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OCLC Support

Known issues

This page lists known issues in the WorldShare Interlibrary Loan application. Availability dates are subject to change.

Please see the OCLC System Status Dashboard for active issues.

Current issues 

Issue Details

When attempting to send an email within the email feature of a WorldShare ILL request, but receive the following error message:

"Failed to send email, HTML tags are not allowed in the mail body."

The current work around is to remove the <> symbols from the message and resend. The error message should go away and the email can be sent without issue.
Regional Display Holdings fail to display borrowing libraries country first in the list.

We are currently investigating this issue and working towards a fix.

An alternative workflow would be to use Custom Holdings Paths to set group holdings that are appropriate for your region.

When a request is submitted with the patron request form, the issue/publication date is sometimes not retained in the request in the staff interface. In these cases, staff members need to manually look up the information or clarify which item the patron is requesting. Then, the request can be manually sent again through automation.
Batch responding Yes as a lender results in an error message if Constant Data is applied during the batch process. Process requests individually.

On resubmitted requests, the asterisk may not be displayed on the correct occurrence of the symbol in the lender string when the lender appears more than once.  It will be displayed on the first occurrence in the string, even if the request has actually moved to the later occurrence.

This is purely cosmetic and does not affect functionality. 
Patron’s ‘Preferred Edition’ is replaced with 'Any Edition' in new borrowing requests that do not match an automation.

New borrowing requests that match an automation display the patron’s Preferred Edition correctly. However, new requests that do not match an automation will display 'Any edition', regardless of the value selected on the patron request form.

Borrowing staff can select a different value (“Most recent edition” or “This edition”) and lenders will see the correct value.

For CLIO and ILLiad: Shipped Date is behind by one day from the Received Date.

The issue stems from systems that connect to WorldShare ILL using an older SOAP API method that is not time zone aware. 
 
When a lender using CLIO or ILLiad, for example, updates a request to Shipped, it can only send the mm/dd/yyyy with no time stamp. It's then logged in the WorldShare ILL system as being updated at YYYY-MM-DDT00:00:00.000Z UTC. Because WorldShare ILL is time zone aware, the initial date is translated to be at midnight. The system then takes into consideration the time zone the lender is in, and adjusts it further. Any library in a -UTC time zone is going to have its date translated into the past.

Please note that this known issue only applies to Referral Center members, a small subset of ILL users. 

If a Referral Center member changes the fulfillment type from Interlibrary Loan to Purchase, the request is no longer accessible in their borrowing queues.

The Request ID is still findable by searching on the Home page. 

Recommendation: Do not change the fulfillment type of an Interlibrary Loan request when signed in as a member of a Referral Center. ILL staff at the management center are still able to adjust the fulfillment type as needed. 

 

Fixed issues 

 

Fixed issues - Table
Issue Fix date

Request counts that are displayed alongside the quick links are updating slowly and causing a discrepancy between quick links and the queue counts.

 

 

June, 2024
For Article Exchange, intermittent failures to upload a document. A permanent fix has been implemented has resolved this upload issue. April, 2024

For libraries that use OpenAthens to manage remote access: When a library user requests an item from WorldCat Discovery, the bibliographic fields in the the WorldShare ILL request form are blank.

October 2023
Several fixes for off-system lending September 2023

The August 17 release of WorldShare Reports and Report Designer provided fixes for the following:

  • Improved calculation of ILL turnaround times for off-system requests
  • Updated logic for calculating ILL filled counts of purchases via WMS Acquisitions

For more information, see the WorldShare Reports release notes, August 2023.

August 2023
An extremely large number of partner records will cause timeout errors when loading the partner list to a new lending or converted borrowing off-system request in the staff interface. June 2023

When creating a new off-system lending request, data in the Requester Reference ID field is not retained when taking the Create action.

If the email address field is edited before the create action is taken, the email address will revert to the email address in the partner record in both borrowing and lending requests.

March 2023
The preview button on the patron request workform in Service Configuration results in an error message. February 2023
When editing Open Hours and Closures on the Schedule tab of policies directory, the Schedules tab renders blank after saving with no option to add or edit the page. November 2022
When placing  Book Club requests (using the multiple requests option in the staff interface to request multiple copies of the same item from different lenders), these requests appear to be sent to lenders but instead cannot be seen by lenders. These requests will not be filled.

October 2022

Automation is not considering coverage dates from the Knowledge Base when building a lender string. If a potential lender owns the title but has specified they do not hold the requested volume, issue, or date, they will still be added to the lender string. August 2022 
Automations that build lender strings are not being applied to requests. The requests are routed to the New for Review queue without a lender string and display an error message that states "Direct Request Processing Failed" in the Automation History.  March 2022
In Discover Items in the staff interface, links on the Find Related and Subject tabs are not working.  October 2021

When a request is submitted to the first lender in the lender string on a weekend, the Time to Respond column displays <12 hours  24 hours earlier than expected. 

In cases where the need by date of the borrowing library occurs before the end of the lender’s days to respond, the Time to Respond value will be correct.

June 2020
On the holdings screen in the staff interface, if a Custom Holding Group or Path is applied but has no results the holdings screen will display libraries that aren't in the path or group and build a lender string accordingly.  December 2020

Resubmitting some requests results in the following error message:  

An error occurred processing the request. Please try again. If you are unable to continue please contact OCLC Support noting the request number, and the exact date and time this error occurred for the request.

 

December 2019
ILLiad libraries are experiencing an altered workflow to access the Policies Directory. 

Instead of clicking the Policies Directory button on the OCLC section of the Borrowing Processing ribbon in ILLiad and being directly logged into the institution’s record in Policies Directory, ILLiad libraries are now landing on the Policies Directory login page.  It looks like this:

clipboard_e1f05c8e651a2594f1fdd487cb787b87a.png

August 2019
Clicking on the blue (i) next to a potential lender on the holdings page takes users to their own Policies Directory page, not the page of the potential lender. 

When in a request, clicking on the grey (i) in the list of lenders in the lender string also leads users to their own Policies Directory page, not that of the lender. 
August 2019
If an ILL request is changed to a purchase request and then changed back to an ILL request, the request cannot be submitted and an error message appears.  June 2019
If you have set up a notification to be sent to library staff when one of your borrowing requests has been filled using Article Exchange, the URL displayed in the notification email is for the Lender’s staff interface rather than your own. June 2019
Resubmitting a request results in an error message when a lender in a previous attempt goes non-supply.  April 2019

When symbols are repeated in either the original or resubmitted lender string it may result in the following:

  • If a lending symbol appears twice in either the original lending string or in the resubmitting lender string, while the request is assigned to that lender, it will appear twice in the borrower’s Awaiting Response queue, and the lender’s Can You Supply queue.  Note that the counts in the left sidebar are correct, and once the lender responds to the request the duplicate rows will disappear. 
  • If a lending symbol was last in the original lender string and is first in the resubmitted lender string, the request isn’t routed to the lender.  If the request was only resubmitted to that lender, it will be closed as unfilled.

 

April 2019
When resubmitting a request, if a symbol in the previous lender string is set as a non-supplier the resubmit function will result in an error message. April 2019
When adding status or department fields to a patron request form in Service Configuration and specifying field values to display in the drop down list, saving will result in an error message. April 2019
Deflection policies based on E-License terms are not deflecting requests for e-books. February 2019
After taking an action that moves a request to a different queue, it is no longer possible to use next/previous links to view other requests in the original queue.  February 2019

When the borrowing library adds an Article Exchange document to a request at In Transit status, the Mark as Received action is not saving the AE information to the request.  

This scenario may be encountered when the supplying library sent the document by email or shipped the article without first including the document.  In this case, the borrowing library adds the document for the patron to access via the user portal.

February 2019
Some libraries are experiencing errors when using Get It Now to process requests and using IFM as a form of payment.  November 2018
When using the “magnifying glass” or “View Holdings” link in a request to complete citation information, sometimes the “Apply data to request” button is not appearing.  The “Create Request” button appears instead.  October 2018

ILL hold displays as On Shelf at pickup location

When receiving a loan request in WorldShare ILL or Tipasa with WorldShare Circulation integration enabled, the hold on the temporary item is fulfilled at the pickup location rather than the item's home location.
 

October 2018
ILL due date not honored by WorldShare Circulation October 2018
Patron-initiated ILL with OCLC Direct Request occasionally selects a bibliographic record for a print item rather than the electronic item, and vice versa. August 2018
The first time a copyright declaration field is added to a patron workform, the text limit defaults to 450 characters.  August 2018
Copyright fields are duplicated in ILLiad when using a constant data record containing copyright data, resulting in an error message. August 2018
An error message appears saying that there are too many lenders in the lender string, despite there being 15 or less.  August 2018
Due dates are missing on requests when renewal is denied. August 2018
OCLC Reasons for No reports for both Borrowing and Lending are currently reporting an unusually large count for "Unspecified". We are continuing our investigation as to the cause. August 2018
WorldShare Interlibrary Loan and Tipasa are experienced database-related issues the morning of 18 July 2018. You may have seen errors when accessing requests or requests disappearing/reappearing from queues.  July 2018
Incorrect URL in New Lending Requests email July 2018
Interlibrary Loan Statistics were temporarily inaccurate for the month of May May 2018

An error message is displayed to the lender when attempting to save or update the status of a lending request if:

  • Lender selects ILL Fee Management (IFM)
  • Lending charge is blank
  • Request status is one of the following:
    • Submitted
    • Considering

The request fails to be updated and/or changes to the request are not saved.

May 2018
Changes to Custom Holdings Groups and Custom Holdings Paths are not being Reflected.  This also effects ILLiad users.  January 2018
Policies Directory access for ILLiad users requires logging in. January 2018
Some of the Open Access links that appear on a request are actually subscription links. November 2017
Interlibrary Loan requests cannot be fulfilled in WorldShare Circulation. November 2017
The value of Patron Status in a request is overwritten when constant data with a blank/null value for Status is applied and the request is subsequently saved or updated. October 2017
Users of the Article Exchange custom version receive an error message when attempting to access the user interface.  Note that the Article Exchange service utilized by the majority of interlibrary loan customers is working as expected. August 2017
Recently closed requests are temporarily not searchable as either an ‘active request’ or ‘closed request’ from the WorldShare ILL home page. This unsearchable period should only be a minute or two but has been prolonged at times. July 2017
Borrower is unable to update the bibliographic data in a request by clicking the magnifying glass icons next to Title, Author, and standard number (i.e. ISSN, ISBN, etc.) fields. The bibliographic record view fails to render, and the "Apply data to request" button does not display. Note that subsequent searches made in Discover Items may not behave as expected. May 2017
Borrower is unable to action requests in Not Received status. An error message displays when selecting the 'Mark as Received' or 'Save' buttons. May 2017
Refund button does not display for closed requests. February 2017
Patron-initiated requests that were mediated by staff display in the Direct Produced queue. December 2016
In Service Configuration, creating a new Custom Holdings Group (CHG) or saving changes to an existing CHG results in an error message. If a CHG includes one or more OCLC symbols that contain a special character (i.e. $#@), saving changes to the CHG may result in symbols being dropped from the CHG. December 2016
IFM refund and local currency options do not display in WorldShare ILL. October 2016

ILLiad customers see an error message when hovering over lender symbols to view OCLC Policies information.

October 2016
Some data elements are unavailable or incorrect in August 2016 WorldShare Interlibrary Loan reports from the OCLC Usage Statistics site. August 2016
Error message is displayed when a customer using WorldShare Circulation integration uses a barcode scanner to enter the Item Barcode when receiving a loan request. August 2016
Lenders are unable to save changes when dropping an Article Exchange file to a copy request that has already been shipped. The Save button is inactive. August 2016
If a lender viewing a request in Submitted status (Can you supply?) enters a newline character while selecting any field, the request is updated to Shipped status (In Transit). August 2016
For lenders, requests in 'New - Copies' or 'New - Loans' status fail to update to Considering status when the 'Auto-update to Considering' checkbox is selected from the Print All section of the Print Queue. August 2016
Borrowing libraries viewing WorldShare ILL in Spanish, Dutch, Chinese (traditional or simplified), Japanese, or Korean are unable to create requests or open existing borrowing requests. July 2016

In Service Configuration, an error message appears when attempting to create a new Custom Holdings Group. The group fails to be created.

July 2016
Lenders are unable to supply, refuse, or send a conditional response immediately after moving a request to Considering status. July 2016
Multiple versions of the borrower and/or lender Interlibrary Loan Fee Management (IFM) reports display for January 2016 onwards. May 2016