Digital Atlas Administrator's Troubleshooting Guide
Error codes
If a user reports an error code, and you wish to resolve it into something that
actually makes sense, try using the CGI program included in the
Digital Anatomist CGI Package: look_err.
The messages it gives you will help you understand what went wrong, and
may help you fix the error.
For example, if a user of your atlas reports the error IF-B-24036 ,
then more information can be found by the following URL:
http://your.server.name/cgi-bin/DA/look_err?IF-B-24036.
The look_err program examines the log files that are generated by each of the cgi programs, looks for the most likely candidates, and generates an html page with the list of possible causes. A programmer familiar with this package can often pinpoint a bug using this method. The log files are stored in the logs directory of this package. If the log files become large look_err can take awhile to run. It will also be necessary to truncate these files periodically since they can become large.
Known bugs
This software is released asis in the hope that it will be useful. However, we do not have adequate personnel to make this into an industrial strength program. The following is a list of known bugs that will hopefully be fixed in future releases.
The main source of bugs is the Framebuilder authoring tool, which seems to work some of the time but not all of the time.
- Slow save time
- Sometimes faster than others. No workaround, except that reloading sometimes makes it faster. The slow speed comes because all saves are done over the network, rather than to the local machine as in most commercial Web-authoring products.
- Frame-info
- Doesn't always get saved on a SAVE-FRAME operation. Either try uploading again, or just open the frame files from your favorite editor on the server machine, and add the FRAME-INFO information directly.
- X-Windows error messages
- On Unix machines. Just have to click ok to dismiss these error windows.
- Uploading GIF images
- Using the upload script from the FrameBuilder page. This procedure works, but it ought to be in Framebuilder itself. Its much easier to just ftp the GIF images yourself to your atlas/gifs directory.
Further troubleshooting questions and additional bugs can be sent to
digital_anatomist@biostr.washington.edu
However, depending on staffing we may not be able to answer your questions right away.