FAQ

Table of Contents Preserving snapshots "I just installed Amber, but it is only preserving links in new posts.” "Preserved pages are not displaying on my website upon hover or click.” "I'm getting a 'These links were not preserved' message when I click 'Preserve links now' on a new post or page." "I just installed Amber, but there are no preserved links in my Amber Dashboard. How can I preserve links from my old posts?" "Snapshots are being displayed from the incorrect path." Viewing snapshots I see a 404 error when trying to view a snapshot. Security and fair use "Does preserving third-party content leave my WordPress installation vulnerable to XSS attacks?" "What are some legal issues I should be aware of when using Amber?" "Can websites opt-out of having their webpages preserved through Amber?"

Preserving snapshots

"I just installed Amber, but it is only preserving links in new posts.”

In order to add links from old posts to the queue of links to check and snapshot, you must prompt Amber to scan all pre-existing content on your site.

You can do this in "Tools -> Amber Dashboard", by selecting "Scan content for links to preserve" and then "Preserve all new links". This will scan all content published to date for any outgoing links to add to the queue.

"Preserved pages are not displaying on my website upon hover or click.”

Under some circumstances, Amber is not able to automatically add certain information to your WordPress .htaccess file immediately after install. This results in preserved pages not displaying on your website.

To fix this, go to Settings > Permalinks (.../wp-admin/options-permalink.php) and select a different Common Settings bubble than is already selected. Click "Save Changes" - this will force the new information to be written to disk, and Amber should begin to display preserved pages. This only needs to be done once.

You can then immediately select the original Common Settings bubble that was chosen initially and click "Save Changes" once again--this will ensure that your Permalinks preferences (and URLs of your posts and pages) remain unchanged, while keeping the Amber fix.

Note: If your Common Settings option was originally "Default" ("/?p=123"), this fix might not work once you change it back to Default. In this case, select "Custom Structure" and enter /%post_id%/, then click "Save Changes". This will not change the URLs of your posts and pages in any way.

"I'm getting a 'These links were not preserved' message when I click 'Preserve links now' on a new post or page."

Your maximum size limit may be too low. If a URL cannot be preserved, it is possible that the page size exceeds the maximum file size preference you have established. Links to pages that exceed this size will not be preserved. If it is important that you preserve the URL in question, try increasing the limit. You can edit this by going to Settings > Amber Settings > Storage Settings and increasing the "Maximum file size (kB)" to a larger number.

The link may have requested to not be scanned by web crawlers like Amber. If it is not a storage issue, the URL you are attempting preserve may have requested exclusion via the Robots Exclusion Protocol (http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html). This frequently-used protocol allows websites to communicate with web crawlers to request that certain pages, or entire websites, not be scanned by "robots" such as the one Google uses to index the web for its search engine. Amber takes a conservative approach and respects this protocol.

"I just installed Amber, but there are no preserved links in my Amber Dashboard. How can I preserve links from my old posts?"

Amber will not automatically preserve any previously-published links upon install. If you'd like to retroactively preserve such old links, you can do so by going to Tools > Amber Dashboard > "Scan content for links" and then "Preserve all new links". Your Amber Dashboard will eventually populate as Amber runs in the background. This only needs to be done once, as Amber will automatically preserve newly-published links.

Keep in mind that if your website has a lot of content, this list can be larger than the amount of storage you've dedicated to Amber. If storage is a priority, you might want to be selective and comb through the Amber Dashboard to delete links that might be already rotted away to save space. You may also want to increase your default storage preferences (Settings > Amber Settings > Amber Storage) regarding "Maximum file size" and "Maximum disk usage."

"Snapshots are being displayed from the incorrect path."

Amber requires an update to your WordPress .htaccess file, which happens automatically upon installation and activation. On WordPress Multisite, or other advanced configurations, it is possible that the .htaccess file might not have updated automatically.

If you are getting an "Oops! That page can’t be found" error or similar when attempting to view a snapshot, try adding the following code to your .htaccess file:

RewriteRule ^^.*amber/cache/([a-f0-9]+)/?$ //index.php?amber_cache=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^^.*amber/cacheframe/([a-f0-9]+)/?$ //index.php?amber_cacheframe=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^^.*amber/cacheframe/([a-f0-9]+)/assets/(.*)/?$ //index.php?amber_cacheframe=$1&amber_asset=$2 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^^.*amber/logcacheview?(.*)/?$ //wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=amber_logcacheview&$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^^.*amber/status?(.*)/?$ //wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=amber_status&$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^^.*amber/memento?(.*)/?$ //wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=amber_memento&$1 [QSA,L]

Viewing snapshots

I see a 404 error when trying to view a snapshot.

Under some circumstances, Amber is not able to automatically add certain information to your WordPress .htaccess file immediately after install. This results in 404 error being displayed when you try to view a snapshot.

To fix this, go to Settings > Permalinks (.../wp-admin/options-permalink.php) and select a different Common Settings bubble than is already selected. Click "Save Changes" - this will force the new information to be written to disk, and Amber should begin to display preserved pages. This only needs to be done once.

You can then immediately select the original Common Settings bubble that was chosen initially and click "Save Changes" once again--this will ensure that your Permalinks preferences (and URLs of your posts and pages) remain unchanged, while keeping the Amber fix.

Note: If your Common Settings option was originally "Default" ("/?p=123"), this fix might not work once you change it back to Default. In this case, select "Custom Structure" and enter /%post_id%/, then click "Save Changes". This will not change the URLs of your posts and pages in any way.

Security and fair use

"Does preserving third-party content leave my WordPress installation vulnerable to XSS attacks?"

No. The Amber plugin for WordPress serves all snapshots to visitors through a sandboxed iframe. This prevents a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack directly targeting an Amber user from using the system to gain control of the server.

"What are some legal issues I should be aware of when using Amber?"

Those who copy third-party content should always be aware of copyright issues. This is no different when it comes to using Amber. When you use Amber, you are preserving the copyrighted content of other publishers. Many uses of Amber - linking to and preserving a webpage for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research -- likely constitute fair use under United States law and thus do not infringe on copyrights. However, users of Amber should be aware that fair use rights vary significantly in different countries around the world. In addition, there are limits to fair use.

For a helpful guide on fair use, please visit the Digital Media Law Project.

For additional information on intellectual property issues that concern bloggers, please visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"Can websites opt-out of having their webpages preserved through Amber?"

Amber respects the Robots Exclusion Standard and does not preserve any web page that opts out of web crawling via this protocol. It also uses the user agent "Amber" when preserving web pages, which you can choose to disallow on your website. You can read a full overview at http://amberlink.org/fetcher/.