Affiliation
None
Sun, 06/25/2023 - 05:05
I've been unable to upload any observations through the WebObs interface for almost a week. Each time I try to submit an observation, I get the same error: "The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later." Others have reported the same behavior on and off in the past. In case it was something on my end, I've tried everything I can think of: log out/log in; quit and restart the browser; use a different browser; clear cookies; restart my machine. I get the same result each time. It must not affect everyone because I see new observations appearing on the home page.
Help?
Hello John,
Please send an email to <aavso@aavso.org> explaining what you are doing and please attach to the email the data file you are trying to upload. That way, we can look at the file to help determine what is causing the upload to fail. Many thanks.
Good observing,
Elizabeth Waagen, AAVSO HQ
Thanks for the quick response, Elizabeth. I'm not uploading any files. What I'm trying to do is fill in the fields in the web form for single observations (https://www.aavso.org/webobs/individual). Normally that works fine, and the screen I get after submitting an observation says that it is successful. Now when I try to enter any observations that way I get the "unexpected error". I can write up what happens with screenshots, for example, if that would be helpful.
John
Hi John,
Thanks for letting me know that for you it is the individual observation submission that is not working in WebObs. We'll check into it tomorrow (Monday June 26), and I'll post here when we have an answer. Thank you also for your patience!
Good observing,
Elizabeth
Hi,
I'm getting this error on a number of files. Using the same software to generate the files, about 50% succeed.
I sent an email last Saturday (July 29, aavso@aavso.org) with a couple of the failing files attached but haven't heard back. A "Yep, we got it." would let me know it's in the pipeline. I'll resend a couple of files again today, just in case the first message was absconded by the gremlins.
Thanks|
Brian D. Warner.
Hi Brian,
We didn't receive your email with the files that are failing. Would you please send them again? Thanks!
Best wishes,
Elizabeth
Dear Observers,
Please accept our apologies for the recent trouble with uploading observations to the AAVSO International Database (AID).
The AID allows 6 decimal places of the JD, so if you submit an observation with more than 6 JD decimal digits, WebObs rounds it off. After the upgrade last week, this rounding function wasn’t working correctly.
It has been fixed. If you still have a problem submitting a file, please send an email to <aavso@aavso.org> along with a copy of the file.
If you are not able to upload a single observation, please fill out the form again, take a screenshot of the observation before you try to submit it, and if it fails again, send that screenshot with an email to <aavso@aavso.org>. The screenshot will allow us to see how you are filling out the fields.
Again, our apologies, and our thanks for your patience.
Good observing!
Elizabeth O. Waagen, AAVSO HQ
Thanks VERY much, Elizabeth! I'd never have guessed it was a problem rounding off decimal JD's. I had been routinely submitting JD's with seven decimal places for sufficient precision, and that worked up until a little over a week ago.
I tried just now submitting a small backlog of observations, and they all went through just fine. Thanks again.
John