Database problems October 2015

The database is still not working correctly but it is much better than it was. I have been able to stay logged in for the full inactive timeout of 10mins on many occasions and I have been kicked out early. I’m not sure how much of the early timeout is just the excess load.

I’ll be working with the hosts on the problems starting next Monday so that we can get the problems fixed and build some future capacity increases into our services.

This means that we will have to live with less than perfect performance till next week. From my experiences however, it works fine for CSV uploading. There’s no problem in trying to use the system other than it being annoying having to log in many times. Most of what you need can be done without being logged in anyway.

As I said before, the web server is having problems, but the database and data is on a separate system and is backed up to a third system.

I’d would like to thank the many people who have offered help and suggestions and kind words.

I’ve closed the other topic as it has served its purpose.

2 Likes

May I suggest to close also my topic “URGENT matter!” now?

73 tks, Heinz

Good point, done.

Agree with Andy.

Entered 100 chaser points by hand at 2230 UTC.

Kicked out just twice.

73
Roy G4SSH

Worked for me to do a manual upload of about 200 points this afternoon with only a couple ‘kick-outs’. Appreciate your efforts to fix this on all of our behalf.

73 and TU!

Jim N6KZ

Today I caught up on my activator and chaser logs. What struck me was how sporadic the database problem is. Sometimes I was kicked out before I could even log any contacts in an activator log. I was kicked out several times during one log of 35 contacts. Later this evening, I was able to complete a couple of large activator logs with no kick-outs! I was typing them in - I’m slow, so they take a while - and then I double-check and correct, which adds time. Since the system retains what it has received before the kick-out, there’s little lost data or lost time.

Some S2S logs took several tries, because they’re not retained until they’re complete.

Thanks for all the work to de-bug and restore the system to working efficiently.

George
KX0R

I still get kicked-out after one or two inputs. What to do? Rienus

The best work-around for putting in logs is to use the CSV upload option. That way, if the system cuts you off you have the file ready to try again with…

As Rick says, CSV does solve most of the current issues. The database is usable in this state but is not so good for people typing in entries. It’s not going to get better until we re-home the database and that is ongoing.

Saisie works well for activator logs, but is there an equivalent for generating CSV chaser logs?

Elliott, K6EL

I think Stuart/Stewart G0LGS has a tool that is good for that. Or look on Christophe ON6ZQ’s SOTA software directory page.

Hi Elliot and all,
SAISIE SOTA works perfectly for activator and chaser logging.
It creates CSV files for activator and chaser, which can be fast and easily uploaded into the database.
I have been using it for both over several months with great success.
I highly recommend it.
Best 73 de Guru

I have been using Saisie for all my chaser activities in the last year as well. If you leave the field for the SOTA reference empty it just produces a “chaser file”. I normally upload a CSV chaser file about every two weeks with about 50 entries…

73, Sylvia OE5YYN

Hello,
I use “Sota CSV Editor” to create the CSV of my chase. Works great.

We’ve got different alternatives, thanks to the effort and share of some contributors for free.
Thanks for that Alain F6ENO and Stewart G0LGS
(and maybe other unknown soft programmers…)

VY 73 de Ignacio

I’m just wondering whether there is a time estimate for the reinstatement of summitslist.csv. It will be a real nuisance if it isn’t back at the next update of the summits, which I think is only a few days away.

I don’t use any of the “last activation” data in the file (in fact I find it a bit of a nuisance). If daily autogeneration remains a problem, a static file built whenever there are changes to the summits would do me fine.

I also read on social media that the SOTA Goat app has a big problem. It appears that when you tell it to update its internal list of summits, it trashes the existing list before checking that the download will definitely work. If the download fails, you’re left with nothing. Obviously this is a bug in the app, but the fact remains that many of its users are now painted into a corner. This doesn’t affect me personally at the moment.

Martyn M1MAJ

There will be updated files available for the 1-nov updates for both users and the mapping project. Depending on whether the move to new servers has been sorted by then or not then these files will either generated by the live database on its (new) home or they’ll run by me on my test DB and ftp’d to the DB server.

The DB is being moved to a new server soon. This will result in it being totally offline for a period whilst files are ported and assorted configuration files/paths are updated.

This is advance notice of the move. At present I don’t know when this will be or for how long it will be offline. I will post a sticky message when I know more.

Thanks very much for the advice to use CSV files. I downloaded the G0GLS program and uploading works perfect and it’s much easier to work with. Great!