“the_author_posts_link” linking to “the_author_link”

in my template, my tag <?php the_author_posts_link(); ?> is generating a link to the authors home page (<?php the_author_link(); ?>) rather than their posts.

also <?php the_author(); ?> is generating the author name and authors home page link rather than just the authors name. I dont care muchh about this issue but it may be related to the author posts link which i need to sort.