usually get a 500 error if I try to select the books of Genesis or Matthew. Sometimes it works and sometimes it fails, so it appears to be a cluster server node issue. The scriptures load if I use my mobile app, just not from the website. Multiple browsers and computers give the same "500 Internal Server Error". (For me, I also tried both private mode on firefox and incognito mode on chrome.) The 500 error are coming directly from www.churchofjesuschrist.org.


Service Not Available
Please try again later.

I don't like intermittent issues. Attached are two files indicating two different IPs with the date header too. It appears that if you keep trying with the same IP addresses it might work for you. Being that it is intermittent (issue started probably around midnight utah time) it may be difficult to debug. Looking at the server logs should show the 500 error, provided the servers are not running out of disk space.

russellhltn wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:45 am Have you tried using incognito mode? Church webpages have a problem with cookie buildup that manifests itself in odd ways.

Yes, I am. I got interrupted while typing my message and thought I had indicated that I'm using an incognito/private browser window (I always do because it doesn't work if I don't), but I missed that important detail.

The problem is still there today, but I've figured out more. It's now a very specific, but reproducible problem that began yesterday. The problem occurs if you start with the Dashboard page (which you are normally redirected to after logging in). From the Dashboard page, click on any link that opens content in the Study Tools interface. When that content opens, Study Tools doesn't work (and images don't load on the page). However, if you navigate to the content by another method, such as using the Libraries menu at the top of the page, then the Study Tools interface works properly.

Here are some current things on the Dashboard page (at least on my page) that open in the Study Tools interface:

• This Week's Lesson (click on the lesson)
• Quick Links / Handbook
• More Features / Preparing to Return to God's Presence
• Prophetic Message / Elder Bednar, Temple Ordinances...

While testing links on the page, I found some exceptions to the above rule: If I open the references to the Verse of the Day or Quote of the Day, Study Tools works fine on those pages.

Does anyone else experience this problem?

Here I compare screen shots from the two different methods of opening the page. The URLs are the same, but the page experience is very different:

Opened from Dashboard: Opened from Libraries menu and then navigating to the manual:

I just found additional ways to encounter the problem (that don't involve the Dashboard page), but I've already spent too much time on this problem and don't have more time right now to continue working on reproducible bug reports. Maybe I'll find some time next week if the problem persists. I already reported the above problem through Feedback, with a link to the post.

From what I can see, it appears that the app is trying to get the notes from an akamai cluster that is accessed by the domain www.churchofjesuschrist.org. The buggy akamai servers are sending out and attached file for html source code. That "error file" from akamai has CSS code and links pointing to domains such as https://foundry.churchofjesuschrist.org/ and https://test.churchofjesuschrist.org/. (Interesting that not all the links have required start of "http://".) I do not have the capability of seeing the connection between akamai and Salt Lake City, so I am not sure if this is a akamai issue, or if it is something wrong in the church office building network.

The first line of defense sent me the boilerplate "clear your cache" response (or who knows, maybe the church has a bot send that out now). However, someone at the church saw what I submitted and contacted me before I had time to respond to the "clear your cache" response. I delved into the problem more and found it to be an intermittent problem. When it occurred, there were errors relating to MIME types (JavaScript had a Text MIME type and therefore the browser wouldn't run it). The church people investigated and found they needed to clear some caches on their end. So far, today, it appears to be working for me (but since it's an intermittent problem, I want to give it a few days).

I'm not completely certain this is the same issue that gnarlymarley has been experiencing, as that was "500 internal server error." Still, it would be good to see if you're still having the problem.

I really appreciate that someone from the church saw my report and reached out to learn more.

Though I do not believe this is completely resolved, I only got 2 out of 28 500 errors. It appears to be mostly working for me now.

I am very frustrated. I was able to take notes on the PC at one time, years ago. I haven't taken notes since because I can't save them to my account. I am 64 years old. I have tables and a cellphone, but they are useless to me for taking notes. I am one of the 10% who have great troubles with voice recognition. I really wish I could take notes in the website as I used to do. I am rather lost without this ability. President Nelson told us we should take notes. Well, if I take them and put them on my hard drive, they are very likely to disappear. This is an intermittent problem with some of us Windows 10 users, though a rare one. So, I don't take notes or do a journal. As I get older many things get harder for me. I can't study my Scriptures on the Website because I can't swipe or use those touch gestures. I continually have glitches when I do my Tuesday Singles Zoom meeting where we study the previous Sunday School lesson and my iPad gets stuck. I really wish the Church would remember us old folks who are more comfortable with the large screen on the PC rather than the tiny one on phone or tablet. It is very unfair to disabled folks like me.

DanniCole wrote: Sun Oct 30, 2022 3:05 pm I am very frustrated. I was able to take notes on the PC at one time, years ago. I haven't taken notes since because I can't save them to my account. I am 64 years old. I have tables and a cellphone, but they are useless to me for taking notes. I am one of the 10% who have great troubles with voice recognition. I really wish I could take notes in the website as I used to do. I am rather lost without this ability. President Nelson told us we should take notes. Well, if I take them and put them on my hard drive, they are very likely to disappear. This is an intermittent problem with some of us Windows 10 users, though a rare one. So, I don't take notes or do a journal. As I get older many things get harder for me. I can't study my Scriptures on the Website because I can't swipe or use those touch gestures. I continually have glitches when I do my Tuesday Singles Zoom meeting where we study the previous Sunday School lesson and my iPad gets stuck. I really wish the Church would remember us old folks who are more comfortable with the large screen on the PC rather than the tiny one on phone or tablet. It is very unfair to disabled folks like me.

While there various bugs and usability issues in taking notes with the web-based Gospel Library, it is very doable (usually). I, too, prefer the large screen for study. I don't need swipe or gestures to use the website Gospel Library. I use a mouse and keyboard. I'm curious about the problems you are experiencing in trying to use the web-based Gospel Library for study. I've been studying online for many years. I am probably accustomed to some of the quirks required to use it successfully and it's possible that could be tripping up someone like you who is not familiar with the problems.

For starters, when taking notes, always use a private/incognito browsing window. You will likely encounter many frustrations if you don't. And there will be days where the study tools suddenly no longer work, and could be broken for days. It requires patience when this happens.

Maybe if we understand the problems you are facing we can help you be more successful in your gospel study.