Spitzer Heritage Archive Known Bugs and Issues
version 3.1.0, released January 2012, patched 5 April 2012.
Last Updated: 5 April 2012
Table of Contents
Reporting BugsSuggested Browsers
Known Major Bugs
Known Minor Bugs
Idiosyncrasies
Reporting Bugs
The known bugs and issues in this version of the Spitzer Heritage Archive (SHA) are listed here. If you think you have found a bug, before reporting it, please check this list, and read the online SHA help. It may be a "feature" we already know about.
If you have found a real bug then please do let us know by sending email to the Help Desk. Please include your operating system version and your browser software and version.
Suggested Browsers and Platforms
- Safari: at least version 5
- Firefox: at least version 3
- MSIE: at least version 8, though nothing running on XP
- Google Chrome: at least version 9
- Tablets: iPad Safari : Seems to work ok, though not on the iPhone. Cursory testing of a Droid tablet suggests it probably works ok.
Known Major Bugs
1. Depth of Coverage Maps Missing for a Small Fraction of AORs
The Depth of Coverage (DoC) maps are occasionally missing entirely for a small fraction of AORs.
Known Minor Bugs
- Odd browser behavior
On Windows Vista, Help window resize arrows do not display properly.
Workaround: None known; try another platform.Posted: 11 August 2010
On Google Chrome, rotating the image from North up to an angle causes the image to distort.
Workaround: None known; try another platform.Posted: 9 Dec 11
- Strange small tabs
On Firefox, an additional small, blue tab sometimes appears in the top right of the SHA window. Clicking on it does nothing, but its arrival seems to herald other strange behavior, and may (or may not) be related to leaving a session idle for too long. This has not been reliably reproducible by our testers.
Workaround: Reload the SHA, and/or restart the browser. Log in and save searches to easily reproduce them.Posted: 3 Jan 2012
Searching and Search results issues
- Non-prime IRS PUI observations may have primearr=2
Some IRS observations are Peak-Up-Imaging (PUI) only. The arrays cannot be turned off. If the observation pointed just one of the PU arrays on the target, serendipitous off-target PU imaging in the other array is obtained at a position offset from the target. Both of these observations are still tagged "primary" in the search results. This is not consistent with the use of this flag for MIPS data, where similarly, serendipitous off-target data can be obtained. Data in those cases are correctly tagged prime/non-prime. This is anticipated to be fixed in the future.
Workaround: None known, except for examining each PUI frame individually.Posted: 3 Jan 2012
- Help doesn't drop you back where you were
Once you go to the help, particularly from some of the context-sensitive help buttons (blue circled question marks), and then close the help, the SHA does not return you to the screen where you were working.
Workaround: While this is particularly annoying, no workaround is known. This is expected to be fixed in a future SHA version.Posted: 3 Jan 2012
- Tagging doesn't work for batch searches
If performing a batch search, there is no way to tag the search for repeating the search later.
Workaround: None known.Posted: 3 Jan 2012
- Unusual columns visible in the IRS Enhanced Products long form
search
If performing a search of the IRS Enhanced Products with the long form option, the last 5 columns that appear in the list are internal to the guts of the program, and thus should not be visible to users.
Workaround: Ignore these columns.Posted: 5 Jan 2012
- PCRS parameters for IRAC PC observations not shown.
A relatively new option for IRAC post-cryo AORs includes a PCRS peakup. The parameters for the PCRS part of this observation are not shown in the SHA user interface.
Workaround: Download the data and investigate the FITS headers.Posted: 25 Jan 2012
Visualization issues
- Spectrum viewer popup doesn't always appear
If the data tab is selected for a spectrum, and the spectrum viewer appears, when placing the mouse over portions of the spectrum, no popup may appear until the user clicks in the window.
Workaround: Click in the window.Posted: 3 Jan 2012
- Tabs and overlays can persist even when no data are displayed.
If filters are chosen such that no data are left to display, some tabs (e.g., the Coverage tab) persist despite having no data to display.
Workaround: None known.Posted: 29 November 2010
- Cropping then saving images does not save cropped images.
If you load in a FITS image, crop it, and then save it back to disk, the original image (not the cropped one) is sometimes saved.
Workaround: None known.Posted: 3 Jan 2012
- Saving images does not save overlays, and there is no
button/option to save a spectrum.
Saving images does not save overlays, and there is no button or option to save a spectrum. Saving images will save the underlying image as a FITS file (in which case there is no obvious way to save the overlays) or an 8-bit image (e.g. PNG).
Workaround: Take a screen snapshot of your screen. The specific keystroke sequence for your platform and OS version will vary.Posted: 3 Jan 2012
- Some underlying images are too small for the overlay.
For some observations, the automatically-chosen image is too small for the overlay.
Workaround: Manually change the background image.Posted: 3 Jan 2012
Data download issues
- Zip file issues for a lot of data at once
See "too many zip files" idiosyncrasy below.
Login issues
- You can create two SHA accounts with the same email.
You can create two SHA accounts with the same email, but the password reset currently depends on unique emails. Resetting your password fails because the computer only then notices you have two accounts with the same email and doesn't know which to reset. This is anticipated to be fixed earlier in the process (e.g., it will perform that check when setting up accounts).
- Certain other login customizations may fail.
Certain other attempted login customizations may fail or drop you into a cryptic page. (e.g., changing your login password does not tell you that it was successful.) This is anticipated to be fixed. See also non-default browser idiosynchrasy below.
Browser issues
Known Idiosyncracies
'Lost' Downloads
Depending on how your browser is configured, when you download data, your browser may save it in a counter-intuitive place. Under Safari (on the Mac), for small downloads, it might not appear to have done anything at all. It actually has; it's trying to be helpful by doing it quickly. To find where your browser has put your data, (a) search on your local disk for recently modified files; (b) look in the preferences for the browser configuration option of where to put downloaded files; or (c) look for a directory called "Downloads" or something similar.
Missing Level 2 (PBCD) IRAC subarray data
Time series observations of more than 8000 frames or observations taken in IRAC's subarray mode have no post-BCD data for the observation. More than 8000 frames cannot be combined by our online post-BCD pipeline. Data in IRAC subarray mode are not processed through the online post-BCD pipeline at all. The post-BCD pipeline was not designed to work with the three-dimensional data cubes that are the subarray BCDs. When the software was developed it was deemed unlikely that subarray observations would be used for anything other than photometry of single bright objects and mosaics would not be a desired product. As a result, post-BCD products (e.g., mosaics) are not available from the pipeline. Please see the following links for more information on how to use IRAC subarray data: http://ssc.spitzer.caltech.edu/files/spitzer/subarray_mosaic_memo.txt and http://ssc.spitzer.caltech.edu/dataanalysistools/tools/contributed/irac/subcubecollapse/
'Suspended' session
Sometimes, if there is a network hiccup (e.g., you pick up and move your laptop to a different wireless hub), the SHA can be left in a funny state, and does not continue to respond as it should. To avoid this, if you've accomplished a complex search that you want to continue working with or reproduce later, log in to the SHA and save or tag the search. That way, you can recover it easily with a single click the next time you log in.
AOR footprint rendering hangs session
Sometimes, if you scroll through the list of search results too quickly (e.g., using the "down arrow" or "up arrow" keyboard keys) while the AOR Footprint tab is shown in the Details pane, the sequence of very rapid-fire requests to the server to get a background image and render the AOR footprint hangs your entire browser session. There's no known workaround, except to be sure that the AOR footprint tab (or the coverage tab) is not in the foreground when you rapidly scroll through the search results.
Too many zip files
When downloading large quanties of data (big programs, whole campaigns, etc.), the SHA will break up the downloads into "manageable" pieces. If you don't want to click to download each piece, use the downloading script that is provided.
The Download Retrieval Script dialog gives you some options regarding which script you want to use. Generally speaking, the wget script is best for Linux and Unix users. The curl script is best for Mac users, because curl is part of the standard OS distribution; Mac users can also go retrieve and install wget and then use the wget scripts. For any of the scripts, you can also choose to include an option that unzips the zip files automatically.
Save the script to a plain text file, and invoke the script. You can copy and paste the script lines individually into your terminal window, or by typing "csh [yourtextfile]" at the prompt. The files will be automatically and sequentially downloaded to your disk, and if you've selected that option, unzipped as well.
"Dot files"
Using some combinations of browsers and unzipping software (not systematically reproducible) on Macs, the SHA may appear to have given you additional dot-underscore files with your data. We have researched three possible solutions:
- From http://www.macworld.com/article/132556/2008/04/geekfactor2504.html
--
Those pesky dot-underscore files: If you've ever used a USB
memory stick to move files to a Windows or Linux machine, or written
files to a server that doesn't use the Mac's HFS file system, you're
probably familiar with the "dot-underscore files" that are created
when you do so; depending on what you did to the files and/or folders
on the Mac, you will see any number of file names that begin with
dot-underscore (._), followed by the names of the other folders on the
disk. The Mac uses these files on its HFS disk, but they are useless
on other systems.
No More Dot-Underscore Files: Using a new Unix program in OS X 10.5, you can remove those pesky dot-underscore files from folders you copy to non-Mac systems. Prior to 10.5, you had to manually delete them on the other system, or use Terminal trickery to remove them on the Mac prior to copying. As of 10.5, though, you can just use the dot_clean command on the directory in question. Type dot_clean /path/folder to join the dot-underscore files with their parent files. Read OS X 10.5's manual pages (man dot_clean ) for more information. - From http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629
--
--
To configure a Mac OS X user account so that .DS_Store files are not created when interacting
with a remote file server using the Finder, follow the steps below:
Note: This will affect the user's interactions with SMB/CIFS, AFP, NFS, and WebDAV servers.
- Open Terminal.
- Execute this command: defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
- Either restart the computer or log out and back in to the user account.
- Download a program (for Mac) to delete these unwanted files automatically: http://www.zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest4/
Overlay image is an all-sky image
For some searches, you can obtain a list of observations all over the sky. Some of the visualization tabs will then show you an all-sky image with the (tiny by comparison) overlays included. This is actually correct behavior -- it shows you information for all the items returned by your search, and it is trying to indicate that you do in fact have data all over the sky. Zoom in on the all-sky image, or redo the search to limit what is shown in the results window, or impose a filter to limit what is shown in the results window.
Strange behavior when requesting catalogs
Our catalog search options depend on other services, often other IRSA services, to search and display the catalogs. Sometimes these other services are down for maintenance or may be experiencing unusually heavy loads. On those occasions, the SHA user may get an "Unresponsive script" error or a "Call failed on the server" error. Please do let us know if you continue to get these errors; we may not be aware of an overloaded or down server.
Slow behavior when requesting large tables
When rendering long tables, the SHA can take several seconds to finish loading. For example, if you conduct a search returning 2000 AORs, and change the page size from 50 to 2000, the SHA will struggle for a few seconds trying to load the table. A message may appear to let you know that that is what is going on. Very long tables (e.g., the BCDs corresponding to those 2000 AORs, or a big catalog) will take longer. Use caution when searching catalogs (e.g., contributed enhanced products) with a large search radius, as it is surprisingly easy to get so many sources that the catalog retrieval may time out. We recommend you try a smaller region.
Browser "back" button doesn't preserve prior entries.
For returning to an earlier search, don't use the browser "back" button. All your searches from a given session are preserved for you under the "History/Tags" menu.
QA comments seem out of date
Under the Details tab, you can obtain the last QA (Quality Analysis) comments tied to the data. The "last processed" date that may be given there does not necessarily correspond to the last time the data were really processed, but instead the last time that the QA comments were updated. To get the last date and time that the data were actually processed, you need to look at the headers of the BCDs.
Long AOR labels affect the text view
If the search results include some AORs that have labels longer than 30 characters, the "text view" of the search results may have mis-aligned columns.
Clicking on Details button on JOSSO reset password page does nothing
After you reset your password, you can log in again, and you are given a page that includes a "details" button. If you are using a browser that is not your default, nothing happens when you click on the "details" button, but apparently only when using a browser that is not set to be your default browser. Workaround: don't click "details", or go back to your default browser, or reset your default browser.
Clicking reset password twice can lock you out.
After you reset your password, if you click on the email link twice before logging in, it can prevent you from logging in. Workaround: don't click twice, or reset the password entirely again.
Firefox/Linux downloads cause crash
Sometimes, when downloading many zipfiles under certain combinations of Firefox and Linux, Firefox may crash. This error has not been reproducible for our testers here. There is some evidence that this is a Firefox version problem. Workaround: upgrade your Firefox version.
Strange behavior on Thursday mornings and/or near scheduled blocktimes.
Our regularly scheduled database maintenance occurs Thursday morning from 8-10 AM (Pacific Time). You may not be able to search, or you may get peculiar results. Try again after 10AM Pacific time. NEW Dec 2011: if you initiate a session close to a blocktime, it should warn you, or within 10 minutes of work if you are interactively working with a pre-existing SHA session.
Noteworthy Bugs Fixed Since Last Release
Compared to v2.Strange inconsistent behavior associated with the "All IRAC" checkbox.
For certain searches, unclicking "All IRAC" or "All MIPS" or "All IRS" had resulted in strange and inconsistent behavior, e.g., failing to return any results, or failing to show the post-cryo IRAC AORs at all. This is now fixed in version 3.1.
Contributed Enhanced Products catalogs and images not downloadable
You can retrieve entries for contributed enhanced images, but thre was a problem with downloading them through the SHA. It used to be that the results of a catalog search wfor contributed enhaned catalogs ere not displayed. These are both now fixed in version 3.1
Depth of Coverage Maps Incorrect
The Depth of Coverage (DoC) maps available had been wrong for a long time, but are now fixed for the overwhelming majority of AORs. We are still working on a small fraction of AORs; the missing ones are mostly IRS.
pBCD mosaics missing for 137 MIPS AORs
Observations for which MIPS 24 um photometry mode was obtained in the SAME AOR as a 70 um FINE SCALE photometry mode observation do not have pBCD (post-BCD) products in the SHA. They have eBCDs (enhanced BCDs), but not mosaics. These mosaics appear to never have been made (e.g., they were missing from Leopard as well, but never noted before). There are 137 observations for which this is an issue in the entire Archive, and fixed versions have been deployed for 136 of them.
Minor Bug: PI names appear as both "Last name, First name" and "First name Last name"
When searching by PI, some observations appear under the principal
investigator as "Last name, First name" and other (different ones!)
appear under "First name Last name". This has now been fixed.