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Livewriter Blogger #958

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Nellgggg58 opened this issue Jan 11, 2024 · 131 comments
Open

Livewriter Blogger #958

Nellgggg58 opened this issue Jan 11, 2024 · 131 comments

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@Nellgggg58
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Are there any problems with live writer?

Been wonderful since big fix a couple of years ago

Today I find my photos have disappeared from the two blogs I use.

I write posts in livewriter then transfer to blogspot.

I can post pictures through blogger dashboard but not via livewriter.

This seems to be the old problem all over again.

Any solutions

Thank you

Hg

@Romanyrambler
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I have the same problem after loading version 6.2.0 onto a windows 11 laptop. I also have two blogs I post to.
We had this problem once before when Google stopped photos being stored on Google photos.

Cheers
Robin

@justmalt
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Same here. Beginning on Jan 11th 2024, I noticed that new posts on blogger created using Open Live Writer were not displaying images. If I add an image using the blogger web interface, the images do display. ALSO, and more importantly any posts added to blogger using OLW in the past, stopped displaying images as well. For me this means years of work have been erased from my site.

In my case, if you ultimately click on the Alt Text/Link for the image it DOES display correctly so I don't believe it's a permission issue; it just doesn't display on the post or main page.

I've tested on Windows 11, Windows 10 on Chrome, FireFox, Edge, multiple different computers, multiple blogger sites and multiple different ISPs.

It looks like sometime overnight on Jan 10th, something was changed on the google image side. This means that not only do we need a fix to OLW to allow it to work moving forward, but ALSO some mechanism to fix/update the thousands of images from the past that now no longer display. HELP!!

@Nellgggg58
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Glad it's not just me, I didn't think I would be. ...... And I too have lost 10 years of work on two blogs.

Blog posts I had scheduled have also got the same issue.

I can write text only posts in OLW and the then add pictures via the awful blogger interface, which is why I used OLW in the first place

I can also write posts and add pictures completely in Blogger with no problem.

However, I notice there is very little action on this site these days, which leads me to think that an OLW fix after the last big one a year or so ago, for a very similar issue, may no be forthcoming, as it was sorted by a group of volunteers and took some time to do, of which I've always been very grateful for, but perhaps always in the back of my mind was a niggle that it might not last, if there were anymore issues with pictures ...... And here we are.

I too suspect it's something to do with the Google image side of things, but not a clue where to start to look for help in forums or searches etc. especially when there must be thousands out there affected as last time. They must be posting for help too, it's finding them.

I now face a future just using blogger to write all future posts ..... However, knowing there are 4,000 posts displaying no pictures behind them is almost too overwhelming ......

This is awful, I may just give in blogging

@justmalt
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Hopefully more OLW users (there have to be a lot experiencing this issue) will find their way here. I did try to reach out to a few of the people that worked on the last OLW fix in the hope that they'll be interested in helping again. I'm also searching to see what others are doing but with little luck.

It's a shame that such a useful piece of software (OLW) isn't more successful and better supported. I was hoping Google would either buy it or develop a useful blogger tool but alas it seems like OLW and blogger are starting to feel like orphans. I'd definitely pay for OLW and OLW support if someone wanted to make that happen.

It's been a bit too much of a roller coaster ride on OLW, especially since Google seems to make changes that are better for Google but not necessarily better for blogger users and definitely not better for OLW users.

I wish there was a better alternative for OLW and/or Blogger and I too am reaching the breaking point for trying to use both tools.

I'll update here with anything useful I find and hopefully others will too.

@gep13
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gep13 commented Jan 13, 2024

@justmalt do you have a link to a blog post that is being affected by this?

@Nellgggg58
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http://itsallfiddlefart.blogspot.com/

This is my blog that's also affected by this

@Nellgggg58
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I also OLW with Blogger to produce posts

http://itsallfiddlefart.blogspot.com/

Have lost 1,000 of pictures, still a few left, but they are in posts not written with OLW and from a few years ago.

I can still produce posts with pictures on Blogger however it's not the easiest thing to use and the overall presentation isn't good.

@gep13
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gep13 commented Jan 13, 2024

@justmalt said...
In my case, if you ultimately click on the Alt Text/Link for the image it DOES display correctly so I don't believe it's a permission issue; it just doesn't display on the post or main page.

I am not sure if this is correct or not. If you look at the link that @Nellgggg58 provided, looking at the network tab in Chrome when opening the page, there are HTTP 403 Forbidden responses when requesting the images:

image

But if you request the image directly in the browser, it opens fine:

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1eA6mu4R1z02TuRBWOAkOm5pLVTYX8sMQ

But there is a redirect, which takes you to here:

https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1eA6mu4R1z02TuRBWOAkOm5pLVTYX8sMQ&authuser=0

I have no real idea what any of this means though, just capturing information as I find it, in the hope that someone is able to piece it all together.

@Nellgggg58
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If I remember correctly, when we had the last glitch, it wasn't possible to use OLW to post pictures to Blogger, however no pictures from past posts on Blogger were lost.

With this current issue all pictures posted to Blogger using OLW have also been lost, making this an even worse situation than before.

Nothing was lost with the past issue, just the ability to post pictures via OLW. This issue has destroyed my two blogs.

@Nellgggg58
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In case I wasn't too clear ..... This issue has wiped all the pictures from 1,000 of historic posts on both my blogs.

@gep13
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gep13 commented Jan 13, 2024

@Nellgggg58 said...
With this current issue all pictures posted to Blogger using OLW have also been lost, making this an even worse situation than before.

From what I can see, the pictures are not lost. The initial attempt to render them is causing an HTTP 403 response, so the images aren't showing up. Attempting to browse to the pictures directly is working, so the images are still there, they aren't lost, they are not displaying correctly on your blog.

Hopefully this is just a configuration issue between blogger and Google, and it will get resolved. I don't think that this is a OpenLiveWriter specific issue.

@justmalt
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Agreed. Here's a link for me:

https://justmalt.blogspot.com/2024/01/wild-turkey-freedom-kentucky-straight.html

If you go back out to the main page you can see it doesn't display there either but as mentioned above, if you click through to the Alt Text link, the image ultimately DOES display. I'd agree that maybe they aren't lost but there's maybe some redirect that's not working properly on Google/Blogger's end. If google recognizes and can fix this, it will also be up to OLW to patch it to work moving forward.

@gep13
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gep13 commented Jan 13, 2024

@justmalt @Nellgggg58 what happens if you go into the section described here: https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/13656070?hl=en does it say that you have unsupported URLs?

@justmalt
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At least the issue is gaining some attention. I guess it depends on what Google/Blogger do or don't do. I'm hoping they can back off the change they made on Jan 10th or implement/correct the redirect so older images work again. Moving forward, I suspect OLW will need an update to post images to the new/proper Google location for new posts.

@gep13
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gep13 commented Jan 13, 2024

@nelsonkodama said...
It seems an update or a patch for OLW will be necessary.

What change are you suggesting within OLW? I am still playing catch up in the links you provided.

@justmalt
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In my case, I don't seem to have the Manage unsupported image selection available in my settings. (it doesn't appear). I only have:

Import content
Back up content
[Videos from your blog]
[Media from your blog]
Remove your blog

@justmalt
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I'm certainly hoping Google/Blogger will fix this WITHOUT the need for an OLW update. New posts created with OLW do not display images so unless Google/Blogger make a change that helps that (now and moving into the future) OLW will likely need a change to publish images to the new/correct Google location.

@gep13
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gep13 commented Jan 13, 2024

While I have contributed changes to this repository in the past, they were only very small changes. I have just tested, and I don't have commit rights to the repository, so wouldn't be in a position to get a fix out. I have also just tested building the application, and my development environment isn't setup with the right software to allow it to build properly, so would need to get that up and running before being able to look at any code changes. Let me ask some people about getting access to the repository in case changes are needed here.

@justmalt
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Thank you for trying.

@Nellgggg58
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It's getting a bit too complicated for me now, i know nothing of codes etc. I'm just a mature lady what blogs!!!
But I will check out the link as asked and report back just in case it's anything different to justmalt's.
I'll keep my eye on things, but it's all probably beyond me.
At least I helped highlight the issue as soon as it happened.
I guess there's now decisions to be made, carry on and only post within blogger, leaving old posts as they are in the hope of a fix, even though it looks awful.
Start a new blog entirely, but keep old blogs live just in case of a fix, then delete entirely six months or so if no fix is found.
Or just find something else to do!

11 years work gone overnight!

@Nellgggg58
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Sorry

Thank you Gep13 for your response, help and concern, it is much appreciated

@justmalt
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For now, I'm posting the text via OLW and then adding just the image in the blogger web interface and then readjusting the image using OLW. It takes literally three times as long for each post.

@nelsonkodama
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From https://support.google.com/blogger/thread/252989027?hl=en&msgid=253316209:

Hi guys, I have "fixed" the links via a work-around (until this issue is resolved or a way forward is found).

I have written a Javascript which runs 5 secs after the page loads, looks for the img elements and for those which are sourced from Google Drive, it re-writes the links such that they work..

Here it is, I hope it helps:

<script type="text/javascript"> //Get all the doc img var imgs=document.getElementsByTagName('img'); //Defines const srcA='drive.google.com/uc?id='; const srcB='drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id='; const srcBRemove='&authuser=0'; const targ='drive.google.com/thumbnail?id='; const suf='&sz=w200'; function reWriteIMG() { //loop though the img if it contains the index of the string to replace for (var i= 0; i < imgs.length; i++) { if (imgs[i].src.indexOf(srcA) > -1 ) { imgs[i].src=imgs[i].src.replace(srcA, targ) + suf; } else { if (imgs[i].src.indexOf(srcB) > -1 ) { tmp = imgs[i].src.replace(srcBRemove, ''); tmp = tmp.replace(srcB, targ) + suf; imgs[i].src = tmp; } } } } setTimeout(reWriteIMG, 5000); </script>

@justmalt
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Interesting. Has anyone tried it?

@nelsonkodama
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nelsonkodama commented Jan 15, 2024

I've tried. It works despite the fact that the images are a little blurred:

image

I've added a Javascript element to the blog layout:

image

@justmalt
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And you just insert that code as an HTML/JavaScript gadget somewhere on your page?

@nelsonkodama
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Yes. That's what I did.

@justmalt
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OK thank you. I'll try it out when I'm in front of my computer again today.

@Nellgggg58
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Thank you for this, I will also give it a try.

I've been trying to write posts solely in Blogger, perhaps it's just me but it's an absolute nightmare, taking me hours to format a single post!

Thank you again

@justmalt
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justmalt commented Feb 8, 2024

Scroll back a few posts for the mobile device fix. I implemented it and it works for me.

@sboyd000
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sboyd000 commented Feb 8, 2024 via email

@justmalt
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justmalt commented Feb 8, 2024

Yes the explanation is in this thread. It was posted by Nelson a week or so ago.

@gep13
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gep13 commented Feb 8, 2024

@justmalt said...
Awful quiet out here. Has anyone heard anything about a possible fix for OLW?

As mentioned preciously, I have been given commit rights to this repository, so I "can" make a fix, however, the CI build for this repository and the signing of the generated assemblies isn't working.

I have reached out to some people to help with this, but I haven't heard back about this yet ☹️

@justmalt
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justmalt commented Feb 8, 2024

Thanks for following up. It's at least reassuring that someone is trying to help. Please do keep this thread updated if you can. Last time there was a significant update, Nick Vella? played a major role but I'm not sure if he's still involved.

@gep13
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gep13 commented Feb 8, 2024

To the best of my knowledge, Nick is no longer able to work on the project. I did reach out to him when this thread started, along with some others, but I didn't get a response from him.

@justmalt
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justmalt commented Feb 8, 2024

Thanks for trying. I did message him when this first started but he didn't reply.

@nelsonkodama
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Thank you so much, @gep13.

@justmalt
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justmalt commented Mar 7, 2024

Anyone have any updates? Without an OLW update, I'd say there's not much future for OLW or Blogger.

@justmalt
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Is anyone able to work on OLW and fix this?

@nelsonkodama
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I think the problem is that the administrators of this repository have abandoned it.

@justmalt
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Such a shame for such a good piece of software. Is there anyone out there that can help?

@nelsonkodama
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Agree. I think our last hope would be someone creating another "official" repository (or an alternative version). For this one, I think it is definitely dead.

@justmalt
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Who would have to do that?

@sboyd000
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sboyd000 commented Mar 21, 2024 via email

@nelsonkodama
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Who would have to do that?

@gep13, do you think this is possible? I mean creating an "alternative" version of OLW since the administrators of this repository seem to have abandoned it.

@justmalt
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I assume you're using OLW and you have the fix code above installed on your site?? The concern for me here is that the fix code will not necessarily work forever moving forward, and if it fails, all of the posts you've done in the meantime using only OLW, will go back to not displaying the images. Most people are using some combination of OLW and the Blogger web interface (just for inserting the graphic(s). Posts created this way will work regardless of the status of the fix code's effectiveness.

The fix for mobile devices is in this thread if you look back.

I'm still using open livewriter and still loving it. My only problem is that my photographs don't show up on people's phones only on laptops.

On Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 1:46 PM nelsonkodama @.> wrote: Agree. I think our last hope would be someone creating another "official" repository (or an alternative version). For this one, I think it is definitely dead. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#958 (comment)>, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFO2ROE5XVEOGRMXJ3EEGU3YZMMHJAVCNFSM6AAAAABBXDBOTWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDAMJTGE3DCNRUGY . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.>

@sboyd000
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sboyd000 commented Mar 22, 2024 via email

@justmalt
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That's the problem. There isn't anything that I've been able to identify that can replace Open Live Writer.

The blogger interface is really clumsy and limited and time consuming compared to OLW.

Therein lies the problem. If OLW dies, it isn't realistic to use the blogger interface to replace it so for me, if OLW no longer works, then it will be the end of my site. It now takes me roughly twice as long to post and at that pace, it's not sustainable. If we lose OLW, in my opinion Blogger will die with it.

Its a shame there's not some entrepreneurial person out there that can fix it AND sell support.

Yes you are correct. Is there no other program that is as easy to use as live Rider for both text and pictures? Blogger is just clumsy.

On Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:40 PM justmalt @.> wrote: I assume you're using OLW and you have the fix code above installed on your site?? The concern for me here is that the fix code will not necessarily work forever moving forward, and if it fails, all of the posts you've done in the meantime using only OLW, will go back to not displaying the images. Most people are using some combination of OLW and the Blogger web interface (just for inserting the graphic(s). Posts created this way will work regardless of the status of the fix code's effectiveness. The fix for mobile devices is in this thread if you look back. I'm still using open livewriter and still loving it. My only problem is that my photographs don't show up on people's phones only on laptops. … <#m_5991093632171589534_> On Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 1:46 PM nelsonkodama @.> wrote: Agree. I think our last hope would be someone creating another "official" repository (or an alternative version). For this one, I think it is definitely dead. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#958 (comment) <#958 (comment)>>, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFO2ROE5XVEOGRMXJ3EEGU3YZMMHJAVCNFSM6AAAAABBXDBOTWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDAMJTGE3DCNRUGY https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFO2ROE5XVEOGRMXJ3EEGU3YZMMHJAVCNFSM6AAAAABBXDBOTWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDAMJTGE3DCNRUGY . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.> — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#958 (comment)>, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFO2ROARHT65KGJPZTNF3RLYZNOU7AVCNFSM6AAAAABBXDBOTWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDAMJTHE3TGNRWGY . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.**>

@sboyd000
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sboyd000 commented Mar 22, 2024 via email

@justmalt
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I believe you'll find that the audience here are all current and more likely former OLW users, so I'm not sure you'll get any answers here. I personally have looked and can't find anything even close.

While the issue was caused by Google, it has affected OLW more than anything else. I suspect what you'll find is that this will be the final straw for most people and they will likely either stop blogging or give up all of their SEO and move to WordPress or something else. I will admit the last I looked the WordPress editor isn't so great either.

I've mentioned it above already, but it now takes me twice as long to create a post so I've cut back in hopes of an OLW fix soon.

Barring any fix for OLW, I see no viable option long term, so I will likely leave Blogger and barring any alternative host with a better editor, just stop and shut down my site.

@sboyd000
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sboyd000 commented Mar 22, 2024 via email

@therealjawss
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Why not wordpress though?

@justmalt
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I tried out WordPress when I originally started my Blogger site. It seemed OK at the time with lots of plug-ins, but again the web edit interface left a lot to be desired. It has improved but I have not considered it again. Blogger is tightly integrated with Adsense and google analytics and it was the better choice for me.

Maybe someone out here knows if OLW works normally with WordPress which may be a good reason to use WP instead of blogger right now.

BUT

If you've invested years in your site using Blogger, when you switch to WordPress all of your search authority starts over again and all of the links out there still point to your old Blogger site even if you migrate all of the content to WordPress. If you've worked to build your SEO over the years on blogger, then you'd have to be willing to lose it all and start fresh. I'm not willing to do that to get to a platform with an equally limited web edit interface.

@sboyd000
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sboyd000 commented Mar 23, 2024 via email

@justmalt
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Yes. It's a bear to make the move. I did do it once as a test many years ago and it was a clunky process at best and really slow. In the end there were all sorts of formatting issues for older posts and it just seemed like there wasn't any appreciable benefit worth making the move and losing all of your SEO.

OLW could be a money-maker if someone fixed it and charged a yearly fee for support.

@sboyd000
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sboyd000 commented Mar 23, 2024 via email

@justmalt
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Sad to report that I've made the decision to give up.

With no fix for OLW in sight, I'd say that OLW is an orphaned product that is pretty much dead. And without OLW, blogger and the blogger interface are dead as well. I've looked at WordPress but their interface is no better that blogger without OLW. It's hard to give up something that I've done every day for over 10-years, but having to add text thru OLW and images thru blogger simply takes too long and isn't sustainable.

I will try to check back, but at this point watching this thread is just a painful reminder of a decade of my work flushed down the drain.

@nelsonkodama
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nelsonkodama commented Apr 10, 2024

Sadly, this project is abandoned. I have been trying to reach some developers for help, but with no success until now.

@justmalt
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Thanks for trying. I'm reasonably sure it's not a difficult fix but if no one can do it, OLW is dead.

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