As you’ve probably noticed, the SOTA database is now back in the land of the living.
To cut a long story short, the database had been hosted by a 3rd party company, WebHost4Life, in the USA. Two weeks ago they decided to move us onto a new server, and completely messed everything up. There were problems with the DNS, web server, database server, and control panel, which meant that we were unable to do much to fix the problems (We couldn’t even take a backup of our database). Their support desk, although very polite, took days to look into the issues, and seemed to break more than they fixed.
Eventually the decision was reluctantly taken to move to another hosting company, aspnethosting.co.uk . Their data centre is at Manchester University in the UK.
It took a few days to get everything recovered from our backup files and set up on the new server. There were a few glitches on the way, including running out of disk space, and needing to upgrade the server to ASP.Net Version 4. The new ISP was fast to respond and sorted out the issues very efficiently.
When the database came back yesterday, a few minor problems were found. Most of these have now been sorted, including automatic logouts occuring every few seconds (This was because the ISP needed to reenable session-state after upgrading the server), and some out of date summit and scoring data.
Remaining issues that I know of are:
Out of date User Details - This will be fixed tonight. If you find your password doesnt work, please try again tomorrow.
Emails not being sent when a password is changed - We need to make some minor changes for the new email server. Should be sorted tonight.
If you spot any other problems, please send an email to gary@bleads.co.uk
Thank you everyone for your patience and helpful comments.
Yeah, excellent work Gary.
I did have trouble Logging in and my current Callsign wasn’t recognised but got in with my old Call, updated my Log & Details. Working a treat now.
Many thanks Gary for your efforts and time, uploaded my logs this morning.Did have a couple of unexpected log outs but soon re-connected again.73 Don G0RQL.
In reply to G0HJQ:
Thank you for your deliberations Gary.
The increased speed is a real Godsend and I can backup my log in seconds flat. (How many are doing this today?..Almost everybody?!)
One small complaint. Summits activated appear in my log in the wrong order of activation. I.e. if I activate SOTA 1, SOTA 2 then SOTA 3 in a day, my log might reflect 321 or even 312 etc; using bulk or single upload. This has always been the case and it makes some activation days seem physically impossible even though the database is told the time of day. It’s not a big deal but I would like to know why and if I can avoid it in future.
Now you can get back to normal and have a rest from this. Not having the facility for a period did not pose any problems to me personally and I have kept up to my original SOTA Excel Log (as was in 2002-3).
Thank you again for providing this brilliant service over the years and I’m sorry it all went wrong for you through no fault of your own.
I noticed some errors:
-After I submit my last two activation logs, the “info” field of the summit Z3/WM-046 is not showing the exact number of activations.
-On the table of summits for regions Z3/WM and Z3/EM the number of activations are 3 times bigger.
In reply to G0HJQ:
Thank you for your deliberations Gary.
The increased speed is a real Godsend and I can backup my log in seconds flat. (How many are doing this today?..Almost everybody?!)
One small complaint. Summits activated appear in my log in the wrong order of activation. I.e. if I activate SOTA 1, SOTA 2 then SOTA 3 in a day, my log might reflect 321 or even 312 etc; using bulk or single upload. This has always been the case and it makes some activation days seem physically impossible even though the database is told the time of day. It’s not a big deal but I would like to know why and if I can avoid it in future.
Now you can get back to normal and have a rest from this. Not having the facility for a period did not pose any problems to me personally and I have kept up to my original SOTA Excel Log (as was in 2002-3).
Thank you again for providing this brilliant service over the years and I’m sorry it all went wrong for you through no fault of your own.
I seem to recall that for the Figures in SOTAWATCH to be updated to match logs etc loaded into the database site requires a manual update by the Admins.
I seem to recall that for the Figures in SOTAWATCH to be updated to
match logs etc loaded into the database site requires a manual update
by the Admins.
Yes, you’re right. Sotawatch runs completely independently of the database. There’s an import process from the database into Sotawatch. I’m not sure if it’s started automatically, or if Jon needs to do something.
The changes we’ve had to make to the database server mean that the Summits Import code no longer works, and needs updating.
No doubt Jon will sort it out as soon as work and family commitments allow.
In reply to G0HJQ:
Great effort.
Been trying to log in and use the new spot feature… system doesnt recgnize VE1 as a valid association
tnx GL brgds / Bruce VE1nb
I seem to recall that for the Figures in SOTAWATCH to be updated to
match logs etc loaded into the database site requires a manual update
by the Admins.
Nope. We probably talk about different things. When you upload your activator log, the number of QSOs per band etc is immediately shown on sotawatch. Read: used to be shown. Without human intervention.