Help talk:CS1 errors

Note: Most conversation about Citation Style 1 (CS1) templates happens at Help talk:Citation Style 1. This page is for discussion about the content of Help:CS1 errors.

ISBN / Date incompatibility for ISBN assigned for an 1879 book.

I have a ISBN / Date incompatibility generated from a template that builds a cite book. It is for the 1st edition of Baird's Manual of College Fraternities and I'm using is https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=isbn:9781515036494 which does return the 1879 date of the initial edition. As far as I know, while the last edition was in 1991, there was never any reissue of the 1879 version. I'm wondering now why it has an ISBN listed at all, even though the lookup from wikipedia does find it. Ideas?Naraht (talk) 05:35, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

What does it say inside the book that you cite? (WP:SAYWHERE). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:02, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

I am quite sure the book itself doesn't have an isbn number printed in it (this is the 1879 edition), is there any chance an isbn could have been assigned later? This book (really more of a one volume encyclopedia has gone through 20 editions since then) Naraht (talk) 13:49, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

The 1879 edition obviously doesn't have an ISBN. The question is, did the edition that you cited? If not, omit the ISBN; if yes, provide the edition number and its year. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:43, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

The "where I found it" is that the URL above https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=isbn:9781515036494 gives the 1879 edition of Bairds. Is there a good way to find out what book it *should* have given for 978-151503649-4?Naraht (talk) 05:50, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

That book at Google Books is unavailable for preview and search to me. It also says that it's published in 2015 by CreateSpace. So you could use those. Or you could use the 1879 edition at the Internet Archive. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:22, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Might I suggest that the code which checks for this compatilibility be adjusted to take into account the {{{publication-date}}} parameter? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:54, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Some eBooks do not have current publication dates - this one, for instance just says "1932" even though it has an isbn. Should I remove the isbn or do we leave it in to help people find a copy? I wish there was some code so that we could have both.  Mr.choppers | ✎  03:43, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

That ISBN, ISBN 978-2402224017, doesn't yield many results. I think this is a good case to use ASIN B07875JNYY instead, the original year, and mention ebook in |format= or |edition=. If you think the ISBN is an additional finding help, you can use |orig-year=1932 and |year=n.d.. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:02, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Timestamp error in archive.today URL

The Sounds of the Universe article uses this archive URL in one of the citations: |archive-url=https://archive.today/20110616224142/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/cd_reviews/article6098124.ece ... which generates an error that " {{cite web}}: Empty citation (help): |archive-url= is malformed: timestamp (help)".

The link works fine. Why is it flagged as an error? The documentation doesn't say what the requirements for archive.today URLs are. How can the error be fixed? -- mikeblas (talk) 21:25, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

See #Archive error error above, and Help talk:Citation Style 1#Error with origin date for archive.today. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:38, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

date= in other calendars

I am writing a citation for a book related to Islamic culture, published in Saudi Arabia.

• bin Abdulhafeez Nawab, Zuhair; bin Ali Shavali, Jamal (1434 AH (2013 CE)). أَطْلَسُ طَرِيقِ الهِجْرَةِ النَّبَوِيَّةِ: مَعَ وَصْفٍ تَارِيخِيٍّ جُغْرَافِيٍّ جِيُولُوجِيٍّ لِلطَّرِيقِ [Atlas of the Prophetic Migration Route (Hijrah): With a Historical, Geographical, and Geological Description of the Route]. Jeddah: Saudi Geological Survey, Madinah Research and Studies Center, Kunuz Al-Ma'refah. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

The publication date is given according to the Hijri era (AH) Islamic calendar. The common era date is a guess because there is no 1:1 correspondence between years in the calendars.

Is there any method to specify a date in a different calendars? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:21, 7 June 2026 (UTC) Or at least to suppress the "error" message? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:34, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

No. You might do this:

{{cite book |script-title=ar:أَطْلَسُ طَرِيقِ الهِجْرَةِ النَّبَوِيَّةِ: مَعَ وَصْفٍ تَارِيخِيٍّ جُغْرَافِيٍّ جِيُولُوجِيٍّ لِلطَّرِيقِ |trans-title=Atlas of the Prophetic Migration Route (Hijrah): With a Historical, Geographical, and Geological Description of the Route |first1=Zuhair |last1=bin Abdulhafeez Nawab |first2= Jamal |last2=bin Ali Shavali |publisher= [[Saudi Geological Survey]], Madinah Research and Studies Center, Kunuz Al-Ma'refah |location=[[Jeddah]] |date=2013 |orig-date=1434 AH}}

bin Abdulhafeez Nawab, Zuhair; bin Ali Shavali, Jamal (2013) [1434 AH]. أَطْلَسُ طَرِيقِ الهِجْرَةِ النَّبَوِيَّةِ: مَعَ وَصْفٍ تَارِيخِيٍّ جُغْرَافِيٍّ جِيُولُوجِيٍّ لِلطَّرِيقِ [Atlas of the Prophetic Migration Route (Hijrah): With a Historical, Geographical, and Geological Description of the Route]. Jeddah: Saudi Geological Survey, Madinah Research and Studies Center, Kunuz Al-Ma'refah.

I googled the Arabic title and turned up several hits that used the 2013 publication date. One of them had this ISBN 978-603-90021-8-5. Both Google books and WorldCat show a 2013 publication date for that ISBN. So if a guess, 2013 seems to have been the correct guess.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:42, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

TYVM! I was helping another editor with the formatting, completely forgetting to try the obvious <blush>. I did consider using =orig-date= but thought that it was for reprints. But I see it works nicely never mind how we got there, so will suggest that. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:01, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Why "|contributor= requires |author="?

What is the proper way to cite a contribution in a book that does not have an identifiable author (or editor)? A practical example: Pulse dialing#cite note-6. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 02:43, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

I think it's OK to name "The Jolly Roger" as author; William Powell could be named (see The Anarchist Cookbook), but that's supposition. What about:

• The Jolly Roger (2000). "147.Phone Dial Locks – How to Beat'em" (PDF). Anarchy Cookbook version 2000. William Powell, original author. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-03-07.

-- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:40, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

I haven't seen the original, but comparing what the article says about it with the cited PDF file, it seems that the file ("version 2000") is quite different. This article (namely, its "A virtual cookbook" section) suggests that it might be attributable to Terrance Brown, although the earliest Internet Archive snapshot of the mentioned website () says: "The Anarchist Cookbook was originally written by the Jolly Roger in the mid 1980's. ... We have no connection with the author..." I didn't dig deeper to get their MS Word file for comparison. Nevertheless, most probably, leaving the citation as it is now (with just |author=The Jolly Roger) would be the best option. However, I still find the prohibition to have |contributor= without |author= (or at least explicitly stating that the author is unknown) rather meaningless. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 04:38, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Categorized, but unflagged multiply defined reference

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

User:Quebec99 raised section § False Positive? at the WP:Teahouse, asking why Alexandra_Eala was listed in Category:Pages with duplicate reference names, but the article failed to display error message

The named reference "$1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

as shown at CAT:DUPEREF. I resolved the duplicate definition in this edit, thus removing Eala from the category, but I still don't know why the multiple def wasn't flagged in the article. As a test, I defined ref name "Philstar" twice on purpose in this test revision, and as expected, it displays the H:CERDK error. Any ideas why earlier rev. 1362254545 of 20:04, 2 July 2026 did not complain about duplicate defs of name "WTA-AE"? Mathglot (talk) 22:10, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Not a cs1|2 error message. Perhaps WP:THURSDAY? The "$1" ref name suggests a error in MediaWiki. That it doesn't seem to be present now suggests that whatever the cause, it was transient.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:28, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

I have to wonder if there has been a change to MediaWiki so that the difference test is now done after the contents of the named <ref>...</ref> tags have been processed. I suspect this because the two definitions for name="WTA-AE" in this version of the article are distinctly different yet do not cause the multiply defined error:

<ref name="WTA-AE">{{cite web |title=WTA Official: Alexandra Eala |url=https://www.wtatennis.com/players/330332/alexandra-eala/matches |publisher=Women's Tennis Association |access-date=October 5, 2025}}</ref>

<ref name="WTA-AE">{{cite web |title=WTA Official: Alexandra Eala |url=https://www.wtatennis.com/players/330332/alexandra-eala/matches |access-date=October 5, 2025 |publisher=Women's Tennis Association}}</ref>

cs1|2 does not care about parameter order so produces the same output for each. If I change the access date value in one of those and then preview I get the error message.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:57, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

On the one hand, that seems plausible, but on the other, the two Philstar refs in the test revision were defined differently, and nevertheless, the duplicate key was flagged. In addition, if I edit revision 1362254545, which previously showed the hidden category, and display it in Preview mode, it no longer shows the hidden category, so that seems to support your transient Wikimedia error theory. If so, that is a shocker to me; that sort of thing is almost the last thing I would suspect. Mathglot (talk) 00:01, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I might have been unclear above. Regarding:

The "$1" ref name suggests a error in MediaWiki. That it doesn't seem to be present now suggests that whatever the cause, it was transient.

It didn't actually say "$1" (or anything) in the message, the problem originally was that there was no message, even though it was showing up in the category. I merely copied that error message off the category page. The original problem reported at the Teahouse was that they expected to see that message, but did not. Secondly, the article is no longer in the category, because I found the duplicate error and fixed it before posting here. The mystery was the missing duplicate key message which should have been there originally. Mathglot (talk) 00:06, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

One should always say what one means and mean what one says...

That the article did not display an error message but (at the time) was in Category:Pages with duplicate reference names may just be proof that MediaWiki now does the difference check after expanding the content of the named <ref>...</ref> tags. We all know that categorization lags so once the new difference check was implemented, the rendered article would not show the error message (because no error) but the categorization process hadn't yet caught up. I suspect that had you simply done a null edit instead of the fix, that would also have removed the article from the category.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:46, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

This page: List_of_Suits_episodes appears in the category, but when opened, lists no error. Quebec99 (talk) 12:30, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps because it transcludes portions of Suits season 2 which is showing the errors; see Suits season 2 § References. Fix those errors and then null edit List of Suits episodes. Those edits should remove the list article from Category:Pages with duplicate reference names (unless there is summat else with those errors transcluded in the list...).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:58, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Something has changed in the past month that is causing these pages reported as having errors to not show an error when you open the page" 2026_British_Grand_Prix I have been fixing these pages for several years. Quebec99 (talk) 16:59, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

As I said earlier: this isn't a cs1|2 issue. The categorization and error messages are emitted by MediaWiki. Perhaps take your issue to WP:VPT where there are editors who are more familiar with MediaWiki. The purpose of this page is to discuss the content of Help:CS1 errors.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:23, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I moved this question to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Categorized,_but_unflagged_multiply_defined_referenceQuebec99 (talk) 20:16, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Closed as moved. Mathglot (talk) 20:22, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Strange preview message at Lifes Rich Pageant

In preview, Lifes Rich Pageant displays one normal Script warning for cite AV media notes, then displays "Script warning: {{cite AV media notes}}: this reference has maintenance messages Harv error: link from CITEREF_temp_preview_id_251770 doesn't point to any citation.; messages may be hidden (help)."

Possibly related, the article is listed at Category:Pages with duplicate reference names, but that category does not display at the bottom of the page, and a null edit does not clear the page from the category.

Also possibly related: Parsoid. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:07, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Following up: Editing with the legacy parser shows a red error message for the duplicated citation (which appears to have the same content in both citation templates), and it shows the category. I have added this info to T423924. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:11, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Here's a simplified example that shows the big red confusing error message in preview. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:30, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Pretty sure this is closely related to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Categorized, but unflagged multiply defined reference. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:41, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. I linked to this discussion from that one. The duplicate references category is probably not the purview of this talk page, but the strange harv error message probably is. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:50, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

At line 34 in your vector-2022.js, you load the Ucucha HarvErrors.js script. That script is the source of the harv error message. Module:Citation/CS1 sees two {{cite AV media notes}} templates which each cause the module to emit a CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) message and at more-or-less the same time to add the preview warning.

When creating the preview warning for templates that do not have contributor / author / editor and date from which to create a CITEREF anchor, the module creates a CITEREF anchor from a concatenation of the static text _temp_preview_id_ and a pseudo random six-digit number. Because named references are combined by whichever parser, only one CITEREF_temp_preview_id_XXXXXX anchor exits in the rendered html. In preview, these same-named references will not be identical because the maintenance message causes the creation of unique anchor IDs. When Ucucha HarvErrors.js cannot find a target for a preview warning message, it emits the message.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:31, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for that diagnosis. So it appears that there are no errors in the underlying code. Completing the update to Parsoid should fix the category issues. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:02, 7 July 2026 (UTC)