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| public:lta_faq [2021-03-08 09:16] – Replaced Groningen with Poznan as LTA site Hanno Holties | public:lta_faq [2025-01-23 06:48] (current) – [Troubleshoot] Sander ter Veen |
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| * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#i_got_an_email_that_says_my_staging_request_was_only_partially_successful_what_s_going_on|I got an email that says my staging request was only partially successful! What's going on]] | * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#i_got_an_email_that_says_my_staging_request_was_only_partially_successful_what_s_going_on|I got an email that says my staging request was only partially successful! What's going on]] |
| * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#oops_i_made_a_mistake_how_can_i_stop_a_request|Oops! I made a mistake! How can I stop a request]] | * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#oops_i_made_a_mistake_how_can_i_stop_a_request|Oops! I made a mistake! How can I stop a request]] |
| | * **Q:** [[:https:::www.astron.nl:lofarwiki:doku.php?id=public:lta_faq#i_get_a_time-out_when_searching_around_a_declination_of_zero|I get a time-out when searching around a declination of zero]] |
| * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#my_files_only_contain_some_error_message_instead_of_data|My files only contain some error message instead of data]] | * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#my_files_only_contain_some_error_message_instead_of_data|My files only contain some error message instead of data]] |
| * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#my_data_files_are_corrupted|My data files are corrupted / I cannot unpack my data]] | * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#my_data_files_are_corrupted|My data files are corrupted / I cannot unpack my data]] |
| * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#srm_grid_commands_fail_with_error_ac_validation_failed_or_no_trusted_path_can_be_constructed|SRM/Grid commands fail with error 'AC validation failed!' or 'No trusted path can be constructed']] | * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#srm_grid_commands_fail_with_error_ac_validation_failed_or_no_trusted_path_can_be_constructed|SRM/Grid commands fail with error 'AC validation failed!' or 'No trusted path can be constructed']] |
| * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#srm_grid_commands_fail_and_i_cannot_figure_out_why|SRM/Grid commands fail and I cannot figure out why!]] | * **Q**: [[:public:lta_faq#srm_grid_commands_fail_and_i_cannot_figure_out_why|SRM/Grid commands fail and I cannot figure out why!]] |
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| ===== Answers ===== | ===== Answers ===== |
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| === What is an appropriate amount of data to retrieve? === | === What is an appropriate amount of data to retrieve? === |
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| This depends. As a rule of thumb, we ask you to keep your requests below 5 TB in volume and smaller than 1'000 files. Also, the total file count in all your //running// requests should not exceed 5'000 files at any point in time. | This depends. As a rule of thumb, we ask you to keep your requests below 5 TB in volume and smaller than 1'000 files. Also, the total file count in all your //running// requests should not exceed 5'000 files at any point in time. |
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| In more detail, there are essentially two things to consider: The capabilities of your own system and the capabilities of the LTA services. | In more detail, there are essentially two things to consider: The capabilities of your own system and the capabilities of the LTA services. |
| * If you are asking about a command that failed, please copy-paste the exact command that you executed together with the full terminal output. (Some tools (like the srm commands) have a '-debug' option, which provides additional information, e.g. about your environment. It helps a lot if you could use that option when you copy-paste your command output.) | * If you are asking about a command that failed, please copy-paste the exact command that you executed together with the full terminal output. (Some tools (like the srm commands) have a '-debug' option, which provides additional information, e.g. about your environment. It helps a lot if you could use that option when you copy-paste your command output.) |
| * If you are using some script somebody gave you, please note that we are no clairvoyants and have no idea what the script you're using actually does. We can very likely not understand what went wrong from the output of some random script. Please check the [[:public:lta_howto|]], whether the officially supported ways of data retrieval work for you. If they work, please ask the one who supplied you with the failing script, why his or her script fails. If the official ways don't work, please forget about your script for a moment and provide the output of the official tool that does not work for you. | * If you are using some script somebody gave you, please note that we are no clairvoyants and have no idea what the script you're using actually does. We can very likely not understand what went wrong from the output of some random script. Please check the [[:public:lta_howto|]], whether the officially supported ways of data retrieval work for you. If they work, please ask the one who supplied you with the failing script, why his or her script fails. If the official ways don't work, please forget about your script for a moment and provide the output of the official tool that does not work for you. |
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| ==== Troubleshoot ==== | ==== Troubleshoot ==== |
| === I did not receive a mail notification that my data is ready for retrieval! Has my request gone lost? === | === I did not receive a mail notification that my data is ready for retrieval! Has my request gone lost? === |
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| After you got a notification that your requests was scheduled, it is in our database and there's hardly a possibility that it got lost. Staging requests can take up to a day or two, but will finish a lot sooner in most cases. This depends on your request's size but also on how busy the storage systems are by other user's requests at the moment. Sometimes, the LTA storage systems are down for maintenance and this can delay the whole procedure. You can [[http://web.grid.sara.nl/cgi-bin/lofar.py|check for downtimes here]]. | After you got a notification that your requests was scheduled, it is in our database and there's hardly a possibility that it got lost. Staging requests can take up to a day or two, but will finish a lot sooner in most cases. This depends on your request's size but also on how busy the storage systems are by other user's requests at the moment. Sometimes, the LTA storage systems are down for maintenance and this can delay the whole procedure. You can [[https://ganglia.grid.surfsara.nl/cgi-bin/lofar.py|check for downtimes here]]. |
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| It is not alarming when your request did not finish in 24 hours, even when your last request finished within 10 minutes. In urgent cases or if you did not receive a notification after 48 hours, please contact the [[https://support.astron.nl/rohelpdesk|ASTRON helpdesk]]. | It is not alarming when your request did not finish in 24 hours, even when your last request finished within 10 minutes. In urgent cases or if you did not receive a notification after 48 hours, please contact the [[https://support.astron.nl/rohelpdesk|ASTRON helpdesk]]. |
| If you used the xmlrpc interface to submit your request, please first check whether you made a mistake and e.g. entered the wrong SURLs. | If you used the xmlrpc interface to submit your request, please first check whether you made a mistake and e.g. entered the wrong SURLs. |
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| **Note:** We get notified of these issues as well and will usually re-schedule failed requests due to server issues after the problem was solved. So please first check whether you got a 'Data ready for retrieval' notification for the same request id after the error notification. If you did, the problem was already resolved. | **Note:** We get notified of these issues as well and will usually re-schedule failed requests due to server issues after the problem was solved. So please first check whether you got a 'Data ready for retrieval' notification for the same request id after the error notification. If you did, the problem was already resolved. |
| === I got an email that says my staging request was only partially successful! What's going on? === | === I got an email that says my staging request was only partially successful! What's going on? === |
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| If you used the xmlrpc interface to submit your request, please first check whether you made a mistake and e.g. entered the wrong SURLs. | If you used the xmlrpc interface to submit your request, please first check whether you made a mistake and e.g. entered the wrong SURLs. |
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| **Note:** We get notified of these issues as well and will usually re-schedule failed requests due to server issues after the problem was solved. So please first check whether you got a 'Data ready for retrieval' notification for the same request id after the error notification. If you did, the problem was already resolved. | **Note:** We get notified of these issues as well and will usually re-schedule failed requests due to server issues after the problem was solved. So please first check whether you got a 'Data ready for retrieval' notification for the same request id after the error notification. If you did, the problem was already resolved. |
| === Oops! I made a mistake! How can I stop a request? === | === Oops! I made a mistake! How can I stop a request? === |
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| Unfortunately, this is currently not possible for you as a user. Stay calm and ask [[https://support.astron.nl/rohelpdesk|ASTRON helpdesk]] to stop the request for you. | Unfortunately, this is currently not possible for you as a user. Stay calm and ask [[https://support.astron.nl/rohelpdesk|ASTRON helpdesk]] to stop the request for you. |
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| | === I get a time-out when searching around a declination of zero === |
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| | The system has trouble finding data around a declination of zero. This can take a long time (minutes). If it still not succeeds you will get an nginx time-out error. To limit the search so it will still succeed you can either lower the search radius or limit the **Observing date** start and stop time. With that we have been able to find date with a radius of 1.2 in a two-year window for example. LOFAR observations start around 2011. |
| === My files only contain some error message instead of data === | === My files only contain some error message instead of data === |
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| Most errors should result in a 404/50x return code. However, some error messages are still returned as a message. Please read the error message carefully. In many cases, it should give you some indication of what went wrong. If this does not help you, please contact the [[https://support.astron.nl/rohelpdesk|ASTRON helpdesk]] or retry after a few hours. | Most errors should result in a 404/50x return code. However, some error messages are still returned as a message. Please read the error message carefully. In many cases, it should give you some indication of what went wrong. If this does not help you, please contact the [[https://support.astron.nl/rohelpdesk|ASTRON helpdesk]] or retry after a few hours. |
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| **Important:** If you use wget with option '-c', please note the following: wget does not check the contents of an existing file, so when restarting wget with option '-c' (continue) to retrieve the failed files, it will append the later data chunk to the existing file that contains the error message (and not the first section of you data). Make sure to delete the existing error files (should be obvious by the small file size) before calling 'wget -ci' again, to avoid corrupted data. If you already ended up with a corrupted file, you have to delete that and re-retrieve the whole file. | **Important:** If you use wget with option '-c', please note the following: wget does not check the contents of an existing file, so when restarting wget with option '-c' (continue) to retrieve the failed files, it will append the later data chunk to the existing file that contains the error message (and not the first section of you data). Make sure to delete the existing error files (should be obvious by the small file size) before calling 'wget -ci' again, to avoid corrupted data. If you already ended up with a corrupted file, you have to delete that and re-retrieve the whole file. |
| === My data files are corrupted === | === My data files are corrupted === |
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| === My downloads don't start / time out === | === My downloads don't start / time out === |
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| Maybe the SRM system is down for maintenance, please check [[http://web.grid.sara.nl/cgi-bin/lofar.py|http://web.grid.sara.nl/cgi-bin/lofar.py]]. If there is nothing going on, there is probably something wrong with the download service. Please try again a bit later and submit a support request to the [[https://support.astron.nl/rohelpdesk|ASTRON helpdesk]], if the issue persists. | Maybe the SRM system is down for maintenance, please check [[https://ganglia.grid.surfsara.nl/cgi-bin/lofar.py|https://ganglia.grid.surfsara.nl/cgi-bin/lofar.py]]. If there is nothing going on, there is probably something wrong with the download service. Please try again a bit later and submit a support request to the [[https://support.astron.nl/rohelpdesk|ASTRON helpdesk]], if the issue persists. |
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| === Http downloads randomly fail with "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable" === | === Http downloads randomly fail with "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable" === |
| Ensure you have run 'voms-proxy-init'' to generate an up-to-date proxy file. In case the error persists: The SRM tools apparently do not always use the default proxy file location $HOME/.proxy or you used a non-standard proxy location in ''voms-proxy-init''. | Ensure you have run 'voms-proxy-init'' to generate an up-to-date proxy file. In case the error persists: The SRM tools apparently do not always use the default proxy file location $HOME/.proxy or you used a non-standard proxy location in ''voms-proxy-init''. |
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| * Either set the X509_USER_PROXY environment variable to your .proxy file, e.g. | * Either set the X509_USER_PROXY environment variable to your .proxy file, e.g. |
| <code> | <code> |
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