MPC Status Page: Archive (2004 January)

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

Older Enhancements and Resolved Problems

• NEOCP uncertainty maps

  2004 Jan. 29: 10:10. The uncertainty maps in the NEOCP have been extended to include an indication of objects that are close to the earth. Three colors are used to indicate objects at various distances:
  • green, for objects that are more then 0.05 AU from the earth at the time used for the uncertainty map;
  • orange (supposedly, the color appears to depend on your browser/OS) for objects between 0.05 and 0.01 AU from the earth
  • red, for objects within 0.01 AU.
  On the list of offset coordinates, variant ephemeris positions that are orange on the map are flagged by "!" and positions that are red on the map are flagged by "!!".

  The standard color for non-NEOCP uncertainty maps has also been changed from red to green.

  Jan. 29: 13:40. Following feedback from an observer, the shade of green used in the uncertainty maps was darkened, in order to distinguish it from the white background. In addition, another observer reported a problem with variant ephemerides offset from the current date: this has been fixed.

• Computer Upgrades II

  2004 Jan. 27: 14:30. The MPC is planning to merge the existing cluster machines with the new cluster machines on Feb. 6. Following the merge, the existing cluster machines will have their operating systems upgraded to the latest version. When the web-server SCULLY is upgraded, it will be off-line during the upgrade. At the present time, this is expected to occur on Feb. 9. Further information will be posted closer to the date.

  On a related matter, we are pleased to report significant improvements in a number of core processes used by the MPC (an example being a decrease from 260s to 100s in the time taken to do a certain set of tasks). Further performance improvements (over and above the basic 3x increase in raw CPU cycles available) are expected once the two clusters are merged.

• Non-standard-compliant browser behavior

  2004 Jan. 24: 10:00. A user reported that the text area in the New Object Ephemeris Generator was not wide enough to enter an 80-column observational record when using MS IE in conjunction with Windows XP. The text area has been extended to 81 columns, but HTML text areas are defined in terms of characters so an inability to accept the specified number of characters is non-standard behavior. Users should report this to MS and request a fix.

• No residuals blocks for numbered objects in MPES

  2004 Jan. 22: 10:00. A user reported that residual blocks for numbered objects were not available. The reboot of the webserver two days ago caused some logical disknames to not be set up correctly (various configuration work on the existing cluster is being done in order to facilitate moving those machines into the new cluster). This anomaly has been corrected.

• Overheating office

  2004 Jan. 20: 10:00. For some as-yet-unexplained reason, the heat in the office containing the webserver and the new cluster machines was turned up yesterday. The resulting desert-like heat affected the computers and caused at least one of the machine to reboot. Temperatures have now been returned to normal, but short-term replacement of the heating/cooling unit is a priority.

• NEOCP variant ephemerides

  2004 Jan. 14: 16:00. Following a request from a user, the NEOCP has been extended to allow access to ephemerides of variant orbits used in preparing the uncertainty plots. The links to the ephemerides of these variant orbits may be found on the page listing the offsets from the nominal solution.
  • Jan. 15: 16:15. The same user requested that the variant ephemerides be numbered on the offsets page. This has been done.

• Web space quota exceeded?

  2004 Jan. 3: 16:30. There appears to be a problem with the disk quota on the Computation Facility's boxes that may prevent from us from updating webpages and datafiles. Unfortunately, the available commands for determining disk quota and disk-space usage are giving conflicting information, so the source of the quota problem is unknown. We are seeking urgent clarification from the CF and are awaiting a response.
  • 16:40. At least one other MPC staff member has reported problems with their CF account. No response yet from the CF.
  • 20:55. The problems we saw seem to have been cleared up, but there has been no explanation from the CF as to the cause of the problems.

• Links to 2004 MPECs

  2004 Jan. 1: 21:10. A problem arose with the HTML links between MPECs issued in 2004. This was caused by the inherent lack of intelligent error handling in the ftp protocol, triggered at the start of the new year by a file that was not copied from the VAX to the Alpha cluster when the MPEC-filing routines were ported. The missing file has been copied, the affected procedure has been recoded and future circulars should not suffer from this problem.

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