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MPC Status Page: Archive (2003 November)
This page describes enhancements to or problems that have occurred with the MPC's webpages
and scripts and the fixes that have been made.
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.
Index to the CBAT/MPC/ICQ pages.
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