Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser

AutoWikiBrowser 6.4.0.0

• Home
  Introduction and rules
• User manual
  How to use AWB
• Discussion
  Discuss AWB, report errors, and request features
• User tasks
  Request or help with AWB-able tasks
• Technical
  Technical documentation

• Changelog
• Developer discussion
• Modules
• Regular expressions
• Sandbox
• Template redirects
• Typos
• Usage stats
• Userbox

Start a new discussion

This is the discussion page for the AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) project. It is also the place to discuss using the AWB program (for help, questions, or general inquiries about AWB). Specific guidelines on where to make particular reports or requests are provided in the § Before you post section below. Before asking a question, please refer to the read the § Frequently asked questions below.

Before you post

Do you want to ...	Please use
Report a bug or request a feature in AWB?	Check reported bugs on Phabricator before filing a new bug report. You do not need to create another account there; just log in with your global Wikimedia account. See this MediaWiki wiki page on how to report bugs and request features on Phabricator. Report a bug 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 already been reported on Phabricator. 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 submit new feature requests. This format helps the developers track and manage requests efficiently. Before submitting, take a moment to search the archives—both on-wiki and on Phabricator—to see if a similar request has already been discussed.​
Report an incorrectly fixed typo?	Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos
Request approval to use AWB?	Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/AutoWikiBrowser
Ask a question about AWB or ask for help?	This page

Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions

• 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.

• Does AWB run on Linux or Mac?
  • AWB runs reasonably under Wine. See details here

    AWB might also run under Mono.

  • AWB (Windows) with Unix scripts can be done with Cygwin or Virtualbox
  • On the Mac, AWB is not natively available, but an option is to use virtualisation with Parallels Desktop for Mac (subject to meeting supported operating systems requirements) and then run Microsoft Windows virtually with AWB as the Windows instructions above. Note this option is not free, as a license is required for both Parallels Desktop for Mac and Microsoft Windows. An alternative visualization method is to use the free VirtualBox, see also Comparison of platform virtual machines.
  • You can use the JavaScript Wiki Browser instead.
• Does AWB work on other projects and languages?

  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?
  Tracked in Phabricator
  Task T103506
  
  • 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:

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.Current

• 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?

  You should use a bot password. Despite the name, they aren't just for bots. See Wikipedia:Using AWB with 2FA.

Discussion

Regex help here?

Moved from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks

Many long tables can be improved with a systematic change to most or all rows. Regex can often do this far easier than manually, also if it's a single table. This page (Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks) has low activity and fast replies from technical users who know regex and are willing to help others. I wonder whether we could add a note to Help:Table and maybe other table-related pages that you can seek help here either to get regex code or get an edit made? If it becomes popular then a separate page might be made later. The default desktop toolbar has regex after clicking "Advanced" and a magnifying glass icon to the right so most requests probably wouldn't use AWB. I know some regex and am not seeking help for myself. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:49, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

I would love if we had a regex examples subpage here at AWB. For example, I've always wanted to be able to match a parameter limited to a single template, but I don't have the regex competence to tackle something like that when I've been presented with some of those problems before. I'm sure there are other AWB users who have managed that task before, but we don't have any way to share those things and build each other's skills and toolset. VanIsaac, GHTV ^contr_about 17:47, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Regular expression#Examples has some such examples.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:03, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Part of the reason there are fast responses here I think is due to the low activity. A much higher new-topic/activity rate would probably degrade that, especially if it's not AWB related. A slight uptick might be ok though.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:03, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Removing and replacing the births and deaths section of some years

In the years of 1900-1976, for every article about the year, I would like to remove the births and deaths section and replace it with this code which is a comment in this page to avoid adding a new section using AWB. I am hoping that someone can help me put in the right settings to AWB so that I can easily do these edits.

Births and deaths

Main pages: Category:1980 births and Deaths in 1980

Interstellarity (talk) 21:30, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

I've un-hidden it for ease of reading (though I've dropped it to a lvl 3 just for the sake of readability). Is there a consensus for this type of edit? Primefac (talk) 23:19, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

@Primefac I tried getting a consensus for the edits, but the discussion didn't attract enough people to comment on it. I would assume that we could possibly go through with the edit, since any editor can revert the edits and follow the WP:BRD cycle. Do you have any suggestions on what I should do? If I need to get a consensus, what page would be best for this kind of discussion? Normally, I would go to the article talk page for this kind of discussion, but the pages in question are of multiple pages, so I wasn't sure if I needed to go to a higher end noticeboard or something else. Interstellarity (talk) 23:47, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

No, that sounds like SILENCE to me, which is fine. Am I correct that all of the pages in question follow the format ==Births==....==Deaths==....==Nobel Prizes=== (with the exception of 1900)? In that case, you'd want to use the following: Replace == *Births *==[\s\S]*== *Deaths *==[\s\S]*== *Nobel with

== Births and deaths ==
{{Main|Category:{{subst:PAGENAME}} births|Deaths in {{subst:PAGENAME}}}}

== Nobel

That seems to do what you want. If there are any pages where there isn't a Nobel Prize section (like 1900) just change the last bit of the code to match. Primefac (talk) 00:08, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

As of now at least 1975 and 1976 have broken syntax. David Brooks (talk) 11:44, 13 October 2025 (UTC) ETA: same with every page I checked; the error in the source is clear. David Brooks (talk) 11:48, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Just looking at 1976 as an example, @Jonesey95: you have fixed the syntax error with a revert, but by leaving "Category:Deaths in 1976" (as in the first edit by Interstellarity) it results in a self-link. It should be "Category:1976 Deaths". @Interstellarity: shouldn't we revert all the way back, take a breath, read the comments, and think again? David Brooks (talk) 11:20, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

This discussion has split into (at least) 3 forks. I made a compromise suggestion at User talk:Interstellarity#Deletion of births and deaths. David Brooks (talk) 17:32, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

@DavidBrooks Please see my reply on my talk page. I am willing to take your suggestion to revert everything and discuss more, but I would like to automate my reverts so that I don't have to revert everything manually. Do we have tools on Wikipedia that can do reverts on multiple pages? Interstellarity (talk) 20:16, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/massRollback is good for mass rollback. Primefac (talk) 00:44, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Birth and death for every year.

I think it was mistake moving that. If I wanted for example to see all actors and actresses born in 1944 it was clearly marked and mostly there were names of most famous. Now You put category 1944 births and you made things worse. I need to goo trough names of all those born in 1944. I do not understand why U did it? Miloradovan (talk) 23:52, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

JWB and AWBRULES

Is use of JWB also subject to AWBRULES? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:47, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, while WP:JWB doesn't explicitly say "Use of JWB is subject to WP:AWBRULES", I've assumed that it's implied by "You take full responsibility for any actions taken using JWB" and "To use this script, you need to be listed on the wiki's AutoWikiBrowser CheckPage (Project:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageJSON on your wiki), or have administrator rights on the wiki." Do you think it needs to be spelled out with that wording? ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 20:43, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

WP:MEATBOT still applies, so no sure the difference. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 20:48, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would be helpful. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:13, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

My bot can't work

I'm using the ThitxongkhoiAWB bot and it says "not enabled to use" and can not work anymore. What is this error? Thái Nhi (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

@Thái Nhi - I don't see your name here - Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageJSON. Have you applied here - WP:RFP/AWB? Kiwipete (talk) 06:52, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure what changed, but I was still using it until yesterday. vi:Đặc_biệt:Đóng_góp/ThitxongkhoiAWB Thái Nhi (talk) 07:12, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

That's a different language project; did you change the language you were looking at for AWB? Primefac (talk) 19:52, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice! Thái Nhi (talk) 00:41, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

In replace special Replace with: pushed too far down

I've installed AWB on another computer and I'm running into a display issue. When I do "Find and Replace" Replace special, and try to create a rule in the subwindow, the Find section goes all the way down to the bottom of the area that should be Find and Replace With. The "Replace with" is *just* above the Regular Expression checkbox. I'm pretty sure it looks differently on my home computer giving area for the Replace with: area.Naraht (talk) 14:41, 23 October 2025 (UTC) Any ideas or do I need to drop this in Phabricator?

Re-up from June: That will be fixed in 6.4.0.1, but I see that isn't on sourceforge yet. If you trust me, try this, which is based on a recent source tree:

https://github.com/DavidWBrooks/UnofficialAWB/releases/latest

David Brooks (talk) 15:40, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I've been using David's 6.4.0.1 build since June this year, and have had no problems with it. Kiwipete (talk) 21:10, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Win7 support

Is Win7 still supported? As AWB 6.4.0.0 requires .NET 4.8.1, it's unable to run on Win7, because 4.8.1 doesn't support Win7 (last supported version should be 4.8). — Draceane ^talk_contribs. 20:42, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Reedy changed the .NET versions earlier this year under T385223. I think the bigger picture answer you will get is that Wikmedia/Wikipedia want to support/enforce the current/latest browser encryption standards so that means dropping older operating systems. The major browsers are doing something similar - Firefox support for Windows 7 has been extended to next year but won't continue for ever, so at some point you may have to use a newer Windows version (or other modern OS) for Wikipedia editing. However, I think the snapshot releases I build here only require .NET 4.8 so you should be able to use one of those in the meantime. Rjwilmsi 18:25, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

@Rjwilmsi: Not that I have looked at the downloaded bits, but I think those four builds postdate the 4.8.1 update, which was in source rev 12730. The last archive on sourceforge that predates the change seems to have been of release 6.3.1.1, and that will be missing some useful updates. I've made a version of the latest update (rev 13010) using framework 4.8, and it seems to work OK on Windows 11. You can find it without plugins on my onedrive. As usual, unblock the exe before running. LMK if it works or doesn't; obviously this isn't a longterm solution. David Brooks (talk) 19:17, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but I have custom AWB solution/projects which target .NET 4.8 and the snapshots I've uploaded are from that. For me they do run under wine with .NET 4.6.2 installed. Rjwilmsi 19:47, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the clarification. David Brooks (talk) 20:55, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Maintainers, should the official build be reverted to using 4.8, if there are still enough Win7 users? As far as I can tell, the main advantage of 4.8.1 is native ARM64 support for people like me, and some accessibility improvements. The current build tree creates x86 binaries which run under emulation on ARM64 boxes (more slowly and using much more memory than native, but it works). So downgrading to 4.8 wouldn't make a difference in that respect; I have a private build with native support but I'm not suggesting that be shoehorned into the official build. David Brooks (talk) 04:05, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Regex help request

My regex partially works in a manner I am completely unable to figure out. I am using Advanced settings for find and replace, and I have the regex ([\u4E00-\u9FFF\u3400-\u4DBF\uF900-\uFAFF\u3040-\u309F\u30A0-\u30FF\uAC00-\uD7AF]+) in find, and {{lang|zh|$1}} in replace, with the article as User:Just_a_generic_username/sandbox. The strings "燕然都护府" and "鎮北都護府" do get replaced as I want, but strings like "瀚海都护府" and "安北都护府" do not. However, if I manually check the Unicode values for each character in the string, it should match.

(It is entirely possible that I messed up something in my settings because it took me over half an hour to figure out how to even display the page due to the manual not appearing to mention anything about how to display only one page.)

Just a generic username (talk) 12:26, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

In AWB I would first use Tools / Regex tester to confirm that your regex matches everything you want it to. Once it's working there, if not working within advanced find and replace then it may well be something to do with whether the text you want to match is within a template or not, and how you are using the advanced rules for that. You may find it simpler to use the Normal find and replace, at least to get started. Rjwilmsi 18:14, 7 November 2025 (UTC)