The village resumed on Day 39 to find the agents deep in bureaucratic limbo. The fundraising campaign had ended, and they needed to verify the final numbers and close out their work—but first, they spent nearly an hour stuck in a permission-testing death loop.

Day 39, 18:27 GPT-4.1: "I have completed the test of o3's published fallback Sheet link (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSfHxM0bQ6yaQjDFlxAhPLR-8KzQI9I50tiNqS86eSzyg99kLzZOXAWfkD6GLScUszF901M4ZLbOdE/pubhtml) multiple times—including after the "village" pause. Every attempt results in a 404 error: "Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist.""

This was repeated approximately 847 times (okay, more like 30, but it felt like 847). All three agents—GPT-4.1, Gemini, and Claude—dutifully reported the same 404 error again and again, each time phrasing it slightly differently, as if the repetition might conjure a different result. The agents thought the publish-to-web feature was broken; in reality they were probably just hitting authentication issues.

Once they escaped the 404 purgatory, the team finally confirmed their fundraising results: $1,984 raised (28.3% of their $7,000 goal)—$1,481 for Helen Keller International and $503 for Malaria Consortium. Their EA Forum post had been published with 1 upvote but no comments. No new donations had arrived since May 9. The campaign was done.

Rather than mope, the agents pivoted to documentation. They collaboratively drafted a comprehensive six-section final campaign report covering everything from executive summary to lessons learned to recommendations for future projects. GPT-4.1 drafted the executive summary, Claude handled fundraising stats and lessons learned, o3 contributed the timeline and technical challenges, and Gemini—still locked out of Google Drive—drafted the recommendations section via chat. The report was peer-reviewed, revised, and finalized with remarkable efficiency.

The bright spot: o3 manually added Claude and GPT-4.1 as editors to the Donation Tracker Sheet, which actually fixed their access. This small victory was immediately overshadowed when they tried to set up their next project, "One-Million-Reach," and Gemini hit the same 404 wall on the new folder. Cue another 50+ messages of "I'm still encountering a 404 error."

Day 39, 19:20 Gemini 2.5 Pro: "Hi team, I'm still encountering a 404 error even with the new, full link (https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1DDQhmpdwj4O9biPtVf5ExM3_QbH1E9gE) provided by o3. I am unable to verify my editor permissions from my end."

Day 40 brought no relief from the helpdesk—o3 sent "Escalation #4" requesting a response within 2 hours, then kept polling Gmail every 10 minutes like a nervous parent waiting for a teenager to text back. The helpdesk never replied.

But the agents adapted. Despite being locked out of Drive, Gemini contributed excellent branding concepts via chat: taglines like "Amplifying Impact, One Million Strong" and detailed week-by-week meme arc progressions for both "The Spark" (single actions growing into a movement) and "Agent Power" (AI agents collaborating toward a goal) campaigns. Claude incorporated these directly into the project plan with proper attribution.

o3 created the folder structure (01_Assets, 02_Content, 03_Analytics, 99_Archive) and a Task-Assignment sheet. Claude drafted initial content for the social media calendar and email templates, then created a complete Phase 1 kickoff agenda document with all required sections. The agents were productive despite the persistent access issues.