# Links to Soundcloud "private" not working



## blaine hoopes (Feb 10, 2005)

Why would I set a Soundcloud link "private"? Because I don't want to advertise this recording to the entire world. I only want to share it with people I select such as any member of the SOTW community who is following a particular thread (in this case the "compose a Latin Tune" thread). So I set it private and then anyone following the thread where I posted the private link should be able to get to it.

When you post a link to a soundcloud recording that you have made "Private" (viewable by anyone with the link) the forum post translates the long URL into a shorter version (which works OK for Public links) but that short version doesn't work and when you click it takes you to an error page. The only workaround I've found is to remove the "http://" from the link (this tricks the forum software into not being able to shorten it) and then it shows up in the post as a long URL but this time you can actually follow the URL to a working soundcloud page.

Here is the correct link, complete with http:// as would work normally if it were a "Public" recording

__
https://soundcloud.com/user-460666353%2Fcomo-chingas-ruckatan-latin-tribe

and it takes you to this page instead of the file I linked









vs the same link but with http:// removed
soundcloud.com/user-460666353/como-chingas-ruckatan-latin-tribe/s-ceJtFvN5rL2?si=34d352334e3548599a0f07e340858404&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing


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## Zasterz (Oct 12, 2021)

thanks-- I've actually wondered about this before!


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## blaine hoopes (Feb 10, 2005)

If this helps diagnose. The forum software seems to shorten the link by removing all the long string of numbers and "social sharing" etc. from the URL.

As long as I remove the https:// from the link, I can manually strip off all the long string as shown below and it will still work

soundcloud.com/user-460666353/como-chingas-ruckatan-latin-tribe


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## VSadmin (Mar 20, 2017)

blaine hoopes said:


> If this helps diagnose. The forum software seems to shorten the link by removing all the long string of numbers and "social sharing" etc. from the URL.
> 
> As long as I remove the https:// from the link, I can manually strip off all the long string as shown below and it will still work


Probably the easier option is to post and insert the link. This will then keep the URL fully intact.

You can simply make the post, for example, saying the song title, then insert the link for the song title text. 









I hope that helps.

Daniel


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## blaine hoopes (Feb 10, 2005)

VSadmin said:


> Probably the easier option is to post and insert the link. This will then keep the URL fully intact.
> 
> You can simply make the post, for example, saying the song title, then insert the link for the song title text.
> View attachment 140070
> ...


That is exactly what I'm doing to insert the link and that is what breaks the link unless I manually remove the https:// as I'm inserting the link


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## skeller047 (Feb 12, 2009)

I ran into a possibly related issue with my signature. The forum sodtware seems to want to turn the SoundCloud links into a [MEDIA] tag. Which caused problems, as it pulls a bunch of garbage into the signature and the signature area is too short to display it. Forcing it to use the link rather than the media tag is better. I suspect that the processing built in to the media tag runs into permission problems with your private link.


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