Fanart-Central archive trouble with the Wayback Machine

Dumas · Still very bored Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 348

I tried to archived a copy of Fanart-Central home page on the Wayback Machine, and this is what the Wayback machine archived recently.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250424141819/https://www.fanart-central.net/
compared to the archived copy on Archive.today.
https://archive.ph/UMRwd

Edit: When I archived my profile on the Wayback Machine, it show a "404 not found" and below "nginx/1.22.1".
https://web.archive.org/web/20250428170505/https://www.fanart-central.net/user/Dumas/profile I wonder if it could be due to the cache or cookies?

Dumas · Still very bored Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 348

I apologize for double posting. I archived again on the Wayback Machine and it shows as message: "welcome to nginx! If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and working. Further configuration is required."
https://web.archive.org/web/20250511165149/https://www.fanart-central.net/

Meanwhile, the archive work properly on other archiving sites like GhostArchive and Archive.today.
https://archive.ph/LdCMR
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/PKVRS

Dumas · Still very bored Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 348

I discovered by luck this detail on GhostArchive when I archived a copy of Fanart-central.

When I typed "http", it show the archived copy properly.
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/TmvGh

However, when I typed "https", it shows the "Welcome to Nginx" message.
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/GfP9U

Edit: I saw the same detail with Archive.today as well. Here the links to compare.
https://archive.ph/ZhkV1
https://archive.ph/xK028

Stratadrake · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2025 2:29 pm Post subject:

Yeah . . . that would explain it, apparently this site hasn't been properly configured for https.
_________________
Strata here: [url=http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/242293]Nanowrimo[/url] - [url=www.fanart-central.net/user-Stratadrake.php]FAC[/url] - [url=http://stratadrake.deviantart.com]dA[/url] - [url=www.furaffinity.net/user/Stratadrake/]FA[/url]
[size=9]Disclaimer: Posts may contain URLs. Click [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife]at your own risk.[/url][/size]

Dumas · Still very bored Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 348

[quote="Stratadrake"]Yeah . . . that would explain it, apparently this site hasn't been properly configured for https.[/quote]

One more discovery I did, Fanart-central was shown properly on the Wayback Machine on April 23, 2025
https://web.archive.org/web/20250423083312/https://www.fanart-central.net/
the trouble where it show "Welcome to Nginx" have beginned on April 24, 2025.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250424141819/https://www.fanart-central.net/

Dumas · Still very bored Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 348

An other discovery I saw, is the Wayback Machine archived properly the Fanart-central forums, here the recent archived copy from last September. https://web.archive.org/web/20250907213751/http://forums.fanart-central.net/

I wonder if some SSL/security certificate who have expired might also play a part in the http/https configuaration?

Dumas · Still very bored Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 348

I couldn't resist to ask Grok, what's caused the trouble then archive.org can't archive any pages on Fanart-central but Archive.today can. I archived the answer on Archive.today instead of copy and paste on the forum.
https://archive.ph/DxUQS

SoaringKitty · Very bored Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 158

[quote="Dumas"]I couldn't resist to ask Grok, what's caused the trouble then archive.org can't archive any pages on Fanart-central but Archive.today can. I archived the answer on Archive.today instead of copy and paste on the forum.
https://archive.ph/DxUQS[/quote]

But why not also copy and paste into the forum?

Dumas · Still very bored Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 348

[quote="SoaringKitty"][quote="Dumas"]I couldn't resist to ask Grok, what's caused the trouble then archive.org can't archive any pages on Fanart-central but Archive.today can. I archived the answer on Archive.today instead of copy and paste on the forum.
https://archive.ph/DxUQS[/quote]

But why not also copy and paste into the forum?[/quote]

I copy and paste a short part, because the text is a bit too long. Embarassed

[quote]
The difference you're observing with archive.today (also known as archive.is / archive.ph) when archiving fanart-central.net pages comes down to how the site handles HTTP vs HTTPS protocols — specifically TLS/SSL certificate behavior, redirects, and how archive.today's crawler interacts with them.

Fanart-Central.net has long been set up primarily as an HTTP-only site in practice:
It serves content correctly and fully on http://www.fanart-central.net/ (or http://fanart-central.net/) → the site loads normally, images/thumbs render, etc.
When you try https://fanart-central.net/ (or https://www.fanart-central.net/), the site either:
Returns an invalid/missing TLS certificate error (browser shows security warning / "connection not secure"),

Or immediately redirects back to HTTP (301/302),
Or simply fails to serve properly because the server isn't properly configured for HTTPS (no valid cert bound, or very old/outdated cert setup).

Archive.today's on-demand saver is basically a headless browser + fetcher that follows normal web rules, but it tends to be more tolerant of plain HTTP and less strict about refusing insecure connections compared to modern browsers or some other archivers.

What typically happens in your case:
When you paste an http:// URL into archive.today's save box → the service connects over plain HTTP → the site responds normally → full page (HTML + images + CSS) gets fetched and archived successfully.
When you paste an https:// URL → archive.today attempts a secure connection → hits a certificate validation failure or broken redirect loop → the fetch aborts early or gets incomplete/invalid content → archiving either fails outright or produces a broken/empty snapshot (often just an error page or partial load).

This isn't about robots.txt here (archive.today famously ignores robots.txt entirely, unlike the Wayback Machine which honors it). It's purely a protocol/TLS mismatch on Fanart-Central's end. Many older or low-maintenance art/community sites from the 2000s–2010s era never bothered enabling proper HTTPS (or did it half-heartedly), so HTTP remains the "working" path.
Quick test you can do yourself right now:

Try viewing https://fanart-central.net/ in your browser → you'll likely get a big red security warning or it auto-redirects to http.
Then try http://fanart-central.net/ → it loads fine.
That's exactly why archive.today succeeds with the HTTP version but chokes on HTTPS.

If you're trying to save specific old galleries/art pages from there, always force the http:// prefix when submitting to archive.today — it should continue working as long as the site itself stays online and doesn't block archive.today's IPs (which hasn't happened noticeably yet).[/quote]