Two independent reasons a working search reported failure to the user.
1. The client gave up before the server did (#1285)
`/api/releases` bounds one release search with RELEASE_SEARCH_TIMEOUT
(default
300s) and answers a spent budget with a sentence naming the real cause -
the
machinery added for #1276. The frontend then aborted the direct_download
search
at a hard-coded 180s, so it always won the race: the user saw "Request
timed
out. Check your network connection or proxy configuration." instead, and
raising RELEASE_SEARCH_TIMEOUT changed nothing they could observe, the
180s
being baked into the hashed bundle inside the image.
- /api/config reports the effective (clamped) budget, and the client
derives its
abort from it plus a margin, so the server always answers first.
- Direct-mode search shows what the server actually said. Every non-auth
failure
was relabelled "Unable to reach download source. Network may be
restricted or
mirrors blocked.", which discarded the explanation and blamed the user's
network. ApiResponseError now carries `serverMessage`, set only when the
server
explained itself, so the status-line placeholder still falls back.
Two latency fixes for the cost that made the timeout reachable at all:
- Fetch each distinct AA search URL once per search. The language-filter
retry
re-runs every title variant, and with DIRECT_DOWNLOAD_LANGUAGE_FROM_PATH
on
both passes build a byte-identical URL - behind DDoS-Guard each repeat
is a
fresh browser solve.
- Drop the solve-only bypass method. `_bypass_method_cdp_gui_click`
opens with
exactly that call and returns the moment it works, so the entry ahead of
it
could only repeat the half that had already failed, plus the backoff
before
the method that does work started. Reported at 0/19 successes and ~5.5s
of
each ~26s solve against DDoS-Guard.
2. The query carried every contributor, not one author (#1252)
`_pick_search_author` returned `book.search_author` verbatim while the
authors[]
fallback beside it deliberately narrowed to the first name before a
comma. Both
fields routinely arrive holding every contributor joined with ", ": the
frontend
builds `book.author` as `authors.join(', ')` for display
(bookTransformers.ts)
and the release modal sends that display string straight back as the
`author`
parameter, and `browse_record_to_book_metadata` and the manual-search
branch
both split the joined text into `authors` while still passing the
unsplit string
as `search_author`, so the split was never used.
A book whose metadata lists translators was therefore searched for as
Blindness Jose Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero, <persian translator>
which matches nothing on Anna's Archive. The bypass succeeds, the search
comes
back empty, and the user is told the book has no releases.
Narrowed in one place, `search_plan.first_author`, so the two branches
cannot
drift apart again, and applied to the IRC source, which built its query
with the
same verbatim preference. Hardcover is unaffected: it already sets
`search_author` from `_simplify_author_for_search(authors[0])`, which
resolves
"Last, First" itself and never yields a multi-author string.
Anna's Archive put a DDoS-Guard JS challenge in front of /search: the
homepage still returns 200, but /search and /md5/<id> answer 403 on
every mirror (.gl, .pk, .gd all confirmed). Search fetched both with
allow_bypasser_fallback=False, which rotates mirrors on a 403 instead of
invoking the bypasser, so it walked the whole mirror list, exhausted it,
and surfaced "Unable to reach download source. Network restricted or
mirrors are blocked." as a 503 on every query. Adding mirrors could not
help — they sit behind the same gate — and neither could USE_CF_BYPASS,
since search never reached that branch.
Fetch search and the detail page with allow_bypasser_fallback=True so a
403 hands over to the bypasser, which already detects this challenge
(DDOS_GUARD_INDICATORS matches the live page). Echoing the __ddg cookies
back does not clear it; it needs real JS execution. The download-count
fetch keeps allow_bypasser_fallback=False: it is decoration on the
details modal and not worth holding the modal open for a browser solve.
Fixes#1196
CaliBrain