# Adding files to lists in custom Aleph instance breaks file

**URL:** <https://aleph.discourse.group/t/adding-files-to-lists-in-custom-aleph-instance-breaks-file/61>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [January 19, 2024, 7:20pm UTC](https://aleph.discourse.group/t/adding-files-to-lists-in-custom-aleph-instance-breaks-file/61 "2024-01-19T19:20:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dweisz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ea924/32.png) [@dweisz](https://aleph.discourse.group/u/dweisz)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2024, 7:20pm UTC](https://aleph.discourse.group/t/adding-files-to-lists-in-custom-aleph-instance-breaks-file/61/1 "2024-01-19T19:20:48Z")

</div>

Hi all, Ariana will file technical details below. Essentially, we’ve found that adding files to our Lists fundamentally “breaks” them, in that they will no longer render or are able to be downloaded; however, the text file remains. This has happened both with spreadsheets and PDFs.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ariana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@ariana](https://aleph.discourse.group/u/ariana)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://aleph.discourse.group/t/adding-files-to-lists-in-custom-aleph-instance-breaks-file/61/2 "2024-02-13T22:04:06Z")

</div>

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/alephdata/original/1X/28cda4084a442e36aca6ea769c6ce24bf83c0933.jpeg)

Here’s a screenshot of the error we’re getting. I poked at it and it seems the server isn’t sending `links.pdf` in the entities request. Downloading the file also does not work

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tillprochaska](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f04885/32.png) [@tillprochaska](https://aleph.discourse.group/u/tillprochaska)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2024, 11:53am UTC](https://aleph.discourse.group/t/adding-files-to-lists-in-custom-aleph-instance-breaks-file/61/3 "2024-02-14T11:53:23Z")

</div>

Hi there, thanks for reporting this. I can reproduce the behavior you described and we will fix this in a future Aleph release.

Unfortunately though, Aleph currently doesn’t support adding files to entity sets, so the fix for this will be to hide the “Add to…” button for files – at least in the short-term future.

I’ve created an issue on GitHub that you can subscribe to if you’d like to receive a notification when this issue is fixed: [BUG: Adding files to entity sets breaks file previews · Issue #3610 · alephdata/aleph · GitHub](https://github.com/alephdata/aleph/issues/3610)

Thanks again for reporting this!