Library Assist: Answers

There can be a couple of reasons the catalogue may not work

1. Scheduled maintenance - the catalogue will not be useable for a short period while maintenance is taking place. This is usually indicated by a blank page when you try to search it. Maintenance is always scheduled late at night (UK time) to minimise disruption and usually lasts an hour or two, so try your search again later.

2. A glitch in loading the catalogue webpage on your device. This is usually indicated by black diamonds that don't go away. It can happen at any time, but we see more reports of the problem when there has been a recent update to the browser you use.

Why does it happen?

• When you click to open the LibrarySearch catalogue on your machine it will attempt to access the catalogue page. Part of the page loading process is a deposit of cookies which get saved on your machine. If it has a glitch in loading for any reason, this gets recorded in the cookies. Every time you then attempt to access the catalogue after this has happened, it will get "stuck" at that bad cookie and fail to load... which is what causes the black diamonds.

Can the Library stop it from happening?

• Unfortunately no, we can't prevent the problem. This is because the error is generated by your own machine, rather than anything the Library has done with the catalogue.

How can I fix it?

1. Use a different internet browser. There have been problems reported with all of them from time to time, but the least glitchy seems to be Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.
2. Clear your cookies and internet cache for the browser with the problem. This will delete the bad cookie. You can then try to open the catalogue page afresh and it won't get stuck on the bad cookie. Please see the support website for each browser for details of how to delete the data: Chrome   Edge   Firefox   Safari

If you have a persistent problem with the catalogue, please contact the Library for advice.