I was able to post over at Gatchfanfic without getting the error message. I wrote up what I did and put it in a Google Doc. Here is the link: Workaround For Posting at Gatchfanfic Anyone who clicks on the link should be able to view it. If there are any problems, let me know.

That is very useful to know, Msann, thank you, I'm sure many of us will find it very helpful

Thanks! I've passed this along to Julieann as well.

Thank you for posting this! I am going to try it to post my annual Christmas fic. ETA I tried it. The text file + Preview works, but the upload was full of strange characters instead of quotation marks, apostrophes, etc, even though they showed up fine in the original text file. It was too much of a mess, so I gave up and just posted to ff.net. I was playing around with it and finally got the first chapter to post, but none of the other chapters are going up. ARGH!

Originally posted by Transmute Jun Thank you for posting this! I am going to try it to post my annual Christmas fic. ETA I tried it. The text file + Preview works, but the upload was full of strange characters instead of quotation marks, apostrophes, etc, even though they showed up fine in the original text file. It was too much of a mess, so I gave up and just posted to ff.net. I was playing around with it and finally got the first chapter to post, but none of the other chapters are going up. ARGH!

That's weird. I wonder if it has something to do with the file itself?

I tried uploading the text file, I tried copying and pasting from the text file, I tried my usual method of copying from ff.net, I tried copying and uploading from the doc file... nothing was working! And then the site crashed and I couldn't load anything. I put an apology in the story description, since I had to leave a 'complete' fic with one chapter dangling on the site. Yuck.

Originally posted by Transmute Jun I tried uploading the text file, I tried copying and pasting from the text file, I tried my usual method of copying from ff.net, I tried copying and uploading from the doc file... nothing was working! And then the site crashed and I couldn't load anything. I put an apology in the story description, since I had to leave a 'complete' fic with one chapter dangling on the site. Yuck.

When you uploaded the text file, did you make sure there was no text in the story text field? For some reason, when that field is populated, that is what is triggering the error.

Hmm, TJ, are you sure it was purely text? No "smart quotes" or anything in there?

Originally posted by ChrisW Hmm, TJ, are you sure it was purely text? No "smart quotes" or anything in there?

Nope. It was a .txt file saved under MS Word, just as MsAnn suggested. No, there was nothing in the text box.

Originally posted by Transmute Jun

Originally posted by ChrisW Hmm, TJ, are you sure it was purely text? No "smart quotes" or anything in there?

Nope. It was a .txt file saved under MS Word, just as MsAnn suggested. No, there was nothing in the text box.

Hmmm...this is a head scratcher. I'm not sure what's going wrong without seeing the text file itself.

Originally posted by msannomalley

Originally posted by Transmute Jun

Originally posted by ChrisW Hmm, TJ, are you sure it was purely text? No "smart quotes" or anything in there?

Nope. It was a .txt file saved under MS Word, just as MsAnn suggested. No, there was nothing in the text box.

Hmmm...this is a head scratcher. I'm not sure what's going wrong without seeing the text file itself.

I wonder ... Is there possibly a difference between PC and Mac in doing this?

It could be possible. Msann, what are you using? TJ, what are you using?

I'm on a PC. Windows 8.1 and Office 2013.

I'm on a Mac. Um... but I'm at work right now so I couldn't tell you what OS and version of Word. All I know is that I've been avoiding gatchfanfic because posting there is like trying to pull my hair out. And I've been holding off on posting fics for a couple of years now, so I have a huge backlog. I'm starting to think that maybe I should just give up on gatchfanfic altogether and post everything on ff.net. I just hate to lose the ability to post images inside the stories, which ff.net lacks. Seriously, I have about a dozen fics that have only appeared here (gift exchanges) or in Birdscramble. I really should post them somewhere. I always used to post fics on both ff.net and gatchfanfic at the same time, but I guess that's no longer an option and Julieann has no interest in fixing the site.

I definitely understand your frustration, TJ. FF.net doesn't allow episode reviews, so there is a whole bunch of my stuff that I can't even post.

Using your method, Ann, I was recently able to upload the next chapter of As The Bell Tolls and the fic Nessie, but then started having the same problem as before. it took me a while to notice I no longer have the Story Text (file): Choose File. I now have Story Text (file): empty box Browse. I've got a lot of new chapters to download as well, but Fanfic.net intimidates me. Their instructions don't make a lot of sense to me. I might wait for my son to get home for spring break and see if he can help me post there.

Originally posted by Becky Rock Using your method, Ann, I was recently able to upload the next chapter of As The Bell Tolls and the fic Nessie, but then started having the same problem as before. it took me a while to notice I no longer have the Story Text (file): Choose File. I now have Story Text (file): empty box Browse. I've got a lot of new chapters to download as well, but Fanfic.net intimidates me. Their instructions don't make a lot of sense to me. I might wait for my son to get home for spring break and see if he can help me post there.

The site I'm working up is taking longer than I thought it would. Hopefully, I can have it up and running by May. Between my own school and web site type issues, it's slow going. When I did write this, I noticed the same thing as you did. You have to reupload the file if you preview and not post.

Originally posted by msannomalley

Originally posted by Becky Rock Using your method, Ann, I was recently able to upload the next chapter of As The Bell Tolls and the fic Nessie, but then started having the same problem as before. it took me a while to notice I no longer have the Story Text (file): Choose File. I now have Story Text (file): empty box Browse. I've got a lot of new chapters to download as well, but Fanfic.net intimidates me. Their instructions don't make a lot of sense to me. I might wait for my son to get home for spring break and see if he can help me post there.

The site I'm working up is taking longer than I thought it would. Hopefully, I can have it up and running by May. Between my own school and web site type issues, it's slow going. When I did write this, I noticed the same thing as you did. You have to reupload the file if you preview and not post.

I tried to about 10 times with 2 different fics, but each time I tried to post, I got the Forbidden error. But I will be trying to post to your site this week.

Becky, I can help you with ff.net. I'm trying to migrate all of my BotP stuff over there, but it is slow going. There's no easy way - to my knowledge - to create series over there, so it's hard to sort your stories. But you get used to the other stuff.

I'm going to finally work on getting all my stuff into Crescent Coral and then maybe ff.

As far as Gatchfanfic goes, I'm in the middle of posting something there. First three chapters, fine. Fourth chapter - boom. I had to cut & paste a paragraph at a time until I isolated the text string that was causing it to break (it had the word back in it - nothing else distinguishing) and rewrote it. Weird.