11 Messages
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202 Points
Problems archiving imdb pages
1. This has been happening since Aug 7 2026. Whenever I try to save an imdb page on archive.ph, it just loads for a very long time then says "Not Found (yet?)" Haven't been able to archive anything since Aug 6, don't know if the problem is on archive.ph's end or imdb's end.
2. When I try to save imdb pages on wayback machine, it usually doesn't save correctly. It will say it saved but if I actually go to the archived page, it usually saves two different pages, one is just a blank white page, and the other is just a message saying "403 forbidden"
Sometimes it actually works and saves the page, but more often than not it doesn't. This has been happening for several months (since at least late 2025.) I don't know if the problem here is on my end, imdb's end or wayback machine's end.
Is this happening to anyone else? And, if the problem is on imdb's end are these ever going to be fixed? (again not sure if it's on their end or the archive's end) Thanks.
ljdoncel
Champion
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1.5K Messages
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57.1K Points
22 days ago
Hi, randomperson999999:
Yes, it's been happening to me too for the past few days on the Wayback Machine. It can only store about 7–8 web elements from each page (which, in practice, just results in a blank page that constantly reloads every time you try to access it), instead of the more than 100 web elements normally included on any standard IMDb page.
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randomperson999999
11 Messages
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202 Points
12 days ago
Still happening. I might have an idea what the problem is. Whenever I go to an imdb page(I mean on the live web, not trying to archive) at first a blank white page appears for a moment, then the page reloads and takes me to the actual page. I noticed this started happening a few months ago, and it wasn't before. It seemed to start happening when the inability to archive pages started happening. Also just thought I would mention imdb can't be archived on the website ghostarchive either (just saves a 403 error like wayback machine)
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randomperson999999
11 Messages
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202 Points
11 days ago
Wayback machine responded and said this about the 403 errors:
"It looks like the issue is unfortunately not one we can resolve – the 403 Forbidden errors are just what our crawlers see sometimes when they attempt to crawl the page, which would indicate to me that it might be something going on with the security settings on IMDB's website. If they're using anti-bot/scraper tools, that might have something to do with it."
So looks like the problem is imdb's end. Especially because it can't be saved properly on 3 different archiving websites and not just one.
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randomperson999999
11 Messages
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202 Points
9 days ago
I wrote to them (wayback) about the "endlessly reloading white pages" which they said might be an error unrelated to the 403 errors. Idk but I'm guessing that's why it also doesn't work properly at archive.ph anymore. Hopefully whatever it is can be fixed soon. it's been like that for almost a month now.
Last saves here were on Aug 6 so guessing this problem is everyone not just me: https://archive.ph/https://www.imdb.com/*
Hope all my posting doesn't seem impatient, just don't want this to get buried/forgotten or anything. I appreciate imdb is looking into this.
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randomperson999999
11 Messages
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202 Points
9 days ago
Can someone tell me why my most recent comment says "Private"?
How can I make it public?
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Michelle
Employee
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18.5K Messages
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324K Points
9 hours ago
Hi everyone, and thank you all, especially @randomperson999999 and @ljdoncel, for the detailed reports and your patience while we investigated.
Our technical team has looked into this, and here's where things stand:
Wayback Machine (web.archive.org): This issue has been resolved. You should no longer encounter the 403 Forbidden error when archiving IMDb pages. If you do still see a 403 after clearing your browser cache and retrying, please let us know here and we'll investigate further.
archive.ph (and similar services): Unfortunately, we're not able to enable archiving through archive.ph. Due to the way these services operate, they are not compatible with our security protections. This isn't something we're able to change on our side.
We really appreciate you flagging this. Please don't hesitate to reply here if you see any further issues with the Wayback Machine specifically.
(edited)
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