IAU Minor Planet Center

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 the this page are local times (either Eastern Standard Time [UT-5h] or Eastern Daylight time [UT-4h], as appropriate).

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

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General Notice

If you have been directed to this page by the CfA "Page not found" error page and the URL you were trying to access contains "cfa/ps" simply change it to "iau" and the page should be accessible. "cfa/ps" is a long-deprecated way of accessing our pages.

Status Messages and Outstanding Problems

• 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 the problem. 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.
  • 10:30. The subscription blocks have been removed. If you have a problem acessing the data report full details of the problem and we'll look into it.
  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