Printer-friendly version
Follow the MPC on Twitter Follow the MPC on Facebook Follow the MPC on Google+ The MPC blog See all the MPC RSS feeds

MPC Status Page

This page describes enhancements to and problems that have occurred with the MPC's webpages and scripts and the fixes that have been made. Resolved problems will remain in the Outstanding Problems sections for a brief period after resolution before being moved. This page will also try and give advance notice of the unavailability of these services due to network maintenance.

Known problems with contacting certain e-mail addresses are listed elsewhere.

Unless otherwise indicated, all times on this page are UTC times. Prior to 2010 Nov. 7, the times shown are local times (either Eastern Standard Time [UTC-5h] or Eastern Daylight time [UTC-4h], as appropriate).

Use the feedback form to report new problems or to comment on this page.

Status Messages and Outstanding Problems

  • Unexpected Power Interruption May 16
    2013 May 16: 16:00. We had one hour's notice that power to the building where part of our computer system resides would be turned off to allow engineering work. We were able to stop the automated processes and dismount the shadow sets, but were unable to stop the machines restarting when power was restored. This uncontrolled power up has caused major problems to the cluster. One machine is off line (service has been called) and one external disk box is not sharing its disks (one member of each of four three-member shadow sets). No data has been lost, but until the affected machine has been repaired, certain internal tasks may be delayed.
    • One feature that we cannot easily replicate while the off-line machine is unavailable is complete datasets necessary for the various MPChecker facilities. Our internal checking routines are not affected by this problem.
    • There is a workaround in place for the MPChecker services. Note that full functionality is not yet back in place as the service is missing the nearby-epoch data for NEOs and the historical data for all objects.

  • Network Interruption May 14
    2013 May 14: 16:00. We have been reminded that the main network router at 60 Garden Street will be upgraded during the time period 21:30 UTC on May 14 to 01:30 UTC on May 15. MPC webservices should remain accessible during this network outage, but updating of pages will not be possible due to internal network disruption.

  • Potential Service Interruptions May 18
    2013 May 14: 13:25. We have been informed that Computation Facility services will be unavailable between 13:00 and 18:00 UTC on Saturday, May 18. CF webservices and e-mail service will be unavailable during this period. The MPC webservices (and the updating of data used by the services) should be unaffected by this downtime.

  • SKYCOV Restored
    2013 Apr. 8: 16:26. The SKYCOV service has been restored to full functionality and sky coverage data is again available up to the current date.

  • SKYCOV and DELCODE Removals
    2013 Apr. 6: 01:52. We are now looking at repairing the SKYCOV service. This will also fix the problem of the automatic removal of DELCODE requests. In the meantime, the script that validates DELCODE requests for removal will forward the request to a staff member for removal.
    • Apr. 7: 13:45. Automated removal of DELCODE requests was reactivated last night. Please report any problems with removals.
    • Apr. 7: 15:45. The SKYCOV service is almost restored. Batches of sky coverage are being copied to a temporary directory on the app server. We just need to move those copied files to their final locations and rebuild the catalogue of available files. These tasks will be done tomorrow.

  • File Protection Problems on Web Server
    2013 Mar. 27: 12:15. Following the updating over the past two nights of various files on the web server machine, it appears that the transfer process has suddenly started disabling world/other read permission on two of the many files that it copies. This is annoying as it prevents the MPES from running. This problem has occurred in the past, for different files over varying periods of time. We are investigating the best way to locate problem files and reset the permissions if found to be wonky.
    • 12:45. The potential source of the problem has been identified and a fix has been implemented. As to why only two of four transferred files (all unpacked into the same directory) were affected by this problem, we have no idea!

  • AUTOACK Problem
    2013 Mar. 25: 20:32. The machine that sends out ACKs and processes incoming e-mails is having hardware issues. We are investigating and attempting to move processes to another machine.
    • Mar. 26: 16:31. A rebuild of the process was required. A functioning version of AUTOACK is now running on another machine. Some recent observations batches have been ACK'ed by this new routine running in test mode. Other observation batches that arrived after Mar. 25 17:16:21 UTC and before March 26, which were processed manually during the outage, will be forwarded to AUTOACK. Observers may receive two (or more) ACKs for messages. A semblence of normalcy has been restored, further work will be necessary to add functionality to the new AUTOACK process.
    • Mar. 26: 14:10. The SKYCOV service has also been affected. A partial fix to this problem is forthcoming (accepting of incoming e-mails), but a full fix will have to wait until after the March Minor Planet Circulars are prepared.
    • Mar. 26: 20:14. Extensive testing of the new routine showed up some problems, which have all been fixed. Automated ACKs have resumed.

  • E-mail Submission of Observations Via mpc@cfa Shut Off
    2013 Mar. 4: 13:32. As noted on MPEC 2013-A21, the e-mail address mpc@cfa can no longer be used for submission of observations. E-mail submission of observations must be via obs@cfa. Any future submissions of observations to mpc@cfa will not be acknowledged. The e-mail address mpc@cfa will continue as a general contact address for the MPC.

  • No Mid-Month MPS Batch
    2013 Feb. 8: 23.55. As a direct result of this weekend's major snow storm in New England and the consequent major risk of extended power outages, there will be no mid-month MPS batch issued this weekend.

  • Problem With MPES
    2013 Jan. 30: 15:14. It appears that there is a problem with one (or more) of the data files used by the MPES. We are investigating.
    • 16:14. The problem with the MPES data files has been located and fixed.

  • Intermittent Network Problems
    2013 Jan. 9: 22:40. We have received a report from our CF that Harvard is investigating intermittent network connectivity problems. We have already received a report of a script being temporarily inaccessible.

  • Extended Power Outage at CDP
    2013 Jan. 3: 15:01. There was a four-hour power outage at CDP between 07:30 and 11:20 this morning. The website and scripts should again be visible. Internal operations are being restarted as necessary.
    • 21:10. We have been informed that the power issue this morning fried one of the main electrical power fuses in the computer room. It will be replaced at 22:00 on Monday, January 14. This will require shutting off the power. The downtime is expected to be under 30 minutes, but one hour is the announced timeframe. Website and scripts will be off-line from around 21:30 until power is restored.

  • December 28 MPCAT-OBS Comet File Replaced
    2012 Dec. 30: 21:50. Following a report from a user that the MPCAT-OBS file of comet observations was the same as that from the previous month, the file has been replaced.

  • December 28 DOU MPEC
    2012 Dec. 28: 06:00. Tonight's DOU MPEC will not be issued, to avoid any possible conflict between its processing and the processing associated with the filing of the Dec. 28 MPC batch which is still running.

  • Malformed MPCAT-OBS Files (December 19)
    2012 Dec. 19: 23:45. A number of users have informed us that the mid-month complete observation files associated with the 2012 Dec. 16 batch of MPS are corrupted. We have tracked down the reason for this corruption and are regnerating the files.
    • Dec. 20: 03:53. Corrected files have been put on-line.

  • SMTP E-mail Interruption (December 18)
    2012 Dec. 17: 16:45. We have been informed that the CF's SMTP server will be off-line for approximately 60 minutes beginning at 20:00 UTC on Tuesday, December 18, to allow replacement of a faulty CPU. Attempts to send e-mail to us during this period will fail, but the mail should queue up on the sending computer for a subsequent resend attempt.

  • Missing Objects in MPChecker
    2012 Nov. 1: 16:00. The previous problem of missing objects in the MPChecker service has resurfaced. We are investigating.

  • Fixes for a Number of Problems
    2012 Oct. 23: 15:00. A number of fixes for minor web-based problems have been made.
    • The lists of Trojan objects are working again.
    • Recently-discovered comets are accessible in both the MPES and MPChecker.
    • The complete file of skycov pointing data has been moved from the CF anon-ftp site to our own web server. The updating of this file is now on a monthly schedule.

  • Last Night's DOU MPEC
    2012 Oct. 17: 14:00. Last night's DOU MPEC has been abandoned due to an internal problem.

  • Power and Network Problems
    2012 Oct. 14: 10:00. There are problems with the MPC machines over at 60 Garden Street. We will investigate as soon as possible.
    • Oct. 15: 03:00. A UPS has failed. This caused one machine to go off-line and three others to reboot. In addition, the main switch controlling the small intra-net is having problems: it seems to be resetting itself every 10 seconds, which is preventing the rebooting machines from coming up cleanly.
    • 04:00. The shadow sets are rebuilding, we'll see what progress has been made in the morning.
    • 09:30. No progress on the shadow sets. The cluster is being rebooted. Ensuring that nothing is left from incomplete runs of automated processes will take a while.
    • 15:00. The final bits are being restarted.

  • MPEC 2012-O37 Resend
    2012 July 31: 19:37. MPEC 2012-O37 has just been remailed. The initial mailing failed: the VMS side handed the necessary files over to mpcapp1; mpcapp1 handed off the relevant files to the mail system; the mail system handed off the files to the Harvard mail server; then nothing. We will try to find out what went wrong on the Harvard side.

  • Temporary Move of Webserver
    2012 June 26: 19:56. The MPC webserver mpcweb1 is having issues. While we investigate (and fix!) these problems, the webserver has been moved to our database machine, mpcdb1 (131.142.195.57). A temporary change has been made in the DNS records, but this change may take time to propagate. Users should continue to access URLs at www.minorplanetcenter.net as usual.
    • 20:18. We now see the new IP addresses on our home systems.
    • June 27: 03:07. We are moving the hostname www.minorplanetcenter.net back to mpcweb1.

  • Customize Page
    2012 June 15: 03:41. A user reported a problem with the Customize page script. Incomplete pages would be returned. The problem has been identified and fixed.

  • Time Issue on Scully
    2012 June 6: 16:18. The system time on scully seems to be misconfigured. Displaying the date and time shows a UTC time, but the timezone is indicated as EDT. This is confusing the cgi scripts.
      17:45. The system timezone has been set to UTC. Cgi scripts should behave normally.

  • Problem With (Some?) Odd-Epoch Elements in MPES
    2012 May 18: 15:30. As a result of a MPC member noticing a message detailing a problem with an MPES ephemeris on a mailing list, it has been determined that some comet elements may have been incorrectly integrated to a current epoch. The use of a current epoch in the MPES is intended to allow observers to generate their own unperturbed ephemerides, with reasonable results. The problem seems to be related to the recent procedure (running under Linux) introduced for producing odd-epoch elements. As a test, we are regenerating the odd-epoch comet elements using the old method (running under OpenVMS).
    • 17:47. The offending data file has been replaced. The correct elements and ephemeris are now returned in the MPES. The orbital elements for software packages have been regenerated. We are trying to reproduce the error on the Linux side that caused this problem, but have not yet succeeded.

  • Webserver Rebooted
    2012 Apr. 30: 18:15. The MPC webserver machine has been rebooted, due to another critical memory shortage, presumably caused by a memory leak. The condition was flagged by a monitoring tool, but we are investigating the causes for the leak.
    • May 3: 14:30. We have identified a potential cause for the reboots. It seems that certain search engines are ignoring the robots.txt file and are pounding the DB with thousands of requests that return large amounts of data. The IP addresses (and sub-domains) of these problem search engines have been blocked. Further blocks may be put in place as needs arise.

  • Webserver Rebooted
    2012 Apr. 23: 14:37. The MPC webserver machine has been rebooted, due to a critical memory shortage, presumably caused a memory leak. The condition was flagged by a monitoring tool, but we are investigating the causes for the leak.

  • Network Problems at CDP?
    2012 Apr. 18: 02:40. We are receiving reports that MPC webpages and services are unavailable. The public-facing machines are up and running. We are not yet sure what the problem is, but are investigating.
    • 04:10. The webserver machine has been rebooted. Pages are being served as normal.

  • Sending of Designations II
    2012 Apr. 10: 01:30. The datafiles necessary to allow the resumption of the AUTODES service have been recovered from the failed system. The automatic sending of designations has resumed.

  • Recent MPEC non-mailing
    2012 Apr. 1: 15:00. Recent MPECs do not seem to have been mailed out via mpcapp1. The affected circulars are numbers 2012-F107 to 2012-F114, and 2012-G01 to 2012-G06. The necessary files for each mailing have been copied from the VMS side to the Linux side (confirmed by examination of the VMS log files) and the circulars are up on the website, so the VMS side is working normally. The Linux system thinks that they've been e-mailed, since the files associated with each mailing that get deleted after the mailing have been deleted. We are investigating. The DOU MPECs are unaffected by this problem, as they continue to be mailed out via the old route. Use of the new route for the DOU MPECs, which was planned for the next few days, will be delayed.
    • 16:15. MPECs 2012-G08 and -G09 have been e-mailed without problem. No modifications were made to the mailing process on the Linux systems. The missing MPECs will be re-mailed later today.
    • Apr. 2: 03:06. All the missing MPECs have been remailed.
    • Apr. 11: 15:05. The DOU MPEC is now being issued via the new route.

  • Multiple e-mail copies of MPEC 2012-F75
    2012 Mar. 23: 19:05. The first MPEC (issue 2012-F75) has just been issued via the new mpec@mpcapp1 route. The script that issued this circular was run several times, since it appeared that nothing was happening and that the script had crashed. This was apparently not the case and multiple copies of this circular were sent out. There should be only one e-mailed copy of MPEC 2012-F76.

  • Sending of Designations
    2012 Mar. 16: 16:45. The failure of a machine has caused the automated designation sender to cease functioning. It may take some time for this service to resume operation, as we have to recover data from a disk.

  • Network Outage Planned (Thursday Feb. 9)
    2012 Feb. 8: 15:40. We have just been informed that there will be a two-hour network outage at CDP (where the MPC is now based) from 09:00 UTC (04:00 EST) on Thursday, February 9. This outage is to allow an upgrade of the network router that connects CDP to the CfA site. There will be no network connectivity to/from CDP during this window.

  • Missing Orbits in MPES
    2012 Feb. 8: 14:30. We have received a couple of reports of problems accessing orbits in the MPES. The problem has been traced to an incorrect build of a monthly data file. The affected file is being rebuilt.
    • 19:00. The problem has been fixed.

  • Problem accessing www.minorplanetcenter.net
    2012 Jan. 28: 01:30. A number of people have reported getting no response from www.minorplanetcenter.net since about 00:20. We see the same behavior. The machine is up and accessible. It appears to be a routing problem within the Harvard network. We are investigating.
    • 02:30. The problem seems to have resolved itself.

  • January 26 DOU MPEC
    2012 Jan. 26: 13:30. The January 26 DOU MPEC was abandoned due to a failure early on in the production procedure.

  • January 12 DOU MPEC
    2012 Jan. 12: 16:00. The January 12 DOU MPEC was abandoned due to a failure early on in the production procedure.

  • CfA Network Problems?
    2012 Jan. 11: 03:20. We are experiencing network problems in accessing our work accounts from home. We are receiving reports that outside users are experiencing issues accessing the MPC web site. We are checking whether there are network problems at CfA with our Computation Facility. Access was restored after some hours. No explanation for the problems has been forthcoming.

  • December 31 DOU MPEC
    2011 Dec. 31: 15:54. The December 31 DOU MPEC was abandoned due to a system failure early on in the production procedure.

  • Network Outage Planned (Monday Dec. 19)
    2011 Dec. 15: 20:50. We have just been informed that there will be a four-hour network outage at CDP (where the MPC is now based) from 23:00 UTC (18:00 EST) on Monday, December 19. This outage is to allow the building landlord to re-route network cables into the building. The outage will affect access to the MPC website and web scripts. The AUTOACK process will also be disabled during this outage.

  • New Object Ephemeris Generator
    2011 Nov. 29: 23:05. A corrected executable has been put in place for the New Object Ephemeris Generator script. The long-standing problem of ignoring a user's motion options has been fixed.

  • Problem with MPC Database
    2011 Nov. 27: 15:30. There is a problem with the MPC DB search feature. This is related to additional information that is being incorporated into the DB. The relevant person has been alerted.
    • 16:35. Normal functioning of the MPC Database has been restored.

  • Problem with Lightcurve Database
    2011 Nov. 26: 03:00. Following a report from a user, it is apparent that there is a problem with the software controling the Lightcurve Database. The relevant person has been alerted.
    • 03:55. Normal functioning of the Lightcurve Database has been restored.

  • Forthcoming E-Mail Outage (Friday Nov. 25)
    2011 Nov. 24: 03:30. We have just been informed that the Computation Facility will be installing OS patches between 11:05 UTC and 11:35 UTC on Friday, Nov. 25. During this time period e-mail messages will not be delivered (either inbound or outbound). Incoming e-mail should be redelivered automatically once the work is completed.

  • Minor Planet Ephemeris Service not functional
    2011 Nov. 14: 15:45. A number of users have reported that the MPES has been non-functional since 06:30. We are investigating.
    • 15:57. An examination of the script-server error logs shows that the first instance of this problem occurred at 06:17:53 UTC.
    • 16:23. Some garbage was inadvertantly added to one of the monthly work files. This garbage has been removed from both the master monthly work files and from the versions used in the MPES. The MPES should now return ephemerides as normal.

  • Incorrect Dates of Discovery and Sites for Numbered Minor Planets
    2011 Nov. 11: 20:26. Following a report from a user about apparent incorrect discovery circumstances for newly-numbered minor planets, we are checking the details for 107 suspect objects.
    • Nov. 11: 22:35. A number of published discovery details will require modification. We will make the changes directly in the master discovery files and document those changes in the next batch of Minor Planet Circulars. We are also investigating why the problem occurred.
    • Nov. 12: 17:35. The reason for the problem has now been determined and the documentation for the preparation procedure has been modified to better handle the issue. We can now investigate what changes to the discovery details need to be made.
    • Nov. 24: 03:25. The discovery details for 77 numbered minor planets have been corrected in the on-line list. Corrected details will appear in the December batch of Minor Planet Circulars.

  • November 9 DOU MPEC
    2011 Nov. 9: 11:00. The November 9 DOU MPEC (2011-V33) is being mailed out. It is large (~5.6 MB) and this is causing many mail servers to refuse delivery. Given the size of the circular, it may take some time for the mailing process to complete. MPEC 2011-V33 is the largest such circular ever issued and is almost twice the size of the previous "record holder", MPEC 2001-W71.

  • November 8 DOU MPEC
    2011 Nov. 8: 13:00. The November 8 DOU MPEC was abandoned following a problem with production caused by the huge number of orbits.

  • Missing Objects in MPChecker
    2011 Oct. 24: 18:00. A user reported that entering an observation of a newly-designated minor planet into the MPChecker did not produce a match to that object. The problem was traced to the build procedure of the data files for the webserver. This problem has existed since Oct. 11. The problem has been fixed and updated datafiles have been copied over to the webserver.

  • Väisälä Orbits in MPES
    2011 Oct. 14: 15:30. We have received a couple of reports of problems with Väisälä orbits in the MPES. The first and last dates are shown as -4712 Jan. 1 and the absolute magnitude is zero. These quantities appear to have been trashed on the orbit records for some Väisälä objects on the webserver. Not all objects are affected. We are investigating.
    • 15:50. We have identified the problem, an issue with building the secondary datafiles for the webserver. The fix will be visible externally after the next DOU MPEC. In the meantime, the ephemeris positions of the affected objects are correct.

  • Publication of 2011 Oct. 12 MPCs
    2011 Oct. 13: 15:30. A couple of problems have surfaced with the on-line publication of the 2011 Oct. 12 MPCs. The protection on the complete file of observations of numbered minor planets was incorrect, so that outside users could not access it. In addition, the file itself was truncated (being only about half the correct length). The first problem may have been a consequence of the second. Both problems have been fixed. Unfortunately, there are no log files available to check, since the file was prepared on a Linux system and transferred to another Linux system. So we have no idea what went wrong and we cannot be sure that this problem will not reoccur in the future.

  • Forthcoming E-Mail Outage (Wednesday Oct. 19)
    2011 Oct. 12: 16:03. We have just been informed that the Computation Facility will be performing disk upgrades between 21:30 UTC and 23:00 UTC. It is unclear if this maintenance will affect SMTP e-mail delivery. If it does, messages will not be delivered during the above-mentioned period, but should be redelivered automatically once the work is completed.

  • Repeated Observations in DataBase
    2011 Sept. 15: 19:05. A user reported finding duplicate observations when extracting observations via the DataBase interface. Strictly speaking, these are not duplicate observations as the records differ in the reference. In each case, one of the observations appeared on an MPEC, while the other appeared on a MPS. Clearly, the MPEC-published observations are not being replaced by the MPS-published observations. We are examining this problem. The duplicate observations are not present in our master files (copies of which are available via the MPCAT-OBS service). The duplicate observations in the DB will be removed shortly. Another problem that we will fix is related to the insertion of some observations that do not seem to have been inserted correctly.

  • Forthcoming Network Outage (Sunday Sept. 18)
    2011 Sept. 15: 18:25. We have just been informed that the Computation Facility will be performing network maintenance between 11:00 and 12:00 UTC on Sept. 18. Connections to our web services will be unavilable for up to 30 minutes in this window.
    • Sept. 18: 13:50. Automated processes and execution queues were shutdown beginning at 10:00 to try and prevent problems with remote resources being inaccessible. All execution queues have been restarted and the automated processes are restarting.

  • Planned Outage in AUTOACK
    2011 Sept. 15: 14:30. There will be a brief outage in the AUTOACK service between 16:00 and 17:00 UTC. This is to allow a NIC to be replaced. AUTOACK is the automated process that accepts incoming e-mail and acknowledges observation batches. Assuming no problems with removing the old NIC, downtime should be about 10 minutes. No special action is required by submitters of observations.
    • 17:05. This work has been postponed due to the need for further examination of network errors.

  • Problem with MPES and Comet Fragments
    2011 Aug. 20: 18:30. A user reported that requesting "213P" from the MPES resulted in the elements/ephemeris for "213P-B" being returned. This is now fixed.

  • "Customize This Page" Problem
    2011 Aug. 15: 22:20. A user reported errors when attempting to use the Customize This Page script. A simple recopy of the executable fixed the problem.

  • July 26 DOU MPEC
    2011 July 26: 14:00. The July 26 DOU MPEC was abandoned following the unplanned reboot of a cluster machine overnight.

  • Problem With Designation Linking in MPC Database
    2011 July 22: 22:22. The identification/double-designation table in the MPC Database is corrupted and will have to be rebuilt. This rebuild will occur in the near future and will mean that DB queries using non-principal designations may not return the expected results until such time as the table is rebuilt completely. Some small insertions into the new table will be used to check that all is well before the main bulk of the identiications are inserted. We apologize for the inconvenience.
    • July 23: 16.00. The test insertions into the new table showed the same problem. A close inspection of the relevant script revealed the reason for the mis-linkings. A fix is in the works, then the table will be rebuilt anew.
    • July 23: 18.20. The identification/double-designation table has been rebuilt. Tests show the problem cases identified earlier are now handled correctly. Please report any anomalies.

  • Problem With Script Server
    2011 July 18: 15:00. A number of users have reported problems accessing the webscripts. We are investigating.
    • 16:00. The problem was traced to a malformed data file. It was replaced and a number of zombie jobs were deleted.

  • Problem With Certain Objects in MPES
    2011 July 16: 15:30. A user has reported problems accessing ephemerides for unnumbered minor planets in the MPES. The problem is due to the non-instantaneous nature of the updating procedure associated with the filing of material from a MPC batch. The last bits of the filing are being performed now.
    • 18:20. Generation and copying of data files is complete.

  • Protection on Complete File of Numbered Minor Planet Observations
    2011 June 20: 15:50. A user reported an Error 403: Forbidden error when trying to access the complete file of numbered minor planet observations. It seems that the copy procedure that placed the files in that directory set the protection for that one file (alone!) to no access for anyone other than the owner. All the other files transferred at the same time had correct protections. The protection has been reset to read access for all.

  • Problem With Certain Objects in MPES
    2011 June 16: 18:15. A number of users reported problems accessing ephemerides for objects with Väisälä elements. A request for 2011 LN3, produced output for 2011 KD41. The problem, now fixed, was traced to a failure to unpack a zip file containing updated index files for the orbital elements. This was a transient problem. The sftp system does not report a useful error message to the OS. A workaround for this glaring limitation has been implemented.

  • Shutdown of www.minorplanetcenter.org
    2011 June 7: 16:50. The www.minorplanetcenter.org site has been shutdown. Traffic to that site will now be redirected to the .net site. It may take some time for the redirect to make its way around the name servers.

  • Network Reconfiguration
    2011 June 4: 13:00. There may be temporary outages in the web services over the next hour or so while we do some reconfiguration of the network connections for the public-facing web machines.

  • MPES Problem
    2011 May 11: 15:00. We have received a number of reports that the MPES is returning incorrect orbits for objects designated in 2011. We are investigating.
    • 15:55. The problem was traced to a .zip file copied to the script server that was not unpacked. Normal service should have been resumed.

  • Ubasti Retired
    2011 May 2: 18:00. We have been informed that access to the http port on the old webserver (Ubasti) has been disabled by the Computation Facility. Please use the corresponding pages on the .net site. With one exception, all services have been ported to the new server. The one exception is the MPCOBS service: users should extract the observations they require from the MPC Database interface.

  • New Object Ephemeris Generator
    2011 Apr. 30: 22:15. We have received a couple of reports of problems with the new New Object Ephemeris Generator script. These include: misreading the date if no date is entered and hourly output of ephemerides is selected (fixed); incorrect motions (the motions are always displayed in "/hour, regardless of the selection); and incorrect local circumstances. Fixes are being worked on.

  • Incorrect Dates of Discovery and Sites for Numbered Minor Planets
    2011 Apr. 21: 21:25. Following a report from a user about apparent incorrect dates of discovery for four recently-numbered minor planets, we performed a check to uncover five additional cases. The objects affected are (264210), (266779), (266959), (266966), (266976), (275353), (275405), (275426) and (275478). The discovery site (and the discoverer in one case) for (264235), (266971), (273868) and (275212) require correction. All these corrections will be documented fully in the next MPC batch, but the changes have been made in our internal files and in the files that are accessible through the website.

  • E-mailed Problems with MPECs
    2011 Apr. 21: 20:00. A number of users have reported non-receipt of recent MPECs. We don't see anything obviously wrong at this end, so the problem may be something transient with the CfA network. We will monitor the situation.

  • Problem with Minor Planet Designation Converter
    2011 Apr. 16: 14:00. A user has reported that the Minor Planet Designation Converter is returning results for a different object than that requested. The problem is due to a mismatch between the index file and data file that contains the information. This problem will be examined after the filing for the April MPCs is completed, so that fresh copies of the relevant files are available for examination.

  • SMTP E-mail Interruption (March 31)
    2011 Mar. 30: 13:45. We have been informed that the CF's SMTP server will be off-line for approximately 15 minutes beginning at 10:05 UTC on Thursday, March 31, to allow OS patches to be installed. Attempts to send e-mail to us during this period will fail, but the mail should queue up on the sending computer for a subsequent resend attempt.

  • .org vs .net
    2011 Mar. 28: 02:32. We have put redirects from many of the /iau HTML pages on the .org site to funnel users to the .net site. This is a preliminary step to the shutting down of the physial .org site.

  • Old Epoch Elements for Numbered Periodic Comets in Comet Element Files
    2011 Mar. 24: 13:20. An observer has pointed out a problem with the comet element files accessible in the Ephemerides and Orbital Elements service. We have determined that the problem is with the epoch of some of the orbits. We are investigating and will regenerate the files when the solution is found.
    • 14:50. Corrected files have been put in place.

  • Retirement of Ubasti Web Server (April 18)
    2011 Mar. 23: 15.25. The http server on the old web server machine (the old destination for the alias 'scully') will be shutoff sometime on Monday, 18 April. This date is not open to change as it is dependent on changes in the CfA's internal network that will be implemented at the same time. This unchangeable (by us!) date has now been changed twice, once to allow more testing of the internal-network changes and once because of the uncertainty of whether the U.S. Government would be shut down.

    Most cgi scripts are now running on the new script server. The status of porting the cgi scripts is detailed here.

  • Date of Last Update to NEOCP Not Updating on Main Page
    2011 Mar. 16: 14:00. It has been brought to our attention that the date of last update to the NEOCP that is present on the main MPC observers page (/iau/mpc.html) has not been updated since Feb. 28.54 UT. We are investigating.
    • 20:40. The problem has been located and, we believe, fixed.

  • AUTOACK Problem Overnight
    2011 Mar. 12: 18:00. Yesterday evening, the AUTOACK process started failing. No ACKs were being sent out. No observer brought this to our attention until early this morning. We have located the problem, fixed it and have resubmitted the affected batches to AUTOACK. If you use the AC2 keyword in your headers, you should receive the ACK. If you don't use the AC2 keyword, you will not.

  • .org vs .net
    2011 Feb. 22: 22:00. Over the next month we will begin to cease updating certain pages on the .org site, in anticipation of removing the physical site in the near future. The .org site was set up as an emergency host following the events of last February. The hosting site has a number of problems, principally the throttling of transfer rates for large files, that cause us particular grief in trying to maintain both the .net and .org sites. The first pages to be updated only on the .net site will be the ECS pages associated with mid-month MPS and monthly MPC batches. These .org pages will be modified to redirect automatically to the .net site. When the physical .org site is removed, it will be set up to redirect to .net.

  • Problem With Certain Objects in MPES
    2011 Jan. 31: 15:20. There seems to be a problem with the return of ephemerides of certain recently-designated objects in the MPES. A request for an ephemeris just sits at the "waiting for a response" message. Other objects are unaffected and problems (based on personal experience) appear to occur only with certain hosts. At this stage, we do not understand why the problem is occurring.
    • Feb. 1: 01:00. We discovered that the problem was due to incorrect protections on the variant orbit files. The immediate problem was fixed and the nightly update procedure was modified to set the correct protections.

  • The MPC Web Site
    2011 Jan. 19: 15:30. The main MPC web site is now http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/. This link will take you to the new interface, with access to new features such as the MPC Database. For those who are used to the earlier incarnation of the site, the former page layout is accessible at http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/mpc.html. The ".org" site will, at some point in the near future, redirect users to the .net site.

  • Move over to new script server II
    2011 Jan. 5: 16:00. Most of the reported problems with the changeover have been fixed. Variant orbits are currently being copied, to be followed by residual blocks, for use in the MPES. The problem with incorrect elements being returned for certain unnumbered minor planet designations is believed to be fixed.

  • Move over to new script server
    2011 Jan. 4: 17:15. We have made a request to the CfA's networking group to shift the machine name "scully" (which is an alias) to the new script server machine. Some scripts will continue to run on the old server machine for sometime longer. It is to be expected that quite a number of links will need fixing. Please use the feedback forms to report problems. We had hoped that the change over would be completely transparent to outside users, but the change in the webserver from Purveyor to Apache makes this impossible. Some notes on the changes are available and contains details on how to modify any user-written scripts that call the MPC scripts directly.

  • Certain numbered orbits in MPES
    2011 Jan. 3: 15:23. Due to a repeated set of elements for a numbered minor planet, the MPES was returning the incorrect orbit for requests for numbered minor planets with numbers above (217439). That incorrect misbehavior has been fixed. A problem remains in that the name or principal desigantion associated with the numbered object is being displayed incorrectly.

  • Power and Network Outages Dec. 11 and 13
    2010 Dec. 10: The power to CDP will be disconnected from 07:00 EST to 15:00 EST on Saturday, December 11, in order to connect a new electrical service to the Park. In addition, CDP will suffer a network outage from 18:00 EST to 21:00 EST on Monday, December 13, in order to relocate the fiber that provides Internet access into CDP. Neither of these events will (should!) affact core MPC operations, but beta testers of the new web server will be unable to access the new setup during these outages.

  • Last night's DOU MPEC
    2010 Dec. 10: 13:00. Last night's DOU MPEC has been abandoned as a result of a protection issue in copying some important update files over to the Linux systems.

  • Incorrect H values
    2010 Dec. 8: 23:50. Following a report from a user, a problem with the H values for 143 orbits of numbered minor planets published in the November MPCs has been identified and been fixed. The H values on the affected orbits have been fixed in our master files and in the files used by the MPES; the values used by the MPChecker programs will be fixed by the next DOU MPEC. The corrected orbits will also be republished on the next DOU MPEC.

  • November MPCs
    2010 Nov. 20: 14:20. The preparation of the November batch of Minor Planet Circulars will be delayed by a week due to recent events.

  • MPChecker
    2010 Nov. 14: 22:05. In order to get the newly-hosted MPChecker script working, we need to introduce a change in an internal data file that will break the existing MPChecker script. As soon as the new format data files are on-line, we will fix the existing script.
    • 23:05. In a testament to the OS design, the existing MPChecker script works with (what we thought would be an imcompatible change in the format of) the new-format data files used by that service.

  • Erroneous designation messages
    2010 Nov. 9: 12:40. Over the past day or so, some automated process has been appending unnecessary designation lines to the files that are used by AUTODES to send designations back to observers. We are trying to locate which automated process is misbehaving.

  • PHAs not being flagged in MPES
    2010 Nov. 9: 12:00. Following a query from a user of the MPES, it was determined that the MPES was not indicating that recent discoveries were PHAs. The problem was traced to a change in an internal procedure. This problem is believed to be fixed.

  • Change in time-keeping
    2010 Nov. 7: 18:00. Following an overnight problem with the automated changeover of system clocks from EDT to EST, the decision was made to set all system clocks to UTC. The problem caused five machines to remain set to EDT and this caused the despatch of the many automated batch jobs to occur only once per hour, rather than once every minute or two. All automated batch jobs are now running on their normal schedule.

  • No MPC Batch in October
    2010 Oct. 19: 17:50. There will be no MPC batch in October. The next mid-month MPS batch will be issued around October 31.

  • Apparent Unavailability of Scully
    2010 Oct. 12: 11:35. Over the past few days we have received a number of reports of the apparent unavailability of Scully. In every case, a check of the server logs shows that Scully was serving documents throughout the reported problem period. It seems that every report was made at a time of very heavy server load. We are currently setting up a new (much more powerful) web server machine that we hope to have on-line shortly.
    • 20:10. A check of yesterday's server log shows that 16642 calls to the cgi scripts from 4580 different IP addresses.

  • Complex-wide Power Outage Saturday, September 18
    2010 Sept. 14: The power to most of the buildings at 60 Garden Street will be shut off from 07:00 to 19:00 EDT on Saturday, September 18, in order to perform a power systems upgrade. The Computation Facility will begin shutting down its systems at 05:00. While the power outage does not affect any of the MPC's computer systems (since they are in locations that will be unaffected by the power outage), the loss of power elsewhere will cut all network traffic to/from CfA. We will not be able to send/receive e-mail during the outage: any messages sent to us should be queued automatically by the sending system and resent once network connectivity is restored. All CF webservices will be unavailable. Access to MPC cgi scripts will not possible due to the network outage. A similar power outage is planned for Saturday, October 2.

  • MPECs 2010-R13 to -R20 and -R22
    2010 Sept. 3: 19:05. It seems that the issuance of the MPECs 2010-R13 to -R20 and -R22 was affected by a disk error. The circulars are being remailed. We apologise if you get two copies of these circulars.

  • Reuse of circular number "MPEC 2010-Q01"
    2010 August 30: 09:30. The MPEC circular number 2010-Q01 was inadvertently reused by the overnight DOU MPEC routine. It should have been 2010-Q41. The problem was caused by a reorganization of disk storage and an apparent failure to copy the latest version of the MPEC index file. Last night's DOU MPEC has been renamed 2010-Q41 in the on-line version.

  • Network interruption August 12
    2010 August 4: 12:23. We have received notice that Harvard will be performing maintenance on a core router on Thursday, August 12, 05:00-07:00 EDT. There may be intermittent outages of connectivity in this period.

  • HTML-4.01 compliance
    2010 July 11: 20:00. We have received a query about our use of the HTML-4.01 compliance icons on most of our pages. If you test the compliance you will see five errors reported. These errors are not due to anything on our pages but are the result of a single line of usage tracking code that is automatically appended to each file returned by the server. The invalid nature of the line has been reported to the hosting company, but they appear to be unwilling to fix it. In the near future, the main MPC site will move back to computers hosted at CfA. Some time thereafter, the mirror site will be moved to a new, permanent location.

  • Preprepared Ephemerides
    2010 July 4: 21:45. The bulk of the preprepared ephemerides that used to be available at /iau/Ephemerides have been restored. A new feature is the ability to download KML files of the paths of the comets for display in Google Earth.

  • Last night's DOU MPEC
    2010 May 31: 12:24. Last night's DOU MPEC has been abandoned as a result of a system failure overnight.

  • Web Server Unavailability
    2010 April 12: 14:40. We are disabling the MPC webserver for an hour or so to help us track down a network issue.
    • 15:40. The MPC webserver has been restarted.

  • Possible Network Disruption (March 10)
    2010 March 9: 15:45. On Wednesday, March 10, starting at 09:00, we will be reconfiguring our VMS cluster. For outside users the most visible sign of this reconfiguration will be (hopefully) short outage of the MPC webserver. Since the reconfiguration involves changes in our DNS registration, it may take time for the changes to propogate outside CfA.
    • March 10: 14:00. The network reconfigurations have been completed. The changes are visible internally.
    • 17:10. As of now, the DNS changes are not visible from my home system.
    • 22:40. It is probable that the inability of outside use to access cgi services of the MPC webserver is due to blocking of http traffic at the sub-net level. This suspicion is apparently confirmed by the fact that my home systems see the new IP address for the MPC webserver This problem has been reported to the Computation Facility.
    • March 11: 10:10. The cgi scripts are again visible externally.

  • Official MPC Mirror Site II and Mid-Month MPS
    2010 Feb. 18: 12:20. Efforts to get the MPC mirror site fully up and functional are proceeding slowly. Progress will remain slow until such time as access is restored to the disabled user accounts in the CF.

    It is worth pointing out that it seems unlikely the CF-hosted MPC website will be updated in the future. The reasons for this are not relevant for public discussion, but we will agree if this is the decision of the CF. All future updates will therefore occur only on the www.minorplanetcenter.org site. Simply replace "www.cfa.harvard.edu" or "cfa-www.harvard.edu" with "www.minorplanetcenter.org" and you should find the desired resouce on the new site (eventually!).

    We can make no guarantees at this stage as to when the next mid-month MPS batch will be released. We will be looking at the preparation procedure in the next few days.

  • Official MPC Mirror Site
    2010 Feb. 15: As a result of the hacker intrusion mentioned in Feb. 12 note, we are bringing the official MPC mirror site on-line immediately. Please understand that this early release is solely to make certain data available to certain professional collaborators. The completeness of the mirror site is currently minimal and the current unavailability of access to the main site means that it is not trivial to copy the necessary data to make it complete. In addition, most of the routines that copy data to the main website are not yet modified to copy data to the mirror site.

  • Successful hacker intrusion at CfA
    2010 Feb. 12: 11:00. We have been informed by our Computation Facility that the CF account of a MPC staff member has been hacked. Consequently, that account has been disabled, as has the network access to the MPC's Linux cluster. At this point, we have no evidence that the core VMS cluster was compromised.

    The upshot of this hack is that updating of the MPC website is not possible and circulars cannot be mailed out via their normal route. We have set up alternate routes for mailing circulars, but recipients who check the From: line of messages before allowing delivery of the message will probably not receive the circulars. There is nothing we can do at this end about this problem. It is also unclear when we will be able to update the webpages.

    Static pages such as the MPES main page remain functional, but periodically-updated pages such as the NEOCP do not. Observers are advised to use the mirror page links.

  • SMTP E-mail Interruption (January 29)
    2010 Jan. 26: 16:57. We have been informed that the CF's SMTP server will be off-line for approximately 30 minutes beginning at 06:05 EST on Friday, January 29, to allow OS patches to be installed. Attempts to send e-mail to us during this period will fail, but the mail should queue up on the sending computer for a subsequent resend attempt.

  • Web Services
    2010 Jan. 2: 18:30. The web services are functioning, but the webserver is getting pounded by MPChecker request. We will examine the logs and, if the requests are coming from the same user, will block access from their IP address.

  • Internal Network Problems II?
    2010 Jan. 1: 14:00. There appears to be a problem with network connectivity. It is unclear at this point whether there is any relation to the Dec. 30 problems. The problem is causing the web services to hang. We are investigating.
    • Jan. 2: 11:15. Attempts to resolve the problem remotely were unsuccessfully (although we believe we know where the problem originated). We have just arrived in the office and will be attempting manual fixes shortly.
    • Jan. 2: 12:00. We believe we have fixed the problem and are checking the cluster status and the state of the numerous automated processes that handle the bulk of the MPCs work. Normalcy should be restored shortly.

  • Internal Network Problems?
    2009 Dec. 30: 21:55. There was a hang of (at least part of) the CfA's internal network from about 18:44:15 to 21:29:30. All high-level network protocol traffic between the MPCs computers froze. Low-level protocols continued to function allowing the MPCs cluster to remain intact. It is very probable (though we didn't actually check) that some or all of the web services were off-line during this period. We have queried this event with the Computation Facility but have not yet received a response.

  • Problem with MPCOBS
    2009 Dec. 19: 18:50. Two independent reports have been received of errors (specifically, stack dumps) being returned by the MPCOBS service. We are investigating.
    • 19:15. We've located the problem and fixed it. We've also made the error message more "friendly" in case a similar problem arises in the future.

  • Maximum version limit reached in MPES
    2009 Oct. 21: 10:00. Some debugging output that was added in order to fix the Oct. 1 problem was left in. This caused one debugging output file to reach the maximum allowable version number. This code has now been deactivated.

  • Missing uncertainty information in MPES pages
    2009 Oct. 11: 01:40. A problem that caused the uncertainty information to be omitted from MPES pages returned by the MPEph.COM script has been fixed. This problem first appeared when the Oct. 1 problem was fixed.

  • Strange behavior of MPC webserver
    2009 Oct. 1: 20:30. We have noticed strange behavior of the MPC webserver today. On five occasions, cgi jobs started executing but then simply hung. Once the maximum number of allowable processes are in the hung state the webserver stops responding to requests. We are investigating.
    • Oct. 3: Debugging/logging output has been enabled in the command file that calls the executable, the C front-end of the executable and the Fortran code. The jobs that are stalling create log files from the command file and the C front-end, but the Fortran log files, although created, are empty. The reasons for this are still baffling.
    • Oct. 3: 23:45. We've found the reason the script is hanging. An array used by a library routine is being overwritten. The reason why this overwriting is occurring is not yet clear. Particularly why it has only surfaced in the past few days.
    • Oct. 4: 00:30. We believe that the hanging script problem is now fixed and we understand why the problem appeared suddenly a few days ago.

  • Free access to previously-restricted MPC data
    2009 Oct. 1: 00:20. The steps necessary to remove the subscription blocks to previously-restricted MPC data have been started. An issue has arisen that requires a fresh mind. The blocks will be removed in the morning. Please note that access blocks will be put in place when we are updating the files or when we need to do other work on the pages.

  • MPEC e-mail problems
    2009 Sept. 30: 09:00. A problem with a number of recent MPEC mailings has been identified that caused many (all?) outside subscribers to not receive the circular. The underlying immediate problem has been fixed and a procedure has been modified to try and prevent this happening again. The problem affected only the three most recent circulars.

  • Incomplete files on the MPCORB anon-ftp site
    2009 Sept. 29: 20:30. A user reported that a specific file on the MPCORB anon-ftp site was incomplete. A check showed a large number of blank files. We are checking the logs.
    • 20:40. A look at the OpenVMS-side logs shows that part way through the copying of the files the error message "write failed" started appearing. No further information was returned by the sftp system, so it is unclear where the problem lies. It is unlikely that the available disk space dropped to zero (the ftp directory sits on a 3 TB device and there are currently 585 GB free). We are running the copy routine manually. We will check the situation after the next DOU MPEC.
    • 21:05. Some of the zero-length files have been fixed. The remaining problem cases will have to await the issuance of the next DOU MPEC.

  • Problem with NEOCP comments
    2009 Sept. 28: 11:45. A number of users reported problems with the latest version of the NEOCP comments cgi script rejecting all comments. An updated executable has been put in place.

  • CfA anon-ftp disk full
    2009 Sept. 19: 14:15. The disk used for storage of the files on the the anon-ftp server (e.g, the MPCORB files) is full. Until space is cleared updates of MPCORB will be incomplete.

  • Accessing mpn.arc via browsers
    2009 Sept. 8: 10:40. Since the mpn.arc file available for download in the ECS is now over 4 GB in size, a number of browers fail to download the entire file. That these browsers are limited to 32-bit filesizes is clear from the fact that the partial downloads consist of filesize-4GB bytes. Until the affected browsers can cope with >32-bit filesizes, this file will have to be downloaded via ftp.

  • Inability to access cfa-ftp.harvard.edu
    2009 Sept. 6: 17:30. An outside user reported his inability to access the MPCORB files on cfa-ftp.harvard.edu. We can confirm that there seems to be a problem with ftp access as we see the same problem from our home machines. We have queried this issue with the Computation Facility (of course, it's a long holiday weekend...).
    • Sept. 7: 14:00. It seems that the outage was intermittent. Access to the MPCORB files on cfa-ftp is again possible.

  • Network Interruptions (September 4)
    2009 Aug. 26: 17:00. We have been informed that there will be a network outage from 17:15-21:00 EDT on Friday, September 4. The CF will be upgrading core networking equipment. The whole complex will be off-line during the upgrade.

  • SMTP E-mail Interruption (August 7)
    2009 Aug. 5: 14:00. We have been informed that the CF's SMTP server will be off-line for approximately 30 minutes beginning at 06:05 EST on Friday, August 7, to allow OS patches to be installed. Attempts to send e-mail to us during this period will fail, but the mail should queue up on the sending computer for a subsequent resend attempt.

  • MPN.ZIP File In MPCAT-OBS
    2009 July 9: 17:50. The procedure that builds the zip'ed version of the MPN.ARC file in the ECS service MPCAT-OBS has failed as MPN.ARC is now over 4 GB in size. We had a similar problem ~ 2.5 years when the filesize grew over 2 GB. We are attempting to use gzip to compress the file. The file extension will remain .zip for the forseeable future.

  • Possible Disruptions (July 11)
    2009 July 1: 11:26. We have been informed that there will be a scheduled power shutdown at a remote CfA site on Saturday, July 11, from 07:00 to 13:00. A number of CF machines are located at this site and they will begin to be powered down at 16:00 on July 10. It is unknown at this point if this outage will affect internal MPC operations or external services.

  • Network Interruptions (July 9)
    2009 June 30: 16:12. We have been informed that Harvard will be doing work on a core router from 05:00 to 07:00 on Thursday, July 9. This will cause the CfA to be off-line for periods during the work window.

  • Network Outage
    2009 June 28: 22:00. All connections to/from the CfA network failed around 15:35 when a router at Harvard failed. Connectivity was restored several hours later.

  • June 26 DOU MPEC
    2009 June 26: 11:15. It seems that the fall-out from the June 24 problem continues. Two versions of last night's DOU MPEC were partially prepared. The correct circular number should be 2009-M38, but the version numbered 2009-M39 was mailed out. Neither process completed. We are fixing the bits that failed.
    • 12:15. It has been decided to redo the preparation of last night's DOU MPEC. It was simply too fiddly to fix just those bits that failed. The DOU MPEC will be MPEC 2009-M38.

  • Mis-mailing of old DOU MPEC
    2009 June 25: 11:05. The problems overnight with access to the CF cluster caused a script running there to become "confused". It proceeded to send out MPEC 2008-F58, rather than MPEC 2009-M35. We (think we) have killed the processes that are mailing out the old circular, but a large number of subscribers may receive MPEC 2008-F58.

  • MPEC Issuance and Website Updating
    2009 June 24: 22:17. We are currently unable to issue MPECs, apparently a result of the OS upgrades mentioned in the item below. We have no automated transfer of files from our cluster to the CF webserver or the CF cluster. The problem also affects the automated updating of all our pages that are hosted on the CF webserver.
    • June 25: 09:30. The problem was apparently cleared some time this morning. We were not notified that it was fixed.

  • CF Webserver Outage on June 24
    2009 June 24: 12:17. We have been informed that the CF will be doing OS upgrades on the NetApp filers which, amongst other things, serve up the CF webpages. The CF webserver will be off-line during this period. The upgrades will start between 17:15 and 17:30 and are expected to take 45 minutes. Access to MPC cgi scripts will continue to be possible during this outage via our mirror pages.

  • URLs in the "New Look"
    2009 June 18: 12:45. It is worth remarking that, except as noted below, all URLs in the old look MPC website continue to work unchanged in the new look. The exceptions are:
    • The MPC Status reports covering the period 2003-2004, which were previously stored in monthly files, have been amalgamated into six-monthly files. This cuts down on the number of files.

  • Checker Services
    2009 May 15: 21:20. A user reported that MPChecker failed to locate a recently-designated NEO. The object was missing from the datafile used for the NEO/NEOCMT/MPChecker services. The problem has been traced to a disk that is used by the procedure that generates the special-epoch elements needed for these services getting filled up. The problem has apparently existed for the past three days. A slight addition to the procedure has been made to try and prevent this happening in the future. The affected files are being regenerated.
    • 21:38. The "problem" object mentioned by the user is now found by NEOChecker.

  • Webserver
    2009 May 6: 10:00. We have received a number of reports about perceived problems with the MPC webserver overnight. The webserver has been functioning normally, it was simply being swamped by a very large number of MPChecker requests from a machine at ESO.

  • Non-emailed MPECs
    2009 May 2: 11:00. Two subscribers have reported non-delivery of MPECs 2009-J04 through -J07. Later MPECs were delivered without problem. It seems that the machine that mails out the circulars was rebooted (probably to do patch installation) around the time that the non-delivered circulars were issued. The mailing of these circulars is being redone. Some subscribers who are at the start of the mailing lists may thus receive a second copy. We can't easily avoid this problem.

  • AUTOACK Problem Overnight
    2009 April 22: 10:40. A problem with an observer submitting some previously-reported observations caused AUTOACK to stall around 02:43 this morning. AUTOACK kept claiming that the stalled batch had been removed, but it never got cleared. The procedure has been modified to prevent this happening again.

  • Lists of NEOs and TNOs
    2009 March 18: 22:00. We are aware that there are some problems with the program that generates the lists of NEOs and TNOs on our site. A new version of the program is in preparation and we expect it to be on-line by early next week.

  • SMTP E-mail Interruption (March 12)
    2009 March 10: 11:20. We have been informed that the CF's SMTP server will be off-line for approximately 30 minutes beginning at 06:05 EST on Thursday, March 12, to allow OS patches to be installed. Attempts to send e-mail to us during this period will fail, but the mail should queue up on the sending computer for a subsequent resend attempt.

  • MPC Webserver Problem
    2009 Mar. 9: 16:00. The MPC webserver is experiencing hangs for an unknown reason. Stopping and restarting the webserver clears the problem but within minutes the webserver stops serving pages. We are investigating.
    • Mar. 10: 12:10. It appears that the hangs are being caused by "resource wait for system communication services" (RWSCS). An obvious cause of this is errors in cluster communications caused by failing intranet components. Investigations are continuing.
    • 14:30. The problem is proving hard to track down. It is possible that it related to one of the cgi scripts and the fact that the Minor Planet Centre is in "preparation" mode. We should go back to "processing" mode late tonight. If the problem disappears at that time, it will give us a bit hint that the afore-mentioned cgi script is the culprit.
    • 10:30. The MPC went back to "processing" mode in the early morning. The MPC webserver has been stable since late last night.

  • CF Webserver Outage on Feb. 26
    2009 Feb. 19: 12:17. We have been informed that the CF will be doing OS upgrades on the NetApp filers which, amongst other things, serve up the CF webpages. The upgrades will start between 17:15 and 17:30 and are expected to take 30-40 minutes. Access to MPC cgi scripts will continue to be possible during this outage via our mirror pages.

  • Issue with Missing Orbits During MPC Preparation
    2009 Feb. 8: 11:45. An alternate fix for the long-standing problem with elements for object that are being numbered being unavailable in the MPES for a period during MPC preparation has been found and implemented.

  • Funding for MPC restored
    2009 Feb. 3: 13:00. Funding for the MPC has been restored. The previously-posted statement on this topic (dated Jan. 15) has been removed. The files associated with the January MPCs are being posted right now.

  • Version Number Overflow
    2009 Jan. 7: 11:00. A number of cgi scripts started failing overnight when they could no longer produce temporary output files due to those files reaching the maximum version number. These temporary output files were used for debugging and are no longer needed. They are being deleted.

  • Recent MPECs
    2009 Jan. 2: 13:23. Recent MPECs (i.e, those issued after MPEC 2009-A05) are not accessible due to a protection problem on the directory containing the 2009 circulars. We are attempting to fix the problem.
    • 13:44. We believe the protection problem is fixed and the missing circulars have been replaced.

  • Missing Objects in MPChecker
    2008 Dec. 30: 17:50. A number of users have reported inconsistent output from MPChecker when checking more than one object. It seems that some code, recently added to remove duplicate objects from the output list, is removing objects duplicated in different fields. A fix is being worked on.
    • 19:00. A fix is now in place.

  • No NEO Observations on DOU MPECs
    2008 Dec. 23: 11:30. Recent DOU MPECs have not contained any new new NEO observations due to a problem with the routine that extracts the observations. A fix is in place. The missing observations should appear on the next DOU MPEC.

  • Erroneous Designations in MPChecker
    2008 Dec. 21: 10:00. A user reported that certain objects in MPChecker are not correctly labeled, specifically that unnumbered objects are labeled erroneously with numbered designations. The positions and motions are correct, but the designation is wrong. The problem seems to be restricted to numbered objects above (199999). We are investigating the problem.
    • 12:00. As suspected, the problem lay with the labeling of orbits for numbered objects above (199999). The problem is now fixed.

  • Issue with Missing Orbits During MPC Preparation
    2008 December 11: 11:45. There has been a long-standing problem with elements for newly-numbered objects being unavailable in the MPES for a period during MPC preparation. This has been a troublesome problem to investigate as the problem only occurs while we are busy with the filing of the new data, meaning we do not have time to examine the issue. We have now found a few free moments, have identified a possible source for the problem and put a fix in place. We will see if the problem disappears during the next MPC preparation period.
    • 15:15. Unfortunately, it appears that the above fix is causing severe performance problems for the MPES. An alternate fix will have to be found. The MPES executable has been restored to its previous version.

  • E-mailing of circulars
    2008 December 3: 10:25. The e-mailing of circulars issued since noon yesterday has been interrupted by problems caused by transfer of the mailing scripts from a Solaris machine that has been retired to a Linux box. The problems are being examined and a fix should be forthcoming shortly. The backed-up circulars will then start being delivered automatically.
    • 10:53. We believe that the problem (related to interpretation of relative pathnames between Solaris and Linux) has been fixed. The backed-up circulars are being delivered.

  • Anon-ftp disk full
    2008 November 27: 11:18. The disk on which the anon ftp files (such as the MPCORB datafiles) reside filled up overnight.
    • November 28: 09:15. The anon-ftp disk again filled up overnight.
    • December 2: 09:15. Someone has cleared space on the anon-ftp disk as it is currently 70 percent full.

  • Mid-month observation files in ECS
    2008 November 24: 11:00. A number of subscribers have reported that they cannot access the files in /ECS/MPCAT-OBS/midmonth/. It seems that this is related to the CF machine changeover mentioned below. We are investigating, but we have no information of what actually got executed on the Linux box.
    • 12:15. Some manual digging shows that a cron job script (to build the zipped versions of files in the /midmonth directory) did not run. This script also clears the lock that prevents users accessing the directory while the zipping is being performed. The script is being run manually. The cron job problem remains under investigation.
    • 13:05. We believe the problem is fixed.

  • SMTP E-mail Interruption (November 24)
    2008 November 19: 17:02. We have been informed that the CF's SMTP server will be off-line for approximately 30 minutes beginning at 06:05 EST on Monday, November 24, to allow OS patches to be installed. Attempts to send e-mail to us during this period will fail, but the mail should queue up on the sending computer for a subsequent resend attempt.

  • ECS files for November MPC
    2008 November 17: 12:50. The ECS files for the November MPCs are currently being posted. A large number of problems related to the Solaris-Linux transition of the CF machine (see earlier notes) have arisen. Users are warned to expect problems...

  • DISCSTATUS reports
    2008 November 15: 20:57. The naming status of numbered minor planets with numbers above 200000 is incorrect in the just-mailed DISCSTATUS reports. The count of oppositions may also be incorrect on some objects. The problem has been fixed and the next run will correctly flag these objects.

  • ECS files for November MPC
    2008 November 15: 10:10. Due to a rather knotty problem connected to the preparation of the PDFs of the three sets of circulars, the ECS files for the November MPCs will not be posted until late on Monday, November 17.

  • Anon-ftp disk full
    2008 November 15: 00:40. The disk on which the anon ftp files reside has again filled up. We have reported the problem to the CF.

  • Unavailability of CF Webserver
    2008 November 7: 20:00. The CF webserver is not serving up pages. The problem has been reported to the CF. Our cgi scripts continue to be accessible through the mirror page.
    • November 9: 00:39. We've just noticed that the CF webserver appears to be operational again. There was no notification from the CF.

  • Stale Information in MPES
    2008 November 6: 00:45. We have noticed that some information in the MPES is stale. The affected information is that derived from external sites and which is supposed to be copied from those sites on a regular basis via a number of Python scripts. Examples of such data files include lists of Arecibo and Goldstone radar targets. In some cases, the MPES is working from data files derived from files downloaded in September. This problem predates the Oct. 16 problem with a CF server, but the problem is OS related: the Python exectuable was moved from /opt/bin to /usr/bin. We believe all affected scripts have been modified and data files should become current after the next run of the relevant script.

  • E-mail Delivery of MPECs
    2008 October 30: 11:30. We have received a number of reports from subscribers who have not received recent MPECs. We have received our copies of recent circulars, so the problem would seem to be restricted to some/all external addresses. The machine that sends out the circulars is a CF machine. We are investigating...
    • 16:40. We are resending MPECs U92-U100.
    • 16:55. The first attempt used malformed scripts. We are trying again... Note that you will receive the resent DOU MPECs even if you've requested non-delivery of these circulars. We apologize for this minor inconvenience.

  • Network Interruptions (November 4)
    2008 October 29: 12:40. We have been informed that the Computation Facility will be performing software upgrades on core network equipment on Tuesday, November 4, from 06:00 to 07:30 EDT. We expect MPC (and other CfA) webpages to be unavailable during this period. Access via the mirror pages will also be affected.

  • MPCORB files and mirrors
    2008 October 20: 12.56. The updating of the MPCORB datafiles on our site and the mirrors has been affected by two related problems. The first is the previously-mentioned OS change on a CF machine. The second is the failure to copy files to the mirror due to a change in the host key. We are working on transferring new host keys to the remote site.

  • Latest mid-month MPS batch
    2008 October 19: 11.15. Last night's mid-month MPS batch failed to update correctly due to problems with the new CF machine mentioned previously. We will have to manually reconstruct the bits that failed, while modifying the scripts so that they work next time.
    • 18:15. We believe all the failed bits have been fixed.
    • October 20: 11.41 A user reported that the midmonth/mpu.* files are missing. That bit of the update procedure is being rerun.
    • 12:15. The midmonth/mpu.* files have been restored.

  • Network Interruptions (October 21)
    2008 October 16: 18:30. We have been informed that Harvard will be upgrading core network equipment on Tuesday, October 21, from 06:30 to 07:30 EDT. We expect MPC (and other CfA) webpages to be unavailable during this period. Access via the mirror pages will also be affected.

  • Power outage at Observatory II
    2008 October 16: 12:00. Yesterday's power outage fried one of the CF servers. Unfortunately, it was the machine on which many of the cron jobs run that handle data transfer between the MPC and the CF webserver. A new machine is in place, but the cron jobs will not be restored until early next week. We will try and replace as much as we can, but some web pages and data files may not get updated as expected.
    • October 18: 12:00. Some of the cron jobs are working again, but others continue to cause problems. This is a result of the old machine being a Solaris box while the new machine is a Linux box. Specifically, the preparation of the CR-terminated versions of various MPCORB datafiles is failing due a segmentation fault. Also, the copying of files to the official mirror site is failing due an incompatability in specifying batch mode in the command-line flags: the original version of sftp used -b to specify batch mode; an "upgrade" to sftp caused batch mode to be specified with -B; the version on the new Linux machine again uses -b! We believe that all cron jobs that use sftp have been modified to reflect the flag usage de jour.
    • 18:00. The October Minor Planet Circulars will not be published, partly due to the power outage and partly due to staff absences.

  • Power outage at Observatory
    2008 October 15: 12:51. An unexpected power outage affected the Observatory (and, apparently, parts of Cambridge) around 10:50 today. The MPC machines began shutting off 15 to 20 minutes later when they exceeded the capacity of the UPSes. The power has just been restored, the cluster has reformed and processing routines are being restarted. Normalcy should be resumed shortly.
    • 13:15. While the MPC's systems are fully functional at this point, it seems that (at least some parts of) the Computation Facilities are not. We are not receiving e-mail at this point and we cannot access CF-hosted machines. We expect these problems to disappear shortly.
    • 14:20. E-mail from outside is beginning to arrive.
    • 23:55. There were problems with the MPC webserver. The webserver was restarted.

  • MPEC 2008-T101
    2008 October 8: 17:15. Due to a production error (two people working on announcing a new object at the same time), the object 2008 TK9, which appeared on MPEC 2008-T100, was also announced as 2008 TL9 on MPEC 2008-T101. The latter designation and MPEC have been retracted. The next MPEC to be issued will be 2008-T101.

  • Linking of designations in MPES
    2008 October 8: 01:25. A user reported that entering the non-principal designation 2008 SC7 into the MPES did not return the elements or ephemeris for the principal designation 2004 XX145. The problem, which presumably affected other objects as well, was traced to a malformed entry in the new double designation file and fixed.

  • No space left on on ftp server
    2008 September 28: 15:00. The anon ftp server disk is again full (currently only zero bytes are free). Updating of various files stored there may fail until such time as space is available.

  • No space left on on ftp server
    2008 September 19: 14:27. The anon ftp server disk is again full (currently only 4 KB are free). Updating of various files stored there may fail until such time as space is available.

  • Corruption of files on ftp server
    2008 August 28: 11:13. It has been reported that the MPCORBcr.DAT file is corrupted. Investigation shows that a number of files in the pub/MPCORB directory are blank or incomplete. There is an error message in the logfile of last night's DOU MPEC preparation, but it isn't very helpful.
    • August 29: 11:08. The problem is still present after last night's DOU MPEC. The same cryptic, unhelpful error message is present in the DOU preparation logfile.
    • 11:17. It seems that the disk on which the anon FTP data sits is full.
    • 14:00. We have cleared over 1 GB of no-longer-needed material from the anon-ftp disk.
    • 21:30. As of now, there are only 8 KB free on the anon FTP disk. Tonight's update is therefore likely to fail and since it's a long holiday weekend in the U.S. space may not get freed up until the middle of next week. Unfortunately, this is a disk that we do not control.
    • 22:10. Some other user has apparently cleared up old files, as there is now 1.1 GB free. Of course, this free space may disappear before the DOU MPEC procedure runs...

  • Designation Message Problem
    2008 July 28: 12:50. It has been noted that some observers are receiving some incorrect correspondences between their temporary designations and MPC designations. These designations are coming from a reprocessing of the old unidentified material. The problem occurred because the reprocessing is being handled in a different mode than the normal processing. Further, this problem affects only the messages sent to the observers. A fix to avoid this confusing problem has been implemented.

  • SMTP E-mail Interruption (August 4)
    2008 July 22: 16:45. We have been informed that the CF's SMTP server will be off-line for approximately 60 minutes beginning at 06:00 EDT on Monday, August 4, to allow OS patches to be installed. Attempts to send e-mail to us during this period will fail, but the mail should queue up on the sending computer for a subsequent resend attempt.

  • CF Webserver Outage
    2008 July 8: 23:33. The Computation Facility's webserver has apparently died as attempts to access any of our pages (or the SAO main page) all time out. The problem was reported to the CF at 23:32:12 EDT. Note that access to various observer services via the mirror pages was unaffected by this problem.
    • July 9: 09:00. The CF reports that the webserver has been restarted.

  • SMTP E-mail Interruption (July 7)
    2008 July 3: 13:13. We have been informed that the CF's SMTP server will be off-line for approximately 30 minutes beginning at 06:00 EDT on Monday, July 7, to allow OS patches to be installed. Attempts to send e-mail to us during this period will fail, but the mail should queue up on the sending computer for a subsequent resend attempt.

  • Archive of older enhancements and problems/resolutions

Valid HTML 4.01!