New Viewer Issue, Records Disappear
Answers
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Julia said:
I only edited the first two families, but the entire page's index has vanished in the old viewer (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHJ-5QHW-TK25), and all of the details page links in the new viewer (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHJ-5QHW-TK25?view=index&action=view&personArk=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3A6FQF-GCKS) come up Not Found for edited people (such as https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6FQF-GCKS) and Removed for unedited people (such as https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6FQF-PBFW).
I currently do not see an index for the old viewer but I do see indexed data in the new viewer. The two first families Strain and Brandt had their names and info in the section "Names not in records" at the bottom of the Index but looking at the record info for each, such as Wayne D Strain, produces a 404 error page. I put the Strain family together as a group. They appear in the index with their data as a family, but they still produce the same 404 error.
I have tried similar fixes on image 7 of 11 with the same results. I have passed this info on to the engineers. Thanks guys.
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@Maile L - I have started seeing a new wrinkle. On a record where I made an edit a couple of weeks ago, with the index still MIA, there is now a lock icon showing that the record is "not generally available."
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There is still an ongoing problem with your online editor corrupting the source (computer indexed data) of many computer indexed archives from the Philippines. The problem has become much worse since about a month ago. Many of the source links I have previously attached to different persons (I have attached about 145,000 sources to over 30,000 people these last 2 1/2 years) are no longer working. When clicking on them the claim on the error page that comes up is that the source has been deleted. I notice important user entered text from the link under sources tab is also deleted, removing date, other data. For many of these links, there is now no longer a way to get to the archive at all to further inspect the archive data photographs.
In some cases where I can still get to the source image, it seems the editor has indeed stripped out indexed data ...apparently tossed out. In other cases the data is still present in the archive and is searchable with hints possible, but selecting links within the image or those blue hints only produce a warning page stating the record has been removed.
I don’t think that the problem is a nefarious person or group actually deleting the links within the archives itself, although that is a possibility. In my experience the culprit is the family search editor tool which can be engaged by users to correct notoriously inaccurate computer indexed information. It's not misuse of the users, it’s the tool itself which is the source of the corruption. I have found that the editor tool has a capability to corrupt text within the link under the ‘Sources’ tab either instantly at the time the editor is employed, or in a delayed manner to reach back to corrupt the linked text minutes or hours after sources are attached (with text within that source fixed with supporting notes). In addition, I have found that by modifying one record within a christening record, the editor tool can (and usually does) corrupt all records on that page, not just the record being worked on. I would love to further discuss this worsening problem with the software group managing the family search app.
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This post is my verification of the bug where the new viewer hides records after they have been edited. This is for the devs that are following this discussion.
Record for E E Brandenburg in the 1950 census at 5:20 pm on 20 Feb
Clicking the Edit button takes me here, which shows all residents on the page connected to a single record.
I used "Drag Names" to separate the list into households. I added family relationships for the Brandenburg family as well as for Charlie A Pease and his housekeeper Cora. I dragged the names to the order found in the census image.
I tried Mr. Brandenburg's record again at 5:55 pm on 20 Feb and got a 404 Error: “Well, this is unexpected… We can help you search literally billions of records, but we can't seem to find the page you're looking for.”
I tried the record for Charlie A Pease and got this: "We're unable to show this record to you. This record can only be displayed on certain accounts. FamilySearch must honor the agreements we have with our partners, record owners, and internal policies.”
Both messages were seen at 9:40 am on 21 Feb and 4:20 pm 23 Feb. Additionally, most of the people that had records in the "Index Data" panel now appear out of order under "Names not in records" (such as the Brandenburg family) and a few are missing from the list completely (such as Charlie and his housekeeper Cora).
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@Squires, Richard Vernon It is a known issue with many existing threads. The New Image Viewer/Editor has serious issues.
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Thank you... but saying its a known issue for some time does not give me much comfort. I am a heavy Family search tool user these past 2 ½ years, working primary in the Philippines region where all of the available FS archives are Catholic Christening records from 1800 to 1950 which have been exclusively computer-indexed. The results\output of computer indexing are FS indexed archives, but usually full of errors in names, relationships, dates, places, yet still containing enough ‘good’ information to be able to find family records and link them to their family tree. These computer indexed records come to users with the ability to ‘edit’ individual records/events to fix/repair the computer indexing errors, which is required/desirable before linking them to family members. Since I started using it have noted errors in the editing feature which make it difficult to use, and sometimes feeds back to corrupt the source computer indexed information in the FS archives themselves. Had previously found work around methods to avoid the worse behaviors of the editing tool, but something has changed such that no more work arounds are possible. Recently, as of about a month ago, the editing feature has not worked at all, and in fact many of my previously entered source links to most people have been corrupted. I'm talking about tens of thousands of source links. By that I mean clicking on previously good/corrected source link used to bring up the original record, but now all report that the associated FS record has been ‘deleted’. 10s of thousands of source links from these Philippines FS christening archives previously successfully attached and in good working order to as many individuals no longer work at all. I have been sending reports to your support email but there has been no response. The volunteers which can be called can give no assistance on the matter except to offer sympathy. They tell me that they have occasional meetings with the software group but that the issue I have been warning about has not been taken seriously. Am informed by the volunteer that they request me to send in more detailed examples, which I have done, which are all just ignored (again). If FS app and editor were free of the many problems affecting it, user frustration would be reduced, and tool use/productivity would go up. Am concerned the tool problems and issues are discouraging thousands of individuals from either attempting to do genealogy work or starting and then quickly giving up. I hope the software group developing and maintaining the FS App and Editing tool recognizes the seriousness of issue and puts their best people on the problem and solves it.
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@Maile L , Here is a potentially new twist on this issue. See the following 1870 US Census page from Bridgewater Township, Somerset County, New Jersey:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DTJ3-SZP
The Dunham household at the bottom of the page was mixed in with the Talmadge/Ruth household directly above it, but the rest of the households seemed to be correctly separated. So, I dragged the head (Noah Dunham) to the NEW RECORD GROUP box, and then I dragged each of his family members over top of him (Mary, William, Emma, George, and Charles). However, when I tried to attach Noah and the rest of his family to their FS IDs, I got errors that the records could only be accessed by certain account types. And, once I closed the editor window, I was never able to get back to those names--they disappeared.
But here are some observations:
- The entire Dunham household has completely disappeared from the both the editor and the index page linked above (I don't know what these different pages are called vs. the various other pages that come up--it is very confusing). However, the rest of the entries from that census page still exist on both the editor and index pages.
- As stated above, I think the Dunham family was only mixed in with the Talmadge/Ruth household directly above them on the page when I tried to separate them, and the Talmadge/Ruth household entries still seem to be normal--clicking on the Document or Attach icons on the index page, or the ATTACH TO SOURCE button on the editor page, brings up the expected pages.
- However, while the rest of the households that are above the Dunham and Talmadge/Ruth households are still visible on both the index and editor pages, if you click on their Document icons on the index page, you get a "This Record has been removed" error, if you click on the their Attach icons on the index page, you get a "Something Went Wrong...error loading source" error, and if you click on the ATTACH TO SOURCE button on the editor page, you get the "error loading source" error.
- The Sebring household at the very top of the page (Ambrose, David, Mary, and Dora) has one entry on the previous page (Eliza). All of these entries also seem to be intact on the both index page (the previous page) and the editor page.
So, (1) the household for which a new group was formed completely disappeared everywhere, (2) the members of the household from which they were separated remained intact, (3) a household that spilled over onto another page remained intact, and (4) the rest of the households on that page remained visible but produced the record removed/error loading source errors. Thus entire pages are getting messed up, even if you only try to edit one family.
As I think I have mentioned in the past, I have encountered these errors dozens of times over the course of the last several months. Early on, I just thought I must be doing something wrong, and I simply gave up and moved on without noting the URLs of the messed up pages. More recently, I have been trying to keep track of the URLs of the pages I am messing up, but I have a low level of confidence that I can document all of the messed up pages--let alone all of the pages that other users have inadvertently messed up by simply using the editor.
Will all of the indexing of all of these messed up entries/pages just magically re-appear when the bugs are fixed, or could they be lost forever if everybody can't report every specific individual page that has been messed up?
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I can give you the following example of a corrupted database. Consider the following archive for an 1860 Christening event (image 893 of 976 in "Philippines, Catholic Church Records, 1615-1985", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSMJ-4SWC-6)
That archive has been indexed (click on it you can see all indexes on that page) with those links available and visible. There was even a hint to connect an Indexed link in that record: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6JCB-TMXT to: “Juliana Palando” (GG4Z-CDB) …which unfortunately could not be accomplished because that record, and the linker to it: https://www.familysearch.org/search/linker?ark=/ark:/61903/1:1:6JCB-TMXT&id=GG4Z-CDB&hinting=/tree/person/details/ will not work. Please attempt to click on those links to confirm that. The message claims that “Record Removed … The record you requested is no longer available. If you arrived here from a bookmark, please delete your bookmark.” Or: “This Record has been removed. Unfortunately, the record that you requested is no longer available. If you arrived here from a bookmark, please delete your bookmark.” I ended up creating a manual 1860 source with all needed data, which is a very time consuming and difficult process without the help of your linker/editor tools.
If you look further into the record of “Juliana Palando” GG4Z-CDB. You can see that aside from my manually created links, nearly all the sources previously successfully attached to her have now been stripped of some of their source textual data and had event date removed. All my textual corrections within those sources have been stripped/deleted. All of the FS links within those sources are valid, but none of them work.
I can guarantee you that in addition to the data deleted from sources already attached to individuals records, a number of individual indexes have been rendered unsearchable, and/or unattachable, to anyone existing or not yet created/added/connected to a family tree. Worse yet, some records have had their indexes deleted and as such have been rendered unsearchable, and will never even be opened up to ever have the data on that page inspected for consideration.
In the above example the indexed data is available, searchable, and can be inspected by opening up the indexed image with the indexed links visible (albeit not working). However in other instances, I have found multiple pages of data within an archive to contain absolutely no indexed data for the entire page (am certain the computer indexed data existed at some point but was completely removed by your editing tool). I think the data within these archives is sacred and needs to be handled with upmost care and accuracy.
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I'm sorry my reply gave you no comfort; it doesn't comfort me, either as a power user of FamilySearch. But, it's useful to know that the problem has been reported extensively, over several months, and that, now, we may have finally gotten the attention of the programmers/developers.
Also, a Mod is is likely to roll your post into one of the existing threads.
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This Record has been removed.
Unfortunately, the record that you requested is no longer available. If you arrived here from a bookmark, please delete your bookmark.
What can i do? Is it a bug or problem?
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It's the result of a serious gremlin (much bigger than a mere "bug") in the index editor: any attempted change that's more complicated than a misread name can result in some part of the index becoming inaccessible.
No, I don't know why they haven't disabled the editor while they track down and fix this problem, but we're told they're aware of it.
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Another example: I merely corrected the middle initial of the name on an 1810 US Census record, no other modification, and the record became inaccessible for searching (covered on another thread).
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@SteveLinke I have been told that the data is not lost, just hidden. They are working to unhide those records that are affected.
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Hi.
I want to comment that a bunch of "Link to the Record" that were saved as "Sources" as usual, are no longer available.
Example: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MWQ8-61W
This is not just from "sources", the same happens with records that are available in a direct search.
Direct search:
This also happens for:
- Argentina, Santa Fe, registros parroquiales, 1634-1975
- Census 1869
The issue with this is that we are not able to find the record again if this was a manual search page by page, we just lost the bookmark.
Can you please report this to the technical team?
I can comment more details if it is needed.
Thanks in advance!
Juan
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The problem is likely due to the known issue with the New Image Viewer/Editor. Several existing threads, such as this one.
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For several days now, I will search in records and get results. When I click on the hyper link of the hopeful results, and leads to a message that says the record has been removed! This has happened for almost every search I have made of Jewish records in Ukraine. It is alarming.
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Ah ok! Thanks @Áine Ní Donnghaile!
My next question is: Do they re-link the bookmark references and the images automatically again?
If I understand correctly no data is lost, but the references are pointing to the wrong place caused by a re-indexing of the raw image of a catalog.
We need a status update of the issue, it is very important.
@Maile L FYI
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I can't answer that question. I'm not sure anyone knows the current status. The problem is large and will take a lot of work to repair. With this week being RootsTech, I wouldn't expect to see an update for a while.
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I had this problem happen after making a correction to an indexed record last week or the week before. Immediately after the correction was made, the (seemingly entire) set of records disappeared from the search engine and I was no longer able to access the page (as you've shown in your screenshot). I did file a report and was told that they are looking into it and that it could take some time.
eta: oops... except the message for mine were that they were not accessible to me, rather than 'missing'. But the images were no longer picked up by the search engine either
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@Juan Bautista Villalon Ibancos please see my 26 February comment.
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Unfortunately, if you mark any post in this thread as Answer (as the author of the original Question), it is moved to the "Best Answers" shown at the beginning of this thread. It is not very practical for multi-page discussions. Additionally, you can't revert this if you change your mind afterward.
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Looks like this problem has been noted, but not yet fixed. I'll just add my voice to note that for the past few days (including last time I checked yesterday) every result I get of searches of Jews in Ukraine -- the hyper texted link takes me to a message that says that the record has been removed. Hope this gets fixed soon. I'm so anxious to view some of these newer scans of Ukrainian Jewish record books.
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Hi, what is the status of this one? It is super relevant!!
Bunch of records affected in all the places ...
It is a shame.
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Hi,
This is my second try with this request. Thanks for any help!
I tried fixing indexing on a death record and now the persons have disappeared from the indexing. Staff said this was a known bug, but that doesn't help me to recover.
I have re-indexed and all looks fine, but after saving and refreshing, they disappear again. Tried several times.
Can someone check the backend and see what is up?
I think the problem is that I changed from VITAL to DEATH record :-/
Did that break it? Is it possible to get it fixed?
You can see the record in the bottom line of this image: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSJ1-Q37D-3?view=index&action=view
The URL that shows as LOCKED, and with the wrong parents and names, is at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6ZM2-8L3G
==> Correct would be that the parent of the 6 day old, unnamed girl, is Veronica, rather than Veronica's parents, as that Locked record now reads. The note on the record reads in English: "Veronica, daughter of Adalbert and Catharine, had a baby who died before being named"
As indexed now on the Locked record, it shows the mother as the child.
Thanks,
Bill
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Any edit that affects the structure of the index (relationships/connections, field labels) is likely to attract this gremlin, and while we've been promised that the data isn't lost, just hidden, I have seen or heard no evidence of a fix, so far.
The only possible recovery that I know of right now is to ignore the faulty/hidden index and use the image as your source.
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Ok, thanks Julia. You seem as frustrated as I am. So, they cannot fix it in the back end? Or there are too many instances for them to try? Yipes.
Thanks again
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@Bill Kaczmarek It would appear that there are many instances, with more appearing (or disappearing) every day as people try to use the Viewer/Editor.
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Why doesn't a search on FS.org display Moses Hardy's WWI draft registration card as one of the search results? : https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K3RW-22S
This card is on his FS.org profile but I don't know why exactly I can't find it with a simple FS.org search: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/LC5Q-8KK
Any thoughts on this?
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It does not show in a search because of the known problem with the new Viewer/Editor. The index has recently been edited, as is shown here, with the lock:
And here, you can see that the index is currently invisible, because of that problem with the editing process:
No index = cannot be found in a search. It is the index that makes a record able to be found in a search.
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