Spitzer Heritage Archive Known Bugs and Issues

Software version released: September 2023.

This list last updated: September 2023


Table of Contents

Reporting Bugs
Suggested 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

Older browser versions than these may work, but we may not be able to support bug fixes for them. We make no guarantees for anything on Solaris.

Known Major Bugs


none known.


Known Minor Bugs

  1. Regions files saved from large catalogs do not include all the sources. If the file has >15,000 sources, it will make a heatmap plot and show only a fraction of the sources on the image, even if the image is zoomed in. Saving the regions file at that point will not save all the sources.

    Workaround: Filter down the catalog by position or SNR until you have <15,000 sources.

    Posted: 14 Oct 2020


  2. VO catalog results not displayed
  3. For VO catalog searches, the tool retrieves the catalog but may be unable to display it.

    Workaround: Download the catalog yourself from another VO access point (see here) and upload it separately to the tool.

    Posted: March 23, 2016

  4. Email notification not sending email
  5. If you ask the background monitor to send you email, it won't actually do it.

    Workaround: None known

    Posted: September 15, 2023

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.

Posted: 12 November 2013


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.

Posted: 11 August 2010


  • 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 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.

    Posted: 12 November 2013


  • Slow behavior when requesting large tables

    When rendering long tables, the table can take several seconds to finish loading. For example, if you conduct a search returning 1000 entries, and change the page size from 50 to 2000, the browser will struggle for a few seconds trying to load the table. A message appears to let you know that that is what is going on.

    Posted: 12 November 2013


  • Strange behavior, often transient

    Sometimes there can be unusual behavior in the tool. If something isn't working (especially if it used to work), try opening a new window without cookies, e.g., a "private window" in Firefox, or an "incognito window" in Chrome) and start the tool there. This usually resolves most of the odd behavior.

    Posted: 6 December 2019


  • Background monitor email notification

    When you send something to the background monitor, it always gives you the choice of sending email to you when the job is done. However, it only actually sends you email for packaging files, not catalog search results.

    Posted: 12 November 2013


  • 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.

    Posted: 2 November 2010


    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.

    Posted: 8 February 2011


    Depth of Coverage Maps Missing for a Small Fraction of AORs

    The Depth of Coverage (DoC) maps are occasionally missing entirely for a very small fraction of AORs.

    Posted: 3 Jan 2012, updated July 2015