Recording a historical phenomenon in the editorial quality control of an editorial manager: a 'manuscript' file is not explicitly needed for manuscript submission

Editorial managers (EMs) are human-managed and AI-driven platforms that facilitate the management of online submission of papers to journals. A paper's submission requires the mandatory upload of the manuscript file. This letter is historical documentation of 14 Elsevier journals in which a manuscript file was not explicitly stipulated as a mandatory requirement for submission on their EM (Aries Systems Corporation's Editorial Manager®), discovered by chance between 31 January and 22 April 2023. One year later (13 April 2024), this glitch no longer existed. There is a need to document errors and other glitches in EMs to ascertain human vs AI responsibility in EM management.