Where did the puzzles go?
  • pengmanpengman
    Where did the puzzles go?
    Web puzzles for Newsday, Universal, USA Today are gone from web chooser?
    WHY?
  • MussauMussau
    Me too. The old chooser pops back up. Even hand-editing the info.plist to have the sources from DefaultPuzzleSources.plist doesn't appear to work. Was there a time-limit somehow introduced?
    And, perhaps related, why can't I get more recent puzzles on some than the ones I got back in January?
  • DonRicklinDonRicklin
    I was surprised by the same thing this morning. Was looking forward to doing the extra puzzles. What happened?

    If nothing else, give us the links and a way to put them back in the list! Didn't we have that capability before?
  • pacmanpacman
    same thing here, LA times puzzles are gone too..
  • Daniel JalkutDaniel Jalkut
    Sorry about this, folks.

    The LA Times and Newsday puzzles have been pulled from Black Ink because the puzzle distributors, Uclick Universal, informed me that they view Black Ink's downloading of the puzzles as a violation of their copyright.

    Unfortunately my choices were to remove the puzzles or engage in a legal battle with the company over the right to include the puzzles, which I am not prepared to do.

    I did make it clear to them that fans of the puzzles will be disappointed, and asked if there is some accommodation Black Ink could make to reverse their decision on the matter. So far I haven't received any response to this inquiry.

    I am considering putting the manual configuration of puzzle sources back for those of you who want to/are comfortable adding sources yourselves.

    Daniel
  • Daniel JalkutDaniel Jalkut
    Mussau - as for the ones you're having trouble getting more recent ones on, if they are not Uclick Universal, then maybe something else is up.

    The overriding problem here, of course, is Black Ink is a "reader/solver" app, and although a huge benefit of the app is the ability to download puzzles from the web, I don't control any of the sources. So if they get flakey and stop producing puzzles, or the format changes, or they issue a copyright infringement warning ;) then we can be out of luck on particular sources.

    I'm always on the lookout for new sources and curious to hear if existing sources (that are still listed) continue to work.

    I'm really sorry about the "indian giving" in particular with the Uclick puzzles. I spent a lot of time adding support for the special puzzle format they use, and it was a big letdown to me too to have to suddenly disable support for those puzzles and void all the work I had put into supporting them.

    Daniel
  • DonRicklinDonRicklin
    Thank you, Daniel, for filling us in on the situation.

    Looking forward to more 'legal' puzles as you can find them!

    Don
  • MussauMussau
    The ones I'm having trouble with are Wall Street Journal (last one is 28th January), Boston Globe Sunday (16th January) and Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday (30th January). Anyone else able to get newer versions?

    And thanks for the work. I know how disappointing it is when the people you depend on decide to withdraw something that was useful and popular.
  • pengmanpengman
    My last Boston Globe was Sunday Feb. 20 and last Wall Street Journal was Friday, Feb. 25.
    And yes, thanks Daniel. Always pleased with your prompt replies and help.
  • MussauMussau
    I think I've tracked down the trouble to our local system blocking certain sites as gambling, so I'll have to live without the Sunday crosswords and the WSJ (is buying shares gambling?). Thanks for helping me verify it.
  • Daniel JalkutDaniel Jalkut
    Mussau, that's too bad about the site blocking! Glad to see you figured out the cause, though.
  • ropearl2003ropearl2003
    I am having the same issue actually and think it may be a computer thing versus a program or UClick thing. I can not get the most recent NY Times to pull up the most recent puzzle. Its stuck on 3/21 (and I finished that one already! ha ha) allt he rest seem to be relatively up to date. Am I doing something wrong....?
  • Daniel JalkutDaniel Jalkut
    ropearl2003: are you talking about the built-in NY Times Classic source? That one is unfortunately only a weekly puzzle.
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