The publishing process on Scribd is comprised of two halves: the first is the upload process, which gets your files from your computer to Scribd. Once that's done, the next step, the conversion process, transforms your files from their original formats to iPaper. When both halves of the process are successful, your document appears on Scribd. But now and then, either the upload or the conversion processes can fail.
Publishing failures can take different forms - sometimes uploads will freeze and never finish; sometimes an upload will finish but not appear in the "approve" screen. Sometimes documents will upload but will display the error “enable to convert.”
This post will go over some basic troubleshooting of the most common problems encountered during the upload and conversion process. I've found that one or a combination of these steps will solve most upload-related issues that come into our support inbox.
Check Your Documents
Before you're ready to upload, you should check your documents to make sure they're convertible to iPaper.
We are prohibited by law from converting to iPaper any PDF that has been "secured." A secured PDF requires a special password to edit or make changes to the document. Most secured documents do not require a special password to open and view the content. If you're unsure about the security status of a PDF, check the document properties dialog of your PDF viewer when viewing the file.
Scribd may also be unable to convert documents that are corrupted or malformed, even if the error is not visible on the surface of the document. Extremely long documents, documents with large images, or documents that have been passed around to several users all run a greater risk of failure during the conversion process.
If you use an older version of Adobe Acrobat (version 6 or earlier) to covert documents to PDF, may be larger in file size then it needs to be. Adobe Acrobat Professional users should check out the Adobe instructions for reducing PDF file size and using the Acrobat PDF Optimizer. If you don't use Adobe Acrobat to create your PDFs, you may be able to create optimized versions of existing PDFs by "printing" a new PDF through a printer-based PDF writer (such as PDFCreator for Windows).
Our converter may also reject large Microsoft Office documents that contain extraneous meta-data, (such as tracked changes or inline comments), or embedded multimedia. Usually this is easily resolved by re-saving the Office document without any data that's not essential to the presentation of the document.
If you are still unable to upload/convert a Word doc, Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation, try convert the document to PDF before uploading to Scribd.
Uploading to Scribd
The most essential element to a successful upload is a steady network connection. Broadband users should experience no problems, but users with slow or "noisy" dial-up connections may have difficulty completing uploads under any circumstances.
Now most of you will recognize this: the main bulk uploader from the upload page. This is how most users upload their documents to Scribd. It may not be readily apparent, but this uploader is made with Adobe Flash (just like our iPaper viewer), which means that you'll need the Flash player installed in your browser. Thanks to YouTube, most people using Scribd for the first time already have the Flash installed, but we've found that Scribd works best when you're using the most recent version of the Flash player from Adobe. Hey, we're on the cutting edge here! :-) Upgrading the Flash player in your browser is a breeze. Just visit http://adobe.com/products/flashplayer/ and follow the on screen instructions. Don't forget to seal the deal by restarting your browser once the upgrade's complete.
Now, we know from our feedback that a lot of our users are "power users." Hey, we can relate - most of us at Scribd are too. Power users like to trick out their browser (usually Mozilla Firefox) with lots of add-ons and that make browsing easier and add extra layers of security to the browsing experience. If this sounds like you - and you know who you are - make sure that your browser security settings and add-ons like AdBlock, NoScript, Flashblock, Flash Killer and the like allow upload and download traffic from scribd.com.
The next thing to check is your computer's firewall and virus/spyware security software. Many firewalls and port monitors block uploads from Flash sources by default, so a security block might not be obvious right away. The best way to check if your virus/spyware/firewall configuration is causing a problem is to try uploading to Scribd after you've temporarily disabling all protection software. If the document successfully uploads and converts, then you'll need to check the documentation for your particular protection software for instruction on how to configure it to allow Flash uploads. There are also cases when workplace IT policies block Flash-enabeled sites like Scribd company-wide. Under these circumstances, there's little you can do, apart from wait until you get home or until you have access to a public network. You should never use Scribd in an environment where it's not allowed.
Under certain rare circumstances, our upload system will be unable to parse filenames that are unusually long, complex, with non-English characters. Under these circumstances, the upload may freeze. Simply change the filename to something short and basic, and try again.
If you're still unable to get the Flash uploader to work, try uploading one file with our single-file uploader. The single-file uploader is plain ol' HTML, so if the upload is still unsuccessful, there may be larger issues with upload traffic on your network.
Plain Text Input
This is the plain text input box on the upload page. This box is ideal for composing simple text documents or for quickly archiving notes. Remember though - it's just plain text, so it does not recognize HTML, links, or code. Since the plain text box doesn't parse code, it's a great way to store bits of programming code you want to privately archive or share with the public. While there is no set limit on the amount of text you can add to the box, extremely large blocks of text have occasionally failed. If a block of text is over 100 pages in length, you should save the text as a plain text file and then upload it instead of using the plain text box.
Uploading by URL (Slurping)
This is the slurp box. Here you can enter the URL of a document on the Internet, and upload it to your account on Scribd. You should only slurp documents that you have license to share. The slurp uploader can only accept links to documents that end in an extension of a format that Scribd accepts, such as .doc, .docx, or .pdf. Occasionally, the slurp uploader will choke on URLs that are extremely complex. If the slurp fails, try downloading the document to your hard drive and uploading it through the bulk or single-file uploader. Note that many documents slurped from the Internet are likely to be secured, which prevents us from converting it to iPaper.
In summary, if you're unable to upload and/or convert a document:
If you're still unable to upload your documents, email us at contact [at] scribd.com, and be sure to provide as much information as you can, including your operating system brand and version, the browser you’re using to upload the document, and the version of the Flash player installed in the browser.
Remember, that Windows XP and Vista users can bypass the web all together with the Scribd Uploader desktop client. Don't worry Mac and Linux users - upload clients are on the way for you too. :-)
Good luck!
Publishing failures can take different forms - sometimes uploads will freeze and never finish; sometimes an upload will finish but not appear in the "approve" screen. Sometimes documents will upload but will display the error “enable to convert.”
This post will go over some basic troubleshooting of the most common problems encountered during the upload and conversion process. I've found that one or a combination of these steps will solve most upload-related issues that come into our support inbox.
Check Your Documents
Before you're ready to upload, you should check your documents to make sure they're convertible to iPaper.
We are prohibited by law from converting to iPaper any PDF that has been "secured." A secured PDF requires a special password to edit or make changes to the document. Most secured documents do not require a special password to open and view the content. If you're unsure about the security status of a PDF, check the document properties dialog of your PDF viewer when viewing the file.
Scribd may also be unable to convert documents that are corrupted or malformed, even if the error is not visible on the surface of the document. Extremely long documents, documents with large images, or documents that have been passed around to several users all run a greater risk of failure during the conversion process.
If you use an older version of Adobe Acrobat (version 6 or earlier) to covert documents to PDF, may be larger in file size then it needs to be. Adobe Acrobat Professional users should check out the Adobe instructions for reducing PDF file size and using the Acrobat PDF Optimizer. If you don't use Adobe Acrobat to create your PDFs, you may be able to create optimized versions of existing PDFs by "printing" a new PDF through a printer-based PDF writer (such as PDFCreator for Windows).
Our converter may also reject large Microsoft Office documents that contain extraneous meta-data, (such as tracked changes or inline comments), or embedded multimedia. Usually this is easily resolved by re-saving the Office document without any data that's not essential to the presentation of the document.
If you are still unable to upload/convert a Word doc, Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation, try convert the document to PDF before uploading to Scribd.
Uploading to Scribd
The most essential element to a successful upload is a steady network connection. Broadband users should experience no problems, but users with slow or "noisy" dial-up connections may have difficulty completing uploads under any circumstances.
Now most of you will recognize this: the main bulk uploader from the upload page. This is how most users upload their documents to Scribd. It may not be readily apparent, but this uploader is made with Adobe Flash (just like our iPaper viewer), which means that you'll need the Flash player installed in your browser. Thanks to YouTube, most people using Scribd for the first time already have the Flash installed, but we've found that Scribd works best when you're using the most recent version of the Flash player from Adobe. Hey, we're on the cutting edge here! :-) Upgrading the Flash player in your browser is a breeze. Just visit http://adobe.com/products/flashplayer/ and follow the on screen instructions. Don't forget to seal the deal by restarting your browser once the upgrade's complete.
Now, we know from our feedback that a lot of our users are "power users." Hey, we can relate - most of us at Scribd are too. Power users like to trick out their browser (usually Mozilla Firefox) with lots of add-ons and that make browsing easier and add extra layers of security to the browsing experience. If this sounds like you - and you know who you are - make sure that your browser security settings and add-ons like AdBlock, NoScript, Flashblock, Flash Killer and the like allow upload and download traffic from scribd.com.
The next thing to check is your computer's firewall and virus/spyware security software. Many firewalls and port monitors block uploads from Flash sources by default, so a security block might not be obvious right away. The best way to check if your virus/spyware/firewall configuration is causing a problem is to try uploading to Scribd after you've temporarily disabling all protection software. If the document successfully uploads and converts, then you'll need to check the documentation for your particular protection software for instruction on how to configure it to allow Flash uploads. There are also cases when workplace IT policies block Flash-enabeled sites like Scribd company-wide. Under these circumstances, there's little you can do, apart from wait until you get home or until you have access to a public network. You should never use Scribd in an environment where it's not allowed.
Under certain rare circumstances, our upload system will be unable to parse filenames that are unusually long, complex, with non-English characters. Under these circumstances, the upload may freeze. Simply change the filename to something short and basic, and try again.
If you're still unable to get the Flash uploader to work, try uploading one file with our single-file uploader. The single-file uploader is plain ol' HTML, so if the upload is still unsuccessful, there may be larger issues with upload traffic on your network.
Plain Text Input
This is the plain text input box on the upload page. This box is ideal for composing simple text documents or for quickly archiving notes. Remember though - it's just plain text, so it does not recognize HTML, links, or code. Since the plain text box doesn't parse code, it's a great way to store bits of programming code you want to privately archive or share with the public. While there is no set limit on the amount of text you can add to the box, extremely large blocks of text have occasionally failed. If a block of text is over 100 pages in length, you should save the text as a plain text file and then upload it instead of using the plain text box.
Uploading by URL (Slurping)
This is the slurp box. Here you can enter the URL of a document on the Internet, and upload it to your account on Scribd. You should only slurp documents that you have license to share. The slurp uploader can only accept links to documents that end in an extension of a format that Scribd accepts, such as .doc, .docx, or .pdf. Occasionally, the slurp uploader will choke on URLs that are extremely complex. If the slurp fails, try downloading the document to your hard drive and uploading it through the bulk or single-file uploader. Note that many documents slurped from the Internet are likely to be secured, which prevents us from converting it to iPaper.
In summary, if you're unable to upload and/or convert a document:
- make sure you have a steady network connection
- temporarily disable firewall/spyware/antivirus software and retry the upload
- set your browser security and add-ons to allow uploads and downloads from scribd.com
- make sure you're using the latest version of Adobe Flash
- make sure PDFs are not secured in any way
- optimize PDFs and reduce the file size as much as possible
- make sure Office documents are free of tracked changes and other meta-data
- check the filename and shorten abnormally long filenames and remove non-standard characters
If you're still unable to upload your documents, email us at contact [at] scribd.com, and be sure to provide as much information as you can, including your operating system brand and version, the browser you’re using to upload the document, and the version of the Flash player installed in the browser.
Remember, that Windows XP and Vista users can bypass the web all together with the Scribd Uploader desktop client. Don't worry Mac and Linux users - upload clients are on the way for you too. :-)
Good luck!
April 28th, 2008
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