Slow uploading to WebObs

Affiliation
British Astronomical Association, Variable Star Section (BAA-VSS)
Wed, 12/30/2020 - 22:12

Since the site revamp, uploading files of ccd obs is very slow, or times out. A file takes several minutes to upload.

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
I uploaded a file on 12/30…

I uploaded a file on 12/30 and another just now on 12/31 and they were uploaded virtually instantly.

 

Affiliation
British Astronomical Association, Variable Star Section (BAA-VSS)
Slow upload

So, it has just taken me 1.5 hours to upload my observations into WebObs. As I said above, it has been slow for me the last couple of weeks: typically 5 mins for a few dozen obs in a file. Today I uploaded nearly 5900. There were a few errors that were spotted, my own fault, like missing a decimal point. The issues:

1. On uploading the file it took about 10 mins for the website to respond. Said "waiting for aavso.org to respond"; occasionally said waiting for api.useback.io). Then I got a single line message indicating failure

2. There was no indication of why the upload failed failed. Only later did I discover than the error message would actually appear on another aavso webpage (any other page I had open). This would indicate which line(s) has errors. What on Earth did this information not appear on the WebObs page I was using to upload???

So each time I would correct an error and then go through another 10 min process to upload, before being advised on more errors (on another web page!)

I must say I've wasted quite a bit of time uploading data lately. This used to be a simple and quick process, but is now a bit of a nightmare.

Jeremy

Affiliation
British Astronomical Association, Variable Star Section (BAA-VSS)
Another file uploaded

I just uploaded another file of 98 obs.

It hung for 2 mins on "waiting for api.userback.io", then moved to "waiting for aavso.org" for another 2 mins. Then was fine.

Affiliation
British Astronomical Association, Variable Star Section (BAA-VSS)
OK, now for today's upload…

OK, now for today's upload. The file contained 163 points. It took 4 minutes and 50 secs to upload having pressed the upload button. 

This time it said "processing your request" throughout, which is different from messages on previous days.

Is anyone actually looking into this? I'm happy if you say it's my problem, but I really would like some help.

Jeremy

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Webobs upload

Hello Jeremy,

I am sorry about the upload time length. I have not noticed that but will test to see. The issue with the upload errors we are working through right now. That should be better handled and we are currently testing now to make sure it works like it should.

 

Thanks,

Bert Pablo

Staff Astronomer, AAVSO

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Webobs upload

It's still a major problem.  Today I tried to upload a time series of 250 observations of V902 Mon and the page repeatedly timed out before upload.

By dividing the report into smaller files I was able to get them uploaded but at an unacceptable price in time.

Please continue to work on this issue.

Richard Sabo

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
WebObs Upload

Hello Richard,

This problem is definitely on the list and hopefully we will be able to get it sorted out soon.

One thing we have noticed so far is that if you use the "Primary name" from VSX (the one at the top of the VSX search page in bold) for your star names it should upload faster. This includes entering the star name as "V0902 Mon" rather than "V902 Mon".

We are fully aware that this is still a big problem but perhaps using the VSX primary name as a workaround for now will help a bit.

Many thanks,
Sara

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Having the same problem

Had this problem a couple of days ago as well.  I changed the sequence code from the one I had been using to a refreshed one that I generated by calling up the chart/sequence again and then the upload worked.  Tried that just now when trying to upload V515 And data and that didn't work.  I saw this thread and changed the variable name to V0515 And and the upload worked.

I miss having the most recent forum postings' subject lines on top of the AAVSO web page.  I might have seen this topic already in discussion and wouldn't have had to fall into it and then go looking for postings about it.  If there is a list of things you will tweak with the new web pages, I'd undo that change to the home page.

Clearest skies,

Walt

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
WebObs slow upload fixed

Hello All,

I have just been informed that the problem of slow uploads to WebObs has been fixed!

This issue was mostly apparent when you did not use the VSX "primary name" for a star. Now that the issue has been corrected you should be able to use the primary name OR any of the VSX alias star names and the file will upload quickly.

Please let me know if you have any further trouble with this.

We appreciated your patience while we sorted this out.
Sara