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FAQ

Can I run my own instance?

Yes! We host a public canonical version of the Matrix Public Archive at archive.matrix.org that everyone can use but feel free to also run your own instance (setup instructions in the readme).

How is this different from `view.matrix.org`?

https://view.matrix.org/ (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-static) already existed before the Matrix Public Archive but there was some desire to make something with more Element-feeling polish and loading faster (avoid the slow 502's errors that are frequent on view.matrix.org).

And with the introduction of the jump to date API via MSC3030, we could show messages from any given date and day-by-day navigation.

Why did the archive bot join my room?

Only public Matrix rooms with shared or world_readable history visibility are accessible in the Matrix Public Archive. In some clients like Element, the shared option equates to "Members only (since the point in time of selecting this option)" and world_readable to "Anyone" under the room settings -> Security & Privacy -> Who can read history?.

But the archive bot (@archive:matrix.org) will join any public room because it doesn't know the history visibility without first joining. Any room without world_readable or shared history visibility will lead a 403 Forbidden. And if the public room is in the room directory, it will be listed in the archive but will still lead to a 403 Forbidden in that case.

The Matrix Public Archive doesn't hold onto any data (it's stateless) and requests the messages from the homeserver every time. The archive.matrix.org instance has some caching in place, 5 minutes for the current day, and 2 days for past content.

The Matrix Public Archive only allows rooms with world_readable history visibility to be indexed by search engines. See the opt out topic below for more details.

Why does the archive user join rooms instead of browsing them as a guest?

Guests require m.room.guest_access to access a room. Most public rooms do not allow guests because even the public_chat preset when creating a room does not allow guest access. Not being able to view most public rooms is the major blocker on being able to use guest access. The idea is if I can view the messages from a Matrix client as a random user, I should also be able to see the messages in the archive.

Guest access is also a much different ask than read-only access since guests can also send messages in the room which isn't always desirable. The archive bot is read-only and does not send messages.

How do I opt out and keep my room from being indexed by search engines?

Only public Matrix rooms with shared or world_readable history visibility are accessible to view in the Matrix Public Archive. But only rooms with history visibility set to world_readable are indexable by search engines.

Also see https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-public-archive/issues/47 to track better opt out controls.

As a workaround for archive.matrix.org today, you can ban the @archive:matrix.org user if you don't want your room content to be shown in the archive at all.

Technical details

The main readme has a technical overview of the project. Here are a few more details.

How do I figure out what version of the Matrix Public Archive is running?

Just visit the /health-check endpoint which will return information like the following:

{
  "ok": true,
  "commit": "954b22995a44bf11bfcd5850b62e206e46ee2db9",
  "version": "main",
  "versionDate": "2023-04-05T09:26:12.524Z",
  "packageVersion": "0.0.0"
}

How does the archive room URL relate to what is displayed on the page?

We start the end of the date/time specified in the URL looking backward up to the limit.

Why does the time selector only appear for some pages?

The time selector only appears for pages that have a lot of messages on a given day/hour/minute/second (more than the configured archiveMessageLimit).

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FAQ