We update this page with ongoing and resolved e-resources problems or publisher maintenance periods.
If you are encountering an issue outside of the Library's regular hours and wish to know the current status of a resource, the following providers offer real-time status pages for their products.
| Ebsco | Gale | OCLC | OverDrive | ProQuest |
Current issues reported
Resource |
Problem Statement and Status |
Date |
| "Ovid Application Error" message | Some users are finding that an “Ovid Application Error” message pops up when trying to access Ovid articles and journals. This is a known issue that Ovid is currently investigating. In the meantime, please close or ignore this error message – it shouldn’t affect functionality or access to the articles. | May 5, 2023 |
| OverDrive and Kobo E-Readers |
We are seeing an issues with authentication for Kobo E-Readers with OverDrive when passing via McGill's SSO (Single Sign On) mechanism. The Kobo readers are sometimes not prompting the user with a keypad to enter their username and/or password, or are logging-in users but then not permitting borrowing of OverDrive e-books. This is due to the way the Kobo web-browser processes html pages. Users can log into their OverDrive account using the web-version (https://mcgill.overdrive.com) and borrow e-books there first. They should be able to then sync the e-book with their Kobo. In some instances, however, users are still unable to open the downloaded e-book on their Kobo. Kobo is planning an update to their reader browser to fix this compatibility issue at a later date (to be determined). |
October 7, 2022 |
E-resources maintenance and news
Resource |
Status |
Date |
| UpToDate ending support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) | This coming June, UpToDate will be ending its support for using Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) for UpToDate. To ensure an optimal experience, users are encouraged to transition to using a supported browser, including the latest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. | June 20, 2024 |
| OverDrive classic App. | The OverDrive classic app is no longer available for iOS and Android, and has been replaced by Libby. Libby is now available on Fire tablets too! | May 1, 2023 |
| East View Information Services | There may be possible delays in some East View online and print subscriptions coming from Ukraine due to the ongoing war. See their original statement. | July 7, 2022 |
Cancellations
McGill Library periodically reviews subscriptions and from time to time we no longer continue subscribing to a specific resource. Subscriptions to the following resources have been cancelled as part of this process.
| Resource | Vendor | License Ends | |
| Academic OneFile Select | Gale | 2021-06-25 | |
| AccessUN | Readex | 2020-12-31 | |
|
Applied Science & technology Index Applied Science & Business Periodicals Retrospective 1913-1983 Biography Index Past and Present Biography Index Retrospective Biological and agricultural index plus |
EBSCO | 2021-03-31 | |
| BioMed Central (BMC) Supporter Membership (discount on article processing charges for members) | BioMed Central | 2020-10-31 | |
| Blouin Art Sales Index | Blouin Art Sales Index | 2021-01-01 | |
| CAB Reviews, Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria, Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria, Distribution Maps of Plant Diseases, Aquaculture compendium. | CAB International | 2020-12-31 | |
| China Data Online | All China Marketing Research | 2020-12-31 | |
|
Communication Abstracts |
EBSCO | 2020-04-30 | |
| CPI.Q (Canadian Periodical Index Quarterly) | Gale | 2020-12-30 | |
| Credo Reference | InfoBase | 2020-09-01 | |
| Current Biography Illustrated | Ebsco | 2021-03-31 | |
| Encyclopedia Britannica | Encyclopedia Britannica | 2020-09-30 | |
| Environetbase | Taylor & Francis | 2020-12-31 | |
| Essential Evidence Plus | Wiley | 2020-12-31 | |
| eStatement Studies | Risk Management Association | 2022-01-31 | |
| Freegal, Freading | Library Ideas | 2022-02-25 | |
| F1000 Prime | Faculty of 1000 Ltd | 2020-04-20 | |
| Global Books in Print (Bowkers) | Bowkers | 2020-12-31 | |
| IBFD Tax Research Platform | IBFD | 2020-12-31 | |
| Index to Jewish Periodicals | EBSCO | 2020-04-30 | |
| Jane's Military & Security Assessments Intelligence Centre | Jane's Group UK Ltd | 2020-05-16 | |
| Lexicomp for Dentistry | McGill has previously had access to Lexicomp via our membership of the Canadian Dental Association. Access is no longer available and references to this resource have been suppressed from the catalogue and A-Z list. | May 5, 2021 | |
| Middle Eastern & Central Asian Studies | EBSCO | 2020-04-30 | |
| MyWorldAbroad | Intercultural Systems | 2020-10-05 | |
| NewspaperDirect | ProQuest | 2020-06-30 | |
| OECD iLibrary | Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development | 2021-01-01 | |
| Peace Abstracts | Ebsco | 2022-02-01 | |
| Programme de recherche en démographie historique | Généalogie Québec | 2022-11-09 | |
| RAIL: The journal of robotics, artificial intelligence & law | FstCase | 2021-01-01 | |
| RISM Series A/II: Music Manuscripts after 1600 | EBSCO | 2020-01-31 | |
| RILM Music Encyclopedias | EBSCO | 2020-05-31 | |
| Skillsoft (formerly Books24/7) | Skillsoft.com | 2021-06-01 | |
| Thomson One | Refinitiv | 2021-10-01 | |
| Value Line | Value Line | 2020-09-30 | |
| World Bank eLibrary | World Bank Group | 2021-01-01 |
Past issues
Resource |
Status |
Date |
||
| "Report a broken link" tickets not including user emails or error descriptions. | RESOLVED: We continue to experience an issue with the "Report a broken link" mechanism. These are the links that appear alongside library links in the library catalogue ("Sofia"). When you "Report a broken link" please make sure you check the box beside "Send me the correct link to the resource if it's available" in order to have your contact info forwarded to library staff, so that we can reply to you. Note too that any description information you enter will not be retained. Please contact collections.library [at] mcgill.ca (subject: Broken%20link%20or%20other%20access%20issue) (Library Collections) via email to describe a problem or request specific assistance. We apologise for the inconvenience caused while we wait for our website company to install a fix. | February 27, 2024 | ||
| Alexander Street Press databases | RESOLVED: We are currently seeing blocked access over EZproxy to Alexander Street Press resources. Please use VPN for off-campus access while we work with the publisher to restore our proxy authentication method. | January 14, 2024 | ||
| Gartner | RESOLVED: We are experiencing an issue with Single Sign On (SSO) to Gartner. McGill IT and Gartner are currently investigating and we hope to resolve the issue as soon as possible | December 21, 2023 | ||
| Thieme | RESOLVED. Thieme is currently undergoing system upgrades, which are causing intermittent access issues. Thieme is aware of the issue and looking to limit disruptions as much as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience. Upgrades should be concluded by early November. | October 26, 2023 | ||
| Kluwers Arbitration | RESOLVED (October 11, 2023). McGill's subscription status is not being recognized over any authentication method (onsite, EZproxy, or VPN), meaning that users are being asked to pay for access to subscribed content. We are working with Kluwers to resolve this situation as soon as possible. We are sorry for any inconvenience. | October 5, 2023 | ||
| Doctrinal Plus | RESOLVED: We are being asked to login to the French legal resource Doctrinal Plus. The provider has been contacted and we are working to restore access as quickly as possible. | October 10, 2023 | ||
| Fulcrum products |
RESOLVED: The Fulcrum platform is unexpectedly down at this time. The vendor is aware and is currently working on a fix. The outage affects the following restricted collection hosted on Fulcrum:
|
August 27, 2023 | ||
| De Gruyter | RESOLVED: Servers at De Gruyter are currently returning an error and access to their online content is unavailable. We have contacted the publisher for an update on when access will be restored. | August 28, 2023 | ||
| Oxford English Dictionary (OED) | RESOLVED (August 16, 2023). There are some ongoing issues when accessing the Oxford English Dictionary especially from offsite (over proxy). OED is aware of the issue and working on a fix. | August 1, 2023 | ||
| WestlawNext Canada | RESOLVED. We are currently experiencing connection issues to the site over EZproxy. Please use McGill's VPN in the meantime while we investigate the cause. | May 11, 2023 | ||
| ACM Digital Library | RESOLVED. We are currently experiencing loss of access to full-text content for on-campus and VPN connections to ACM Digital Library. Users are able read abstracts and free articles but subscription content is giving a paywall notification. We have contacted ACM and are working to have this situation resolved as soon as possible | May 2, 2023 | ||
| Brill ebooks | RESOLVED. When accessing certain Brill ebooks, we are seeing an instruction to purchase the content, rather than receiving full access. We are currently working with Brill to find a solution. We are sorry for any inconvenience. | March 20, 2023 | ||
| American Psychological Association (APA PsycNet) | RESOLVED (March 20, 2023). We are experiencing an outage of the American Psychological Association (APA PsycNet) resource. It is a known issue for APA that they are working to resolve, but it means we do not have access to any APA resources on-campus, over VPN, or over EZproxy. | March 16, 2023 | ||
| Google Scholar McGill Library links | RESOLVED (March 14, 2023). We are currently experiencing a problem with McGill Library Find Full Text links not displaying in Google Scholar. This is affecting libraries using the OCLC WMS Service. OCLC is actively working to restore Google Scholar connectivity with our e-resources availability. | March 10, 2023 | ||
| Sage E-books | RESOLVED: We are currently seeing an issue with access to e-books on the Sage platform. Only a fragment of chapter text is displaying and PDF downloads have been disabled. The issue has been reported to Sage and we are awaiting their response. Updates will be posted here. | March 8, 2023 | ||
| ProQuest Central |
RESOLVED (March 4, 2023). We are currently experiencing an issue when accessing ProQuest Central links within Discovery (Sofia). The links are resolving to an error message that reads:
Once on this page, you can navigate within ProQuest to still access the title you need, for example by going to the “Publications” menu option and searching for the journal or book title. We are currently working with the vendor to resolve this issue. We are sorry for the inconvenience. |
March 3, 2023 | ||
| DeGruyter | RESOLVED (February 28, 2023). Links on DeGruyter are directing to an "unknown server error" message. | February 27, 2023 | ||
| WorldCat Sofia catalogue "Report a broken link" | RESOLVED: The "Report a broken link" function within the McGill Library Catalogue that was previously not working has now been soft-launched back in the catalogue. We are sorry for any inconvenience its absence caused, but are glad to finally have a working solution in place. Please also feel free to reach us via the "Report a problem" page | November 3, 2022 | ||
| McGill Find Full Text links in Google Scholar | RESOLVED (November 21, 2022).
We have started seeing an issue with our "McGill Library Full Text" links to the link resolver not displaying in Google Scholar, even after McGill has been selected in the library settings. The issue is being investigated with our catalogue service provider. |
November 9, 2022 | ||
| Ebook Central |
RESOLVED: We are currently seeing an access issue affecting Ebook Central authentication over EZProxy resulting in an "Access Denied" webpage. We are working with providers to make immediate changes to restore access, but in the meantime, Ebook Central can be accessed using the direct link https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mcgill/home.action on campus, or by using VPN for off-campus, and for the time being, not using the personal 'sign-in' button (top-right). Latent certificate errors remain and are being investigated. |
November 1, 2022 | ||
| SpringerLink platform | RESOLVED: E-books from the Synthesis Collection published after 2018 are incorrectly being included in our automated holdings feed from Springer Nature (McGill has access to 2017). These titles are appearing as held in Sofia but when users access an e-book from this range, they are met with request for payment. Springer is aware of the issue and working on a resolution for subsequent data loads. | August 25, 2022 | ||
| "Report a broken link" button not working | RESOLVED (August 3, 2022 & September 16, 2022). The "Report a broken link" function within the McGill Library Catalogue is not currently working. This issue is under investigation. We are sorry for any inconvenience. In the meantime, please feel free to email collections.library [at] mcgill.ca directly. | July 28, 2022 & September 14, 2022 | ||
| Taylor & Francis Ebooks | RESOLVED (September 13, 2022). A recent automated holdings feed into Sofia of e-books from Taylor & Francis failed for many institutions and McGill has also been affected. Currently many e-books from T&F to which we have access are no longer displaying as held (or with e-book links) in our catalogue. We are working to restore the display of availability in our catalogue as quickly as possible. | September 6, 2022 | ||
| Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present (Cambridge University Press) | RESOLVED (July 7, 2022). Access is currently not working over EZproxy. | June 15, 2022 | ||
| Thieme | RESOLVED (June 15, 2022): Due to a technical issue, only the tables of contents of the journals and the abstracts of the articles can currently be accessed. Thieme is working on the solution and apologize for any inconvenience. | June 7, 2022 | ||
| Wiley | RESOLVED (June 9, 2022): A number of Wiley journals are currently experiencing intermittent access issues, where McGill-subscribed content is directing to a paywall instead of the full-text of selected articles. Wiley is aware of the issue and it is currently under investigation. | June 8, 2022 | ||
| IET Digital Library | RESOLVED (May 17, 2022): Access via EZproxy is giving an "Access Denied" webpage.
Please use this link https://digital-library.theiet.org/ in conjuction with VPN if off-campus. |
May 17, 2022 | ||
| Project Muse over EZproxy | RESOLVED (April 26, 2022): We are currently being denied access to Project Muse via EZproxy. Links to e-journals and e-books are failing to connect, or are having their connection denied. A resolution is being investigated. Please use VPN to access Project Muse content from off-campus in the meantime. | April 19, 2022 | ||
| PressReader | RESOLVED (March 4, 2022): PressReader is currently experiencing a network outage affecting its sites and apps. PressReader is looking to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. | March 3, 2022 | ||
| Course Reserves | RESOLVED (January 10, 2022): The Course Reserves site is currently experiencing an issue, where links to individual books are leading to an error page. We are currently working with the vendor to investigate the issue. A fix is scheduled to be implemented the week of January 10, 2022. | January 4, 2022 | ||
| Springer e-books | RESOLVED: New 2022 e-book titles from Springer are currently showing as locked on the SpringerLINK platform. Springer is investigating and will resolve the issue as soon as possible. | January 5, 2022 | ||
| Sage content over EZproxy | RESOLVED: CloudFlare's DDoS protection is causing an access issue to articles from Sage over our EZProxy server. Access is being denied by CloudFlare. We are investigating a fix. | December 14, 2021 | ||
| Taylor & Francis ebooks | RESOLVED: We are seeing a major issue affecting access to Taylor & Francis ebooks for McGill and for other institutions. Their site is alternately returning a 401 Error message (for EZproxy) or is not recognising McGill IP addresses for VPN and on-campus access. Their journal site is not affected. We have contacted the publisher to report the problem and request an update, and more information will follow as it becomes available. | December 7, 2021 | ||
| OverDrive | RESOLVED: Due to a data autoload issue, we are currently seeing some Overdrive content that McGill does not subscribe to appearing in the McGill Library catalogue. We are working with the vendor to resolve this issue as soon as possible. | November 22, 2021 | ||
| Wiley Online Library | RESOLVED: Due to a data autoload issue, we are currently not seeing all of our McGill-subscribed Wiley content in the McGill Library catalogue. This means there may be some books and articles we subscribe to that do not appear in the catalogue. We are working with the vendor to resolve this issue as soon as possible. | November 22, 2021 | ||
| Sofia | RESOLVED: We are currently investigating dropped ViewPDF links in Sofia | October 28, 2021 | ||
| Ebook Central | RESOLVED: Users are currently reporting an issue accessing Ebook Central via EZproxy. An 'Unknown resource' message is being displayed, with the Firefox browser appearing to be the most affected. Use VPN or switch to another browser while E-resources staff investigate the cause. We apologise for this inconvenience. | October 25, 2021 | ||
| Sofia (Discovery) |
RESOLVED: Overly-broad title matching for e-book and e-journal links. Following an update to the architecture of our knowledge base handling links to online content, we are seeing broader than expected matches on links in Sofia (Discovery catalogue). A fix has since been implemented to resolve this problem. |
September 20,2021 | ||
| EZproxy | RESOLVED: Our EZProxy server that handles authentication into our Library e-Resources has gone offline. Our hosting company is working to restore access as quickly as possible. Currently links to library content are not working, from on or off-campus, or on VPN. | September 17, 2021 | ||
| Library Catalogue Links |
RESOLVED (September 12, 2021). Please note that the McGill Library website will be updated on Saturday, September 11, 2021, from 8 am to 4 pm. This maintenance work may result in catalogue-related links to library content being temporarily unavailable. The links may be unavailable for approximately 15-60 minutes during the morning hours of the update period. We apologize for any inconvenience. |
Saturday, September 11, 2021 from 8 am to 4 pm | ||
| Oxford Reference & University Press Scholarship Online | RESOLVED (June 11, 2021). These sites are experiencing access issues (where users are not able to access the full-text of content we subscribe to). The publisher is investigating the issue. | May 11, 2021 | ||
| Elsevier products (ScienceDirect, ClinicalKey) over EZproxy | RESOLVED (June 9, 2021). We are seeing a significant issue affecting our access to Elsevier products over EZproxy (i.e. via proxied library links). ScienceDirect and ClinicalKey are displaying an error message when attempting to access full-content over proxy. At the moment, access is still working over VPN. We are urgently contacting Elsevier and will send more information as soon as it becomes available. | June 8, 2021 | ||
| Ancestry Library |
Recommended Solution: USE VPN. No resolution with EZproxy is currently possible. There is an issue with the display of images within Ancestry using EZproxy. A sample image is presented, no matter which image is selected. The cause is being investigated. |
October 22, 2020 | ||
| Drama Online | RESOLVED: Access is currently blocked. We are investigating the cause. | February 2, 2021 | ||
| Elsevier platforms | RESOLVED: We are seeing a significant issue affecting our access to Elsevier products. Scopus, ScienceDirect and ClinicalKey have stopped recognising our subscriptions to their online content. We are urgently contacting Elsevier and will send more information as soon as it becomes available. | January 28, 2021 | ||
| SpringerLink | RESOLVED: Access is currently unavailable to full-text content for e-books and e-journal articles on the SpringerLink platform. Springer is aware of this widespread issue--which is affecting other libraries in addition to McGill--and they are working rapidly to restore access to all affected institution. | January 23, 2021 | ||
| Strada Lex | RESOLVED: Access problem over EZproxy. Browser window is spinning but not loading content. Investigation underway. Use VPN in meantime. | January 21, 2021 | ||
| WorldCat Discovery (Sofia) |
RESOLVED: Domain Site error for the 'recaptcha' mechanism is preventing submitting the "Report a broken link" form while on EZproxy. OCLC implemented a December 3 update to Discovery that resolved this bug. |
December 3, 2020 |
||
| Scopus | RESOLVED: We are currently experiencing an issue with Scopus Advanced searching. The issue appears when users go to the Advanced search menu, and click on "Add author name/affiliation". A pop-up menu appears. Users then can search and generate a list of authors, but when they select relevant author(s) and click "Add to search", the pop-up window goes blank and nothing happens. Elsevier is investigating this issue. In the meantime, users can use the "Authors" search instead of "Advanced" search, or can search by author ID if that is known. | October 28, 2020 | ||
| ProQuest My Research accounts | RESOLVED: There is an ongoing issue with access to ProQuest's My Research (user self-created accounts) over EZProxy. Please use VPN to access your My Research account for the time being. | October 5, 2020 | ||
| WestlawNext Canada | We are currently experiencing intermittent issues with access to WestlawNext Canada, where users are prompted to login/subscribe to the site, rather than being automatically authenticated with their McGill credentials through Shibboleth. Thomson Reuters is investigating the issue. | September 15, 2020 | ||
| PubMed and McGill Link Resolver | RESOLVED: We are currently experiencing an issue with Find Full Text links from PubMed into our Discovery link resolver. Article requests are displaying a blank search, even when McGill has access to the article. OCLC is actively working on a resolution. In the meantime, be sure to access PubMed via our McGill-specific link. This will ensure that links provided by the publisher in PubMed (usually just above the Find Full Text link) will contain the EZproxy address and you will be able to get authenticated into the publisher's site as a McGill user, as long as we have a subscription. | September 4, 2020 | ||
| O'Reilly Learning Platform |
RESOLVED: Single Sign On (SSO) problem when accessing through Discovery. Deep links to content on the O'Reilly platform have recently been impacted by an issue affecting authentication. Links have since been upgraded in their entirety to account for SSO and should now prompt the user to authenticate and then take them straight to the title. If you continue to experience a lock on your O'Reilly account, please contact O'Reilly support to request this be lifted. We apologise for any inconvenience. |
September 2, 2020 | ||
| HathiTrust |
IPv6 affecting access HathiTrust and other e-resources platforms. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) designed to solve the issue of IP4 exhaustion, is now a part of many e-resources providers networks, often with dual-stack IPv4/IPv6. Some Internet Service Providers (ISP) have incorporated IPv6 and we have become aware recently of a rare issue whereby a user's router might be set to send/receive IPv6 to sites that are not yet IPv6 compliant. The e-resources access was only resolved once a user disabled IPv6 on their router. |
August 19, 2021 | ||
| ProQuest - News & Newspapers | RESOLVED (August 10, 2020): Access to the "News & Newspapers" database collection from ProQuest is currently blocked, with patrons being presented a "We seem to have encountered a problem." screen after running a search. ProQuest is investigating the issue. | August 5, 2020 | ||
| McGill VPN |
Coronavirus (COVID-19): VPN access restored. (Updated: Mon, 05/11/2020) The VPN has been restored to full capacity and is once again available for accessing e-resources; however, to ensure stable performance for everyone in the McGill community, please continue to use EZproxy for accessing e-resources where possible. |
May 12, 2020 | ||
| Brill eBooks & eJournals |
Brill eBooks access has been restored. (Updated: Thurs, 05/14/2020) We are currently seeing an access issue with the Brill eJournals platform: https://brill.com. At the moment, any of McGill’s titles on Brill are showing a “Login via Institution” message, despite the McGill user’s authentication through VPN or EZproxy. The issue has been reported to Brill and further updates will be sent out as more information becomes available. |
May 13, 2020 | ||
| Wiley Online Library ebooks PDF over EZproxy |
RESOLVED (May, 2020): We are seeing an issue with Wiley Online Library ebooks whereby PDFs for ebook content are not loading in the browser or permitting download over EZproxy. This is only for Wiley ebooks, their journals are not affected. |
April 16, 2020 | ||
| De Gruyter |
|
April 1, 2020 | ||
| PressReader | RESOLVED: Access via web-browser and EZproxy (including for PressReader app) during COVID-19 reduced-campus operations as VPN is being reserved for McGill network use. See here for instructions on authenticating your PressReader app over EZproxy. | March 30, 2020 | ||
| RxTx from Canadian Pharmacists Association | RESOLVED (March 30, 2020). Users are being asked to login. the publisher is working to resolve the issue. | March 25, 2020 | ||
| La Reference | RESOLVED (March 30, 2020). Users are being prompted to a One Pass page. | March 22, 2020 | ||
| Ulrichsweb: Global Series Directory | RESOLVED (March 30, 2020). Limited access and asking for an institutional login, when accessing over EZproxy. | March 22, 2020 | ||
| Taylor and Francis eBooks | RESOLVED (March 6, 2020). All webpage requests are resulting in a 401 error with a message about the need to be on an authorised IP address. | March 4, 2020 | ||
| GeoScience World | RESOLVED. The problem with loading the publisher's website from the McGill network has returned. The issue is being investigated but please use VPN to get around the problem while it is in the process of being resolved. | January 17, 2020 | ||
| Brepols databases. Library of Latin Texts A & B | RESOLVED: Databases not giving access. Investigating subscription renewal status. | January 28, 2020 | ||
| Essential Evidence Plus | RESOLVED. A technical issue with the platform has resulted in users not being able to access to articles. Wiley technical teams are actively working to restore access. | January 23, 2020 |
