Runtime Error when trying to open my pseudonym in "Pseudonym Summary"

[Colin Utz]

Hello,

 

Since several days, I am not able to open my pseudonym in "Pseudonym Summary" in AlamyMeasures. When trying to open the page, I get the following message:

 

 

Runtime Error

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine. 

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".

<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->

<configuration>
<system.web>
<customErrors mode="Off"/>
</system.web>
</configuration>

Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's <customErrors> configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.

<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->

<configuration>
<system.web>
<customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="mycustompage.htm"/>
</system.web>
</configuration>

 

Is there anybody with the same problem, and knows a solution?

 

Colin

[Pearl]

Yes I have been getting the same on and off for a few weeks now.  Sometimes I can open but first page but not the second - seems totally random.  It has happened using different browsers and three different internet providers.  I was hoping that Alamy had fixed it as it worked OK yesterday.

 

Sorry, don't know of a solution.

 

Pearl

[wiskerke]

Try refreshing the window. It's most likely a server that's too busy.

Or else try to stay out of the internet rush hours. For the US that would mean logging in at the end of the evening Pacific; for Europe before eight BST (UK); nine CEST (Central Europe).

 

wim

[Pearl]

Try refreshing the window. It's most likely a server that's too busy.

Or else try to stay out of the internet rush hours. For the US that would mean logging in at the end of the evening Pacific; for Europe before eight BST (UK); nine CEST (Central Europe).

 

wim

It makes no difference what time of day or night I try.

 

Pearl

[wiskerke]

Could you test it with the date only set to one day? Say May 3 to May 4? If that doesn't work, I suggest contacting Member service.

Btw I could not replicate it, but that could be the (small) size of my collection.

 

wim

[Colin Utz]

Thank you for your replies!

 

@Wim: I´ve tried everything you suggested before, and, as Pearl says, the time of the day doesn´t matter. Also, my portfolio is smaller than yours.

 

I think, I´ll wait one more day, hoping for the self-healing powers of the internet, and contact MS tomorrow.

 

Colin

[M.Chapman]

I'm very occasionally seeing the same problem. I'm running Google Chrome on Windows 7.

The problem appears to depend on something in the data the system is trying to access or display.

I include more precise details so hopefully Alamy can investigate.

If I try to view the activity on my pseudo for 28th April - 4th May 2013 it shows 360 views split over 5 pages.
If I sort by "Your views" (max to min) I can view pages 1,2,3,4 OK but page 5 "crashes" with the message you quote. Note it also says the following at the top of the page.

Server Error in '/alamysearchhistory' Application

If I try sorting by "Your views" (min to max), page 1 "crashes".
Presumably because whatever the system was trying to access or display on page 5 has now moved to page 1.

If I try sorting by "Total zooms" (max to min) I can view pages 1,2,4 and 5 OK, but 3 "crashes".
Presumably because whatever the system was trying to access or display on page 1 has now moved to page 3.

By changing the date range I know that the offending view data occurred on 29th April. On that day I had 47 views, but if I click on my psuedo to display the details, the page "crashes" and displays the usual error message. It doesn't matter what I do to the sort order, presumably because there only 1 page of data for that day.

Conclusion... Sometimes the system fails to retrieve or display the data required for a particular search term in your views. Whether you see a problem or not depends on whether your views contain that search term. Or maybe there's just some corruption in the database. The system logs that you had a view against a given search term, but then when it goes to get details, it can't find them.

I don't believe this is user browser problem, it's at Alamy's end.

Hopefully Alamy can investigate further.

Mark

[Pearl]

Could you test it with the date only set to one day? Say May 3 to May 4? If that doesn't work, I suggest contacting Member service.

Btw I could not replicate it, but that could be the (small) size of my collection.

 

wim

Wim, I am only looking at one day at a time when it happens.  Mark has given a more thorough breakdown above so perhaps Alamy can look into it.

 

Pearl

[wiskerke]

 

Could you test it with the date only set to one day? Say May 3 to May 4? If that doesn't work, I suggest contacting Member service.

Btw I could not replicate it, but that could be the (small) size of my collection.

 

wim

Wim, I am only looking at one day at a time when it happens.  Mark has given a more thorough breakdown above so perhaps Alamy can look into it.

 

Pearl

Mark is right: it is not at your end. It is a busy server at some point at Alamy's. It is a message an error has occurred, but you are not allowed to see which error it is, because you are "on the outside of Alamy". As I said, most likely a server that can not come up with the answer to your question in time. This could be a server on the way to the machine where your answer lies, as well as that machine.

In the past I have seen this error a lot when using the search function of the old forum. And also when I tried to view all my zooms for the whole year, at internet rush hours, like when the US or the UK opens for business.

When it happened, it usually (but not always) went away by: a - closing all other connections with Alamy, and/or: b - waiting for a more quiet hour.

I have not seen it in a while though. Either because something has changed in India, or because I have broken up my already small collection in a couple of pseudos.

 

wim

[M.Chapman]

 

 

Could you test it with the date only set to one day? Say May 3 to May 4? If that doesn't work, I suggest contacting Member service.

Btw I could not replicate it, but that could be the (small) size of my collection.

 

wim

Wim, I am only looking at one day at a time when it happens.  Mark has given a more thorough breakdown above so perhaps Alamy can look into it.

 

Pearl

Mark is right: it is not at your end. It is a busy server at some point at Alamy's. It is a message an error has occurred, but you are not allowed to see which error it is, because you are "on the outside of Alamy". As I said, most likely a server that can not come up with the answer to your question in time. This could be a server on the way to the machine where your answer lies, as well as that machine.

In the past I have seen this error a lot when using the search function of the old forum. And also when I tried to view all my zooms for the whole year, at internet rush hours, like when the US or the UK opens for business.

When it happened, it usually (but not always) went away by: a - closing all other connections with Alamy, and/or: b - waiting for a more quiet hour.

I have not seen it in a while though. Either because something has changed in India, or because I have broken up my already small collection in a couple of pseudos.

 

wim

In this case, it is not a busy server problem. The problem is repeatable. Once you have one of these "rogue entries" on a page, the same page will fail to display (providing you have made a repeatable info request, search order, date range etc.), it doesn't matter what time of day you try it. The "chance" element seems to be whether or not you have acquired a "rogue entry" in your view history. Once you've got one, then every time you try to view a page containing it, the error message appears instead.

[wiskerke]

 

 

 

Could you test it with the date only set to one day? Say May 3 to May 4? If that doesn't work, I suggest contacting Member service.

Btw I could not replicate it, but that could be the (small) size of my collection.

 

wim

Wim, I am only looking at one day at a time when it happens.  Mark has given a more thorough breakdown above so perhaps Alamy can look into it.

 

Pearl

Mark is right: it is not at your end. It is a busy server at some point at Alamy's. It is a message an error has occurred, but you are not allowed to see which error it is, because you are "on the outside of Alamy". As I said, most likely a server that can not come up with the answer to your question in time. This could be a server on the way to the machine where your answer lies, as well as that machine.

In the past I have seen this error a lot when using the search function of the old forum. And also when I tried to view all my zooms for the whole year, at internet rush hours, like when the US or the UK opens for business.

When it happened, it usually (but not always) went away by: a - closing all other connections with Alamy, and/or: b - waiting for a more quiet hour.

I have not seen it in a while though. Either because something has changed in India, or because I have broken up my already small collection in a couple of pseudos.

 

wim

In this case, it is not a busy server problem. The problem is repeatable. Once you have one of these "rogue entries" on a page, the same page will fail to display (providing you have made a repeatable info request, search order, date range etc.), it doesn't matter what time of day you try it. The "chance" element seems to be whether or not you have acquired a "rogue entry" in your view history. Once you've got one, then every time you try to view a page containing it, the error message appears instead.

 

Interesting. Sorry I have send you on the wrong path. The two are easy distinguishable: the busy server will take a while before coming up with the server error message. An illegal call will invoke it immediately.

I should have thought of asking you.

The Customer search of April 29 does not throw up the error message in any of the 76 pages /100. Nor does it show any of the ??? ???? or @ that sometimes show up as searches (and yield reults), like the first 7 for March (with the search term set to alphabetical).

Could the Customer search do something different than the Your views?

What would constitute an illegal call? A search term in Japanese; Chinese or Arabic? I thought they would just show up as ??? ???.

People drop the weirdest things in the search box, like parts of emails.

 

Keep us posted.

 

wim

[M.Chapman]

Wim,

 

I did some more tests to try and track it down.

 

By changing the sort criteria on my views I from 28th April - 4th May 2013 I can tell that the offending entry has the following characteristics.

 

Search Term lies before "Eastbourne" alphabetically

Views = 1

Sessions =1

Your zooms = 0

Your sales = 0

Your CTR = 0%

Total Views >=390 and <=1,080

Total zooms <=1

Total CTR% >=0.05% and <=0.57%

 

I suspect the search term maybe the culprit, so I widened the date range to 1 year and localised it further and found the entry with the problem has a search term lying alphabetically between "daffodils" and "digital"

 

So I then used your idea of looking at "All of Alamy" searches on just April 29th to see if I could spot any search terms between "daffodils" and "digital" that would have resulted in a view of one of my images and could have caused the problem. Whilst there is one that caused a view of 2 of my images (D344R1 & D344PF) using the search terms "decorative plant pot outside" there's nothing that looks unusual. Also the offending entry should only have 1 view whereas this search generated 2, and total views was 173 (not between 390 and 1080). Also if I look at "my views" for 28th - 4th and sort by "views" those 2 views are correctly listed. So it's not that.

 

So it seems like there's "duff" search term that's possibly been filtered out from "all of Alamy" report, but left in "My views" or some data corruption?

 

Mark

[M.Chapman]

Update - think I may have found the image concerned.

On 29th April, "All Alamy" shows a search on "danger warning sign" with 1 zoom, 840 views and CTR 0.12% which will have resulted in a view of my image C4DENW

This fits the profile.

 

But for some reason, when looking in "My views", so far as I can tell, any page on which that view should have been listed gives the Server Error in '/alamysearchhistory' Application error message.

 

It's not 100% conclusive (there still could be an unlisted search in all Alamy), but suggests there's a gremlin in the data somewhere...

 

Mark

[Colin Utz]

I´ve contacted Alamy, and asked them to leave a comment here at the forum.

[wiskerke]

Mark,

 

nice work!

Loose masonry; stuff getting loose at the joints... the machine just got depressed ;-)

 

Colin,

 

any warning signs or walls coming down? ;-)

 

wim

[Colin Utz]

Hi Wim,

 

not yet, but I´ll stay alert!  

 

Alamy wrote me back, that they´ll be back with more information on this.

 

@ Alamy: Thanks for the quick reply!

 

Colin 

[Colin Utz]

Update: My "Pseudonym Summary" is working again.

[M.Chapman]

Thanks for the update.

 

It's now working for me too. My views on the 29th April are now correctly displayed and include what I believe was the problematic search result for "Danger warning sign [uK] [Europe]" which now correctly shows a hit on my image C4DENW.

 

Thanks!