Internet Archive Wayback Machine is generating broken snapshot links

For quite some weeks now Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has been acting quirky.

When archiving links using the Wayback Machine, in some cases Security Report has observed the resulting snapshot is generated for a completely different file than the original webpage or resource that was being archived.

One such example is shown below:

In the above example, a Twitter status (thread) was submitted to Wayback Machine for archival, but what got archived instead was a JavaScript file present on the page.

When checking the Wayback Machine again for if the Twitter status had been archived anywhere, Security Report did not see a recent snapshot for the Twitter status, but did find the JavaScript file archived.

To reproduce this behaviour, you may simply head to Wayback Machine and enter a URL that you wish to archive under “Save Page Now.” Then click “Save Page.”

Success isn’t guaranteed as the buggy behaviour seems to occur on and off, especially when archiving Twitter threads.

It is not known at this time what is causing this issue.

Security Report has reached out to the Internet Archive for comment and we are currently awaiting their response.

Update 21-May-2021:  Mark Graham, Director of the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive told Security Report that they are aware of the issue and working on a fix.

In the meantime, if archive.org gives you trouble, there are alternatives available like archive.is and archive.ph.