How should I report issues?

Thanks for trying out the BETA test version of the Wayback Machine.  Your feedback will help us iron out any remaining issues, so we encourage you to report problems by contacting us directly, or by leaving comments on this post.  You may also want to check out the known issues page to see if we’re already aware of the problem.

When you report issues, please try to include the following if possible:

• the full web address (URL) of the page you requested
• the URL of the page you ended up at, if different
• a description of the problem
• any information you can think of that will help us recreate the problem, such as what you were doing leading up to the issue (i.e. “I went to this URL, pressed this button, then saw the problem”)
• the browser you are using (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.), including the version number if you know it

Examples

This problem would be HARD for us to track down and resolve:
“NPR is messed up.”
We won’t know what page on NPR had a problem, or on what archived date, and we won’t know what problem to look for even if we manage to figure it out.

This problem would be EASY for us to track down:
“I entered npr.org in the search box on the front page, which took me to http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20091014164421/http://www.npr.org/.  That page looked fine.  But when I clicked on the graph in the toolbar, I ended up at http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20040701042039/http://www.npr.org// and got a page that keeps ‘blinking’ at me. I’m using Firefox version 3.6.13.”
This report gives us all of the information we need to find and reproduce the issue.

So, the more descriptive you can be, the more likely it is that we will be able to find and fix the problem.  We may contact you directly by email to get more information if necessary.  You can use the contact form on this site to let us know about issues, or feel free to post a comment here.  Thanks for taking the time to let us know about any issues you find.