MPC Status Page: Archive (2003 November)

Recent problems are listed elsewhere. Index of other older problems..

Older Enhancements and Resolved Problems

• MPES

  2003 Nov. 28: 21:45. While performing some testing, a problem with ephemeris dates showed up. If you request an ephemeris at one-minute (or one-second) intervals, your requested start date should be rounded to an integral minute (or second). In practice, the date was rounded to an integral hour. This non-documentation-compliant behavior has been fixed.

• Acknowledgements

  2003 Nov. 28: 10:40. The SMTP server queues on a number of machines in the cluster shut down at some point overnight. The machine that sends the acknowledgements was one of those affected. The SMTP server queues have been restarted.
  • 11:40. All affected SMTP server queues have been restarted. The backlog of ACKs have been sent out.

• Residual Statistics

  2003 Nov. 24: 17:40. The preparation of the residual statistic pages was not completed properly after the last batch of MPCs were prepared. The residual blocks for the unnumbered objects were not examined due to a user's file overwriting a file needed by the command file that examined the blocks. The command file has been modified to minimize the chance of a similar conflict occurring in the future. The residual statistic files will be regenerated after the next MPC batch is prepared.

• Last night's DOU MPEC

  2003 Nov. 22: 08:40. Some previously-unusued code in the new DOU MPEC preparation program was triggered in last night's run. Unfortunately, an incorrect loop variable was specified in this previously-untested-in-combat block of code. The code failed and no MPEC was prepared. Last night's DOU MPEC has been abandoned. The code has now been fixed.

• Spam, spam, spam, eggs and spam

  2003 Nov. 14: 18:00. Due to the recent massive increase in incoming spam e-mail, we have been forced to install a spam filter. The spam filter is being triggered by e-mails that contain both a plain ASCII and an HTML version of the message. Observers submitting observation batches are urged in the strongest possible manner to disable the inclusion of the HTML copy. If you do so, your junk rating will improve!

• AUTOACK

  2003 Nov. 10: 11:30. Following a number of cases of incorrectly-specified headers in the MPCs caused by malformed observational headers, the requirements for AUTOACK to recognise an incoming e-mail as containing observations have been tightened. The observational header is required, the COD line must be the first line of the header and any otherwise-valid header lines that occur before the COD line will be ignored. Note that the formal definition of the observational header requires the COD line to come first, this change simply enforces this requirement.

• MPChecker

  2003 Nov. 8: 23:30. Following a user request, the MPChecker was enhanced to allow choice of total or separate motions.

• DOU MPECs

  2003 Nov. 6: 19:31. As noted on MPEC 2003-V27, the issuing of DOU MPECs has been suspended while the preparation routines are rewritten.
  • Nov. 7: 22:45. The necessary program and commmand file changes have been made. We intend to do a test run early tomorrow afternoon. If all works well, automatic issuance of the circulars will resume that night.
  • Nov. 8: 19:50. The manual issuance seems to be working okay. There were a number of minor problems detected that were easily fixed.
  • Nov. 9: 08:40. It seems that the DOU MPEC is not being mailed. Investigation is underway. Problem was found and fixed for future circulars.
  • Nov. 9: 08:45. One minor problem noted and corrected for future circulars. The new identifications and double designations were not referenced in our files following their appearance on MPEC 2003-V40, therefore they reappeared on MPEC 2003-V41.

• Last night's DOU MPEC

  2003 Nov. 4: 12:00. The referencing of unperturbed one-opposition orbits on last night's DOU MPEC failed, with the result that the orbits are not available in the MPES. Since MPC preparation is underway, a fix may be some time in coming,
  • Nov. 4: 14:15. The failure mentioned above is more properly described as a "failure to pick up all the unperturbed one-opposition orbits that needed publication".
  • Nov. 4: 14:15. An investigation indicates that part of the DOU MPEC preparation routine will need to be rewritten to better handle the differences between circular preparation during processing and MPC preparation periods and their overlap. This rewriting will happen after the Nov. MPCs are finished.

• (P)Recovery MPECs

  2003 Nov. 1: 13:00. A problem with special MPEC preparation yesterday caused two (p)recovery MPECs to not be issued. Although the observations appeared on last night's DOU MPEC the unusual circumstance of the problem means they will be reissued today.

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