Unable to Change Source Title
Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but was wondering if anyone else is having issues editing source titles on profiles? About half the time when I edit a source title and save, the title changes back after about 1 second. I’ve tried refreshing multiple times but nothing seems to fix it. The problem seems to be random, I’ve experienced it on multiple profiles for months now, but not for every source.
Has anyone else had this problem/figured out a fix?
thanks!
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I'm too lazy to find the thread, but my theory is that the save fails whenever the resulting title is exactly what the auto-generated title is supposed to be, if the system were working correctly. That is, when you change the title to "in entry for...", it fails to save, because the system thinks you haven't changed anything.
You can "turn off" the auto-generated titling by tweaking something to not quite match the index or template: "in entry of..." instead of "for", for example. Or, you can just temporarily add something superfluous, such as "FIXME", and then re-edit the title. Once you've changed the title to something "off-template" like this, the system stops trying to apply the template, so all of your changes should stick.
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Well, that's amazing! I changed the Source title to "in entry for" to confirm it was still failing - and it failed. Then I changed it to "in entry of" and it worked! Then I changed it to "in entry for" again - and that worked too!!
Thank you very much for that great trick.
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No, I haven't experienced this. I know you said it's random, but still: any chance of a PID and source where it has happened, to see if it's a re-creatable glitch?
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I had this happen yesterday when I attempted to correct the name of a person in the title of a source. The name was incorrectly indexed. I found no solution so far.
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@EricShelton, same question as for the OP: any chance of a PID or link?
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Here’s one where it just happened:
L41L-1CF (profile for James B Dixon)
I tried to change the title of the first source (1850 Census) from “James B Dixon” to “James B Dixon in household of John Dixon”. As soon as I hit save it reverts back to “James B Dixon”.
I will say it seems to happen more on census records than anything else, but not always.
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I may have figured out a workaround. When changing the title for the 1850 census, I also changed to date (to 1851). When I saved the title and date both updated. Then I went back and corrected to date to 1850. Weird.
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@PRCWhitt, I restored the attachment of the 1850 census source on James Dixon's profile, and then added some punctuation to the title; it saved just fine. (And then you came and deleted it again, so I gave up on further testing.)
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi No wonder the source showed up again 😂 Sorry about that, the profile had two people of the same name confused so I was separating them and moving sources over to the other one.
I didn’t even realize that the source I deleted was the one I had referenced above 🤦🏻♀️ It happens a lot though on random profiles/sources. So far the workaround I mentioned above helps, but doesn’t work every time.
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I have now experienced this glitch once. (Second 1851 source: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/G9MB-3WM.)
The hinting system is really pretty darn good at compensating for indexing errors, because it found an ancestor's death record, despite the index getting the roles reversed: it was the widow who died, but the index assigned the death to her late husband. I didn't realize the switch until I was nearly done with Source Linker, but it's a correctable index, so I changed the names to the correct ones (removing the possessive suffix from the husband's name while I was at it) and re-attached them the right way 'round. I don't know if it was because of the attach-detach-re-attach actions, or due to another glitch, but the source titles still had the originally-indexed roles/names. So I went and edited the title on the wife's Sources page -- and it flipped right back to the wrong name. So then I edited it again, this time more completely (by changing languages; I do that kinda randomly, sometimes), and that "stuck". A third edit, switching back to English and the usual format for index entries, also stayed put. Editing the husband's version of the source also stayed.
I don't envy the engineer tasked with tracking down this bug. It seems to occur basically randomly.
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We appreciate you bringing this problem to our attention. The issue has been reported to the appropriate team, who will research the problem to find a fix. We will get back to you as soon as we have an answer. Thank you so much for your kindness and patience while this is being addressed.
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@PRCWhitt When on a source for a person and I click the EDIT button, Is this the screen/place you are changing the title. Just want to confirm please.
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Todd, I can't speak for the OP, but yes, that's where I was.
The first time I changed it to "Szalatsi Julianna", I clicked Save and the title went right back to saying the originally-indexed "László Gábornak".
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Yes, that’s correct.
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Thank you!
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Are you trying to change the title back to the format of 'PersonX in entry for PersonY' where person Y is the principal named in the record and PersonX is simple named therein? Example from Paul W's post about Joshua's sources.
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It has already been reported that a recent FamilySearch exercise (apparently in November 2023) has changed the format of sources' titles so that many now appear to relate to the named individual's event (usually christening / burial) instead of that of their child.
I have now found an intermittent problem in not being able to correct the title to reflect the nature of the source / record. In the example below, the source has been retitled "John Tungate...." instead of the former "John Tungate in entry for Mary Tungate". I have tried three times to edit it back to how it appeared prior to last month, but the edit will not stick.
I have been successful in editing similarly changed titles, although the main issue is for FamilySearch to undo this unfortunate piece of programming, so it can be clearly seen to whom the record primarily relates.
The third screenshot shows entries that have not been "corrupted" and still clearly show who represent the prime and secondary individual in the source(s).
I have attempted to amend the current title to the correctly formatted one show in the box:
However, in spite of three attempts to edit the title, it remains as:
Please keep source titles in the clearly titled format shown in the examples below!
See https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/LCCK-DN8 for John Tungate's sources.
It is unclear whether this is an ongoing FamilySearch exercise - if so, please STOP THIS IMMEDIATELY, so that other sources of this nature do not have their titles amended / corrupted, too!
@Maile L I believe you may have escalated the general problem with the "new" source titling format already. Would you please also refer the problem with editing the title, to the team concerned. It would be bad enough editing thousands of sources back to their original appearance, but at present I'm having difficulty in even doing that! (This is about the third occasion when I have been unable to "Save" my edit.)
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I think I now see how the problem is arising: an unfortunate consequence produced by the recent ability to edit these records (it appears from the second screenshot this took place on November 12, 2023).
The title looks great in this heading - unfortunately not so intuitive when it comes to the title that subsequently appears when the record reaches the Sources section:
Unfortunately, it appears that there is often a downside to an enhancement - in this example:
Ability to edit = loss of meaningful source title!
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Hooray! I've managed to edit the title at my fourth attempt - without deleting cookies or changing browser! What's happening here?
But, please "FamilySearch", don't let me have to edit thousands of source titles, just so I can understand that these re-titled sources relate to the subject's children's / spouse's events, and not to his own vitals!
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I need to retract my suggestion this is these issues - both of the "new" format of source titles and associated editing problems - are connected with the ability to edit records. I realised overnight (and confirmed this morning) that my previous problems all related to records in collections for which there are no available images on FamilySearch.
Here is another example, found at https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/L4QK-NPQ.
I suppose there is at least a clue as to the nature of these records: those with just "Gilbert" in the title relating to his children's baptisms (although there is no longer any indication of which child), but those with "Gilbert Popplewell" relating to his own vitals. However, any problems with editing (I admit they are intermittent, so difficult to replicate) I would now stress are not related to the ability to edit the record - as illustrated in the example below (EDIT greyed-out):
As mentioned earlier, the source titles of this type have previously (and helpfully) appeared in the format "Gilbert (Popplewell) in entry for Elizabeth Popplewell" but now are shown as this:
Incidentally, I have just noticed a third problem in this example: not one surname in the record - unlike the example illustrated in my earlier post. Also, the Citation detail shows the issue must have being arising over an extended (recent) period - as this is dated October 2023, not November 2023 as in previous examples:
Hopefully these examples can be escalated to the engineers to see what can be done to improve on a change that is currently causing me a complete nightmare in trying to identify what these sources now represent, and/or edit, trying to edit them.
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Sorry to labour the point, but how would you feel if you woke up to find this - when previously you had been able to tell at a glance to whom every source related? Add the editing difficulties I have been experiencing to this and I think you will have empathy towards my current complaints!
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I find multiple Sources giving wildly different death dates for the same person to be very wasteful of research time, so I often take the time to add "in entry for ..." to the titles.
Sometimes, the title immediately reverts back a split second after I click Save. I can edit other Sources by the same poster (for the same Person) with no problem. It can even happen with different posters on the same Person.
What's going on? It can take a full day's research to be able to clarify a mistake, only to find I can't post it. Then, there's no pop-up or logged explanation. Would really like to know what I'm doing wrong.
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Now to somehow get the attention of the right people so they can fix the title-generator's psychosis...
Found the previous discussion: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/537329#Comment_537329.
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To those who understand programming, Julia's explanation probably makes complete sense! Even without such knowledge, the explanation of why these changes (reverting to the exact, original title) don't "stick" appears certain to be the correct one.
There remains two issues to be addressed here - no, only one, really. If the titles were to be put back to their previous format there would be no need to worry about the exact title wording we must avoid in order to make the edited titles stick!
Looking at the "original" post Julia has referenced, I see the issue dates from October 2023, but maybe this is just a difficult one to fix - or the engineers just don't see it as a priority. For those of us who check through sources attached to IDs in Family Tree on a daily basis, I can assure them it has made the main subject (person) of the affected sources impossible to identify, so really needs urgent attention.
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Schizophrenia! That's the word I was failing to come up with last night. The automatic source-title generator has become schizophrenic: what it thinks it's doing is not actually what it's doing.
Paul, if you use the "FIXME" trick (or whatever bit of nonsense suits your fancy), then you don't need to worry about what the automatic template is. The minor tradeoff is that you always need to edit a title twice, but that's kinda true anyway if you want your titles to be consistent.
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Mod note - a merge occurred. This problem was reported, but I have not heard anything back yet.
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I encountered another yesterday. I did not correct it with the fix @Julia Szent-Györgyi came up with (which works) so that you can try it yourself. It's Sebie Loutelia Turner (KZ7P-5VN), the second 1912 entry (by Janice McAlpine, May 21, 2020). Change it from "Twinir,"... to "Twinir in entry for Robert R Powell,"... (note the exact location of the comma). Julia's fix is to change it to "...in entry of...", save it, and *then* change it to "...in entry for...".
BTW, when you say "A merge occurred", are you referring to a code merge (a software update) or are you referring to a record merge?
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@Eric8090 asked:
BTW, when you say "A merge occurred", are you referring to a code merge (a software update) or are you referring to a record merge?
Neither. Maile was just noting that two or more Community discussions were merged into this single discussion. Sometimes here on Community people start multiple discussions on the same topic, and moderators then merge them into a single discussion so that everyone can see all the comments in one place for a given topic.
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My impression is that this "erasure" happens in Sources created before 2023. I've noticed it happened in Sources created in 2016 and 2020, but not in 2023.
Oh - it just happened in a Source created on 2023-Feb-17.
Then it didn't happen for one created in 2021-Aug-10
Then it happened again for 2023-Feb-17 (by the same person above); both are Texas Death Certificates.
So much for that theory.
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@Eric8090, in my observation, the schizophrenia is currently universal: all of the auto-generated source titles on all of the profiles I've looked at in the past month have been missing the "in entry for" part, and all of the titles I corrected to match the indexed data have reverted to the prior title, until/unless I went off-template first.
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