More Than 50 Million Brace for Tornadoes and Destructive Winds

This post explains what to do when an article can’t be retrieved from a link and why you might see a message asking you to paste the article text.

I’ll walk through common causes, quick troubleshooting steps, and best practices for providing content so an accurate, high-quality summary or analysis can be produced.

Table of Contents

Why you might see “I wasn’t able to retrieve the article’s text”

When an automated system or human reviewer responds with a note that it couldn’t fetch an article, it doesn’t mean the article is gone — it means access to the article’s content was blocked, unavailable, or the retrieval method failed.

Broken links, paywalls, ephemeral content, and anti-bot protections are the usual culprits.

Common technical and access-related causes

Understanding the likely reasons helps you fix the issue quickly.

Below are common causes I encounter and what they mean.

Paywalls and subscriptions: Many news sites hide full text behind a login or paywall, which prevents automated retrieval.

Robots.txt or anti-scraping measures: Sites intentionally block bots and scrapers, so requests from scripts or some services are refused.

Temporary downtime or removed content: The page might have been taken down or the server could be temporarily offline.

Geographic restrictions: Some publishers restrict access by region, so the content isn’t available from every IP address.

Malformed or redirecting links: A link with incorrect parameters or multiple redirects can break automated fetching tools.

How to respond when you see this message

If you get a reply asking you to paste the article content, it’s a straightforward usability request: the summarizer needs the raw text to work from.

Providing that text is the fastest way to get a clear summary or analysis.

Quick step-by-step troubleshooting

Try these steps before pasting anything, as they often resolve the issue quickly.

Open the link yourself: Confirm the article loads in your browser and note whether a login or paywall appears.

Save or copy the text: If the article is accessible, copy the article body (not paywalled or behind login) and paste it into the request.

Provide context: If the article is long, mark the sections you want summarized or analyzed.

Share a PDF or text excerpt: If copying is blocked, a screenshot or saved PDF can sometimes be supplied — but text is preferred for better accuracy.

Check for copyright limits: For copyrighted material, provide a brief excerpt or your own summary of the key points if needed.

How to paste content safely and effectively

When you paste the article text, a few practices improve the quality of the summary and speed up the process.

Clear, structured input reduces ambiguity and gives the summarizer what it needs to deliver a useful result.

Simple paste template you can use

Use this template when supplying article text or context.

It makes the request clear and actionable.

Source: [Publisher name and URL]

Length: [Approx. word count or number of paragraphs]

Focus: [What to emphasize — e.g., key findings, tone, policy implications]

Text: [Paste the article body here]

Example: Source: The Daily Science — https://example.com/article.

Length: ~900 words. Focus: Summarize main findings and implications for public policy. Text: [paste article here].

Final thoughts

When you see “I wasn’t able to retrieve the article’s text,” don’t worry — it’s a common, fixable issue.

By checking access, copying the text, and using the template above, you’ll get a precise, high-quality summary faster.

If you’re ever unsure about copyright, provide a short excerpt and your objectives.

That’s usually enough to produce a useful summary or analysis.

Here is the source article for this story: More than 50 million brace for tornadoes, destructive winds as fall…