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Poster: trk216 Date: Nov 12, 2019 5:23pm
Forum: forums Subject: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

A few days ago I archived some webpages and recorded the archived urls (e.g. http://web.archive.org/web/20191110070332/https://www.chara-ani.com/ranking.aspx?type=%8d%ec%95i&code=100000143) which were accessible at that time. But now when I check back on these urls, I found that they get automatically redirected to earlier timestamps (e.g. a day before at timestamp 20191109005534). And when I look at the snapshot history, I see that the snapshots made on November 10, 2019 have disappeared while snapshots made on the Nov 9, Nov 10 are available. What's happening?

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Nov 12, 2019 10:02pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

The Wayback Machine uses multiple levels of indexes that are built over time. There are conditions can cause a given archived URL (capture) to expire out of one index before it is included in another index. Clearly that is not a good thing and we are working to reduce the probability that occurs. I am fairly sure that is what is happening in this case.

Rest assured that no archives were lost and the "missing" captures will become available in the near future (probably days) when additional indexes are built.

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Poster: astronomy168 Date: Sep 24, 2021 11:18am
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

I have archived some pages using Save Page Now. Some afterwards, when I clicked on the link for the archive page, it brought it up. Now two days later, I get a message "The Wayback Machine has not archived that URL." The archive page is now lost. This has happened to 6 pages I have archived. Can someone help please.


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Poster: Lenis Felipe Arango Date: Oct 20, 2025 10:20am
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

You are not the only one, sadly it happens to me too, I save every day that I can the user pages in the Spanish Wikipedia before they are deleted, I saved all the necessary URLs of the page of the user HolaWiki2026, but now, only the history remains (https://web.archive.org/web/20251016194941/https://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Usuario:HolaWiki2026&action=history), the rest (revision diffs, contributions and content) no longer exist :(, everything I saved is lost, and if you wonder why not save it in archive.today, it's because there are problems, it only saves static content, if I save the source (the ?action=edit), as eswiki normally generates a popup window when it detects that there are no cookies (and archive.today can't save cookies), it does not let interact with the rest until pressing one of the 2 buttons, and although it appears at the bottom, as it prevents interaction, if the source of the page is long, it won't allow it to move the scroll bar, forcing to use Special:ComparePages, which also, although if it were a possible solution, almost nobody thinks to visit it, in the case of that page I mentioned, the problem of "?action=edit" doesn't apply thanks to the diffs, but, as they have already disappeared and I didn't save in archive.today because I thought this wasn't going to happen, 😭😢 no one will be able to know what content there was 😠

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Sep 24, 2021 11:23am
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Hi,

Our indexes are still recovering from the power outages we had this last Sunday and Monday.

We fully expect they will be up-to-date in a few days.

No actual data has been lost.

Please try again next week.

Please let us know if you still can't see the URLs you had archived.

- Mark Graham (info@archive.org)

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Poster: ballard12345 Date: Nov 12, 2025 10:43pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

It came to my attention that the problem of randomly losing captured webpages is still happening today, and it happens more often if:
  1. The URL links to a static file (PDF, images, etc.) rather than a webpage;
  2. The URL is a TEMPORARY URL (URLs that are generated temporarily when a user requests to download a certain file on some websites, whose lifespans only last from a few minutes to a few hours/days). —In this case if the capture is lost, that resource is PERMANENTLY LOST because there is no way to bring up the resource from that URL and save it again.
  3. The URL has been saved only once.
These conditions are inclusive or's. The more conditions are met, the more likely the problem may occur.

Examples of such include:

Instagram images:

PDF ebooks:


This post was modified by ballard12345 on 2025-11-13 06:43:16

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Poster: jantzeeee Date: Jul 16, 2023 2:31pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

I know this thread is a few years old but I'm having a similar issue.

I've been archiving a number of pages using Save Page Now. Right after saving, the captures appear properly; however, when I check again a few days later, the links to the captures no longer work and the Wayback Machine claims the pages haven't been archived or I get redirected to an earlier capture if one exists. From what I can tell, my captures made on or before July 9, 2023 are working (at least what I've checked), but everything that I saved since July 11 (and some of July 10) seems to have vanished.

With some testing, it seems like my captures work up until exactly 2 days before the current time and then they disappear? For example, this capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20230714203611/https://archiveofourown.org/works/44371297/chapters/111593353
made on July 14 at 20:36:11, worked when I tried it at 20:30 (13:30 my local time) on July 16, but by 20:40 I was getting the "Hrm. The Wayback Machine has not archived that URL." message.

The advice given previously seems to just be "wait and the 'missing' captures will come back" but is this still the case and there's not some other issue going on? If the former, how long will it take before the captures reappear? It's been over 5 days since some of these were made.

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Jul 16, 2023 3:05pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Right... indexes of archives via Save Page Now can become unavailable a few hours after they are created. If that happens they will appear again in a few days. The reason for this is related to the transfer of indexes for archived URLs from one level of index to another. No data is lost, but a given URL can "fall out" of one index before it is picked up by another.

Please do share any archived URLs that do NOT show up (again) after a few days.

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Poster: jantzeeee Date: Jul 16, 2023 3:45pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

How many days exactly is "a few days"?

I have *many* from July 11-14 that are missing.

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Jul 16, 2023 4:59pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

That makes sense.

Please wait a couple more days.

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Poster: jantzeeee Date: Jul 16, 2023 5:25pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Okay, sure, I can wait, but could you please tell me how many days exactly? The captures made on July 11, for example, when will they be available again? (Or when should I get back in touch if they aren't.)

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Jul 16, 2023 6:32pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

I don't know exactly how many days. There are many variables.

Can you please share one of the URLs from July 11th?

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Poster: jantzeeee Date: Jul 16, 2023 6:55pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Sure, here's a few of them:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230711235742/https://archiveofourown.org/works/46166461

https://web.archive.org/web/20230711220652/https://archiveofourown.org/works/44742799?view_full_work=true

https://web.archive.org/web/20230711191112/https://terrafirmascapers.com/index.php/topic,43999.0.html

And here's one from July 10th:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230710231130/https://archiveofourown.org/works/43805070?view_adult=true

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Jul 19, 2023 10:15am
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Thank you.

The process is taking longer than we expected.

Please note the indexes WILL catch up and no data has been lost.

But/and... I expect it will take a few more days.

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Poster: a b327 Date: Aug 30, 2025 9:04am
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Hi, I sent an email on this as well, but I noticed that some pages on the windowchronicles site are no longer loading. One in particular I've identified is https://web.archive.org/web/20100311064027/http://windowchronicles.com/voices/index.php?page=v01-004 , as I had seperately backed up the content on the page, but there's a lot more gaps in the archived record than there used to be.
This post was modified by a b327 on 2025-08-30 16:04:32

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Aug 30, 2025 9:29am
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Hi!

Thank you for sharing that.

I will look into the issue you are reporting.

- Mark Graham, Director, the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive

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Poster: a b327 Date: Sep 17, 2025 6:10pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Hello,

I hope you have been well. I apologize if I am being overly pushy, but I just wanted to check in quickly if there maybe were any updates? I recognize the archive has a lot of things on its plate but I was curious. Again, sorry if I'm being overly pushy. Thank you!

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Poster: a b327 Date: Aug 31, 2025 4:34pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Thank you!

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Poster: Tristan Miller Date: Jan 7, 2021 2:08pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

I'm also experiencing this issue, and have been able to reproduce with pretty high probability. Basically I have a script that downloads 400 archived pages with a specific timestamp, and no two runs produce exactly the same set of pages—there are always a handful where I got a different snapshot than the one I requested.

Is there any way to work around this problem other than saving the correct snapshots and then trying to download the bad ones again later?

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Jan 7, 2021 2:17pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

HI Tristan,

I would like to investigate this, and figure out what is going on.

Could you please help us by sharing some specifics?

Please share via email to "info@archive.org".

Thank you!

- Mark Graham, Director, the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive

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Poster: Tristan Miller Date: Jan 8, 2021 2:35am
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

OK, I've sent you an e-mail with the details.

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Poster: MarkJGraham Date: Jan 8, 2021 9:34am
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Thank you Tristan,

I got your message and have responded.

Appreciate the opportunity to learn about how we might make the Wayback Machine better.

- Mark

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Poster: trk216 Date: Dec 1, 2019 4:26pm
Forum: forums Subject: Re: Archived webpages disappeared - timestamp url automatically directs

Thanks a lot for answering! It does seem to have worked now :D