Saving pages for offline reading leads to disaster: we didn't save the page afterall
Closed, InvalidPublicBUG REPORT
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	Jidanni
	Jul 2 2025, 11:54 AM

Description

Steps to replicate the issue (include links if applicable):

Read an interesting page on Wikipedia, but let's save it for offline reading later. instead of finishing reading it now.

What happens?:

Now offline reading our saved copy, we cannot open the rest of the page!

What should have happened instead?:

The whole page should have been saved.

Software version (on Special:Version page; skip for WMF-hosted wikis like Wikipedia):

Other information (browser name/version, screenshots, etc.):

Screenshot:

Note we are using Chrome on a cellphone, which saves in MHTML format.

Now we are offline in the forest and cannot go back to the city to try again for another week/month etc.

By the way, Phabricator has a bug: no way to purge the "Referenced Files" error, even after one removes the reference.

Related Objects

Mentioned Here: T398383: Didn't save the whole page for offline reading after all

Event Timeline

Jidanni created this task.Jul 2 2025, 11:54 AM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptJul 2 2025, 11:54 AM

Jidanni updated the task description. (Show Details)Jul 2 2025, 11:56 AM

Jidanni updated the task description. (Show Details)Jul 2 2025, 12:00 PM

Aklapper updated the task description. (Show Details)Jul 2 2025, 12:01 PM

At a first glance of this task, details of how the article is being saved for offline reading (& the software/app being used) may be helpful to know. It might be that there's a bug with the software doing the offline-saving, rather than necessarily with Wikipedia/MediaWiki itself

I (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T398383) sort of think the Google Chrome Android team think it's not a bug but a feature.

save it for offline reading later

How? Please provide a clear list of steps to reproduce, click by click, as a list of steps, always. Thanks for avoiding any ambiguity.

On Android in Chrome browse
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmel-by-the-Sea,_California

Scroll down and confirm the sections e.g., Demographics, are closed:

Screenshot 2025-07-03 08.01.22.png (497×659 px, 39 KB)

Now download the page. It will be in the file

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California - Wikipedia.mhtml

Now attempt to read that offline or even online.

Those sections will not open. And even if they did,
their content is nowhere to be found in that .mhtml file.

Now download the page. It will be in the file

As long as actions are vaguely paraphrased as "download the page" instead of clear, non-ambiguous instructions like "Click the menu button in the upper right corner. Select the 'Download' entry from that menu" or something like that, unclear bug reports are a time sink and will not go anywhere, sorry.
Please either be absolutely clear and specific without paraphrasing and use lists (the thing that usually has a small dot in front of every line) to describe steps, or bring up local issues in support forums but not in Wikimedia Phabricator.

I started Chrome 137 on an Android 10 phone, I clicked on that Download button with an arrow-down icon below the "Article" and "Talk" tabs / next to the Star icon, and I end up in a "Save as PDF" dialog with a preview of 112 pages and all sections in the preview are expanded.

In fact yesterday I was using DevTools on a Chromebook, emulating a phone. CTRL+S saved to an .mhtml file with the closed-forever sections.

So try this:
Start Chrome.
Hit CTRL+SHIFT+I to start DevTools (with device emulation clicked. Perhaps not important?)
Browse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmel-by-the-Sea,_California
CTRL+S to save it. (Be sure you are saving to an .mhtml file. There might be more than one choice of how to save it.)
Now examine that .mhtml file. You'll see the closed sections are empty on disk. Thanks.

(with device emulation clicked.

How? Please read T398432#10971959 again.

(Be sure you are saving to an .mhtml file

How? Please read T398432#10971959 again.

Please also provide the exact version of the web browser being used.

Now back on the cell phone:
Chrome Beta 139.0.7258.3
Android 13; SM-A136U Build/TP1A.220624.014

Screenshot_20250704_201039_Chrome Beta.jpg (806×720 px, 126 KB)

Screenshot_20250704_200910_Chrome Beta.jpg (1×720 px, 295 KB)

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California - Wikipedia.mhtml1 MBDownload

All through the process I did not encounter any PDF prompts.
I used to incognito window, but it didn't allow me to take a screenshot. So I faked it again for the screenshot.

Chrome is free to expand sections for downloading. How is this a problem specific to Wikipedia?

Screenshot_20250704_200910_Chrome_Beta.jpg (1×720 px, 381 KB)

So downloading pages require two download actions?

But we're already offline.

In T398432#10975329, @Jidanni wrote:

So downloading pages require two download actions?

No, it requires a different download action than the one that you performed.

(That's why it's good to have clear steps to reproduce with zero ambiguity, instead of paraphrasing "download the page" when there are two ways to download stuff. Please always use the bug report template and fill out all items, without paraphrasing anything. Thanks.)

No, it requires a different download action than the one that you performed.

And that action,
it turns out,
is the Wikipedia-furnished button to download a PDF.

So for mobile Wikipedia,
using the standard browser download methods,
like the ones you would use to download example.com/index.html,
will all encounter the bug I reported!

In T398432#10976266, @Jidanni wrote:

No, it requires a different download action than the one that you performed.

And that action,
it turns out,
is the Wikipedia-furnished button to download a PDF.

Correct. It allows you download full pages for offline reading (see the title of this very task).

So for mobile Wikipedia,
using the standard browser download methods,
like the ones you would use to download example.com/index.html,
will all encounter the bug I reported!

You are free to report a feature request to Chrome to expand sections for downloading. How is this a problem specific to Wikipedia?

OK, good. https://issues.chromium.org/issues/429708098 .

Jidanni changed the task status from Invalid to Declined.Jul 5 2025, 10:31 AM

Please don't change task status.

(I thought the bug was still open.)

	F62872020: Screenshot_20250704_200910_Chrome_Beta.jpg
	Jul 4 2025, 12:28 PM

	F62871490: Carmel-by-the-Sea, California - Wikipedia.mhtml
	Jul 4 2025, 12:16 PM

	F62871452: Screenshot_20250704_200910_Chrome Beta.jpg
	Jul 4 2025, 12:16 PM

	F62871423: Screenshot_20250704_201039_Chrome Beta.jpg
	Jul 4 2025, 12:16 PM

	F62790822: Screenshot 2025-07-03 08.01.22.png
	Jul 3 2025, 12:13 AM

	F62770563: Screenshot_20250615_112642_Chrome Beta.jpg
	Jul 2 2025, 11:54 AM
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Saving pages for offline reading leads to disaster: we didn't save the page afterallClosed, InvalidPublicBUG REPORTActions

Description

Related Objects

Event Timeline

Saving pages for offline reading leads to disaster: we didn't save the page afterall
Closed, InvalidPublicBUG REPORT
Actions