I've just posted the facebook conversation which started this threat of discussion so that we can get to the bottom of why the database might not accept data at certain times. We are considering the server capacity, internet connection, web browser, and whether the data is entered from computer, tablet or phone.
If you experience problems, please comment on this post with a screenshot of any errors and make a note of the time you were doing data entry and the web broweser and machine you were using.
Thanks! Alice
Janet Marshall I had started entering my watches and sightings online but it crashed repeatedly so I gave up and just posted the great wad of sheets from Tiumpan!
Like · Reply · 1 · 18 hrs · Edited
Carol Shaw the database can certainly be buggy at times!
Janet Marshall Carol it doesn't seem to like more than a couple of entries at a time, that or it is gnashing its silicon equivalent of teeth at all our entries!
Carol Shaw when I entered my entries I was putting in 6 or so at a time, David and I added them each day. But we didn't have a sighting of course :(
Katie Dyke Shorewatch Alice Alice E. M. Walters any idea why this might be?
Alice E. M. Walters Janet, is it the watches or the sightings which are causing it to crash? Both I and our database guru have tried to recreate this problem unsuccessfully. Could you send an email to shorewatch.data@whales.org with as much detail as possible about what...See More
Roger Rapley Hi Alice, I can offer an alternative experience in that at no time whist entering the details of 30 watches. plus casual sightings, (including multiple sightings per watch), did I have any difficulty or errors occur. All entries were made during what I knew were likely to be slack times on the database. Experience and instinct suggest that it's unlikely you would be able to replicate the problems described by Janet and others, without a number of concurrent connections to the database simultaneously entering data. May I offer thesuggestion that issue is more likely to be the server's capacity in dealing with multiple threads, than any flaws in the database.
Carol Shaw Makes sense Roger
Roger Rapley All those years developing server services to deliver database functions may not have been entirely wasted :)
Janet Marshall Makes sense to me too - if I recall rightly I entered data during the evening, not in the wee small hours of the morning
Alice E. M. Walters Hmmm... our servers are fairly high spec and hosted down south with business grade, high-speed connections so unless you are loading serious numbers of photos or video at the same time, they *shouldn't* struggle in this way. That said, let's keep it in mind. The other things which might cause an issue are first, a fluctuating connection on your end, Janet. This is the major cause of my own problems, which is why it comes to mind first. Second, I would like to determine whether data entry from a tablet or phone is more likely to result in problems than entry from a computer - is this the case for you, Janet? and thirdly, there may be certain elements of the database which function better through certain browsers - Firefox seems to have less issues than Internet Explorer, for example.
Alice E. M. Walters Let's keep track of all of this so that we can hone down to the 'most likely to crash' scenarios. I've started a section in the database forum and I'm going to paste this conversation into it so that we can return once it has dropped out of the 'current' feed in facebook. If you experience more problems, can you take a screen shot of the error and then add that along with any notes as a comment in the forum?