Hi

I am experiencing trouble with Elog crashing. I think it crashes during input operations (new entries are being added).

Are there any preferred methods to troubleshoot this ? Any log files I could look at ?

For now, I let "monit" supervise the process and restart it if it crashes. But I would like to get to the root cause of the problem.

Soren Poulsen

CERN

Dear Soren,

sorry for the trouble, but it's very hard to diagnose this remotely. This forum here runs fine for many months, so in principle Elog should be stable (at least the current version 2.7.5). If you have an older version, please upgrade. If you have a way to reproduce the problem reliably, you can send me your config file and explain step-by-step how you make Elog crash. Then I can try to reproduce it here. Otherwise the only chance I see is to run elog from inside the debugger, and once it crashes record the stack trace and send it to me. If you don't know how to use the gnu debugger, I'm sure you find someone at CERN who knows. 

Best regards,

   Stefan

Dear Stefan,

Thanks for your reply.

I started running elog in February and it never failed. Then it started failing regularly towards the end of September. There were no system changes until then, except the daily automatic Yum updates (SLC4). Then I upgraded to the latest version (tar ball of 2.7.5). Then yesterday it crashed again. I saw that it crashed around the time when a user was doing something - inputting new data. I can monitor when it crashes and correlate it with user activity. But it is not easy to reproduce since I don't know exactly what the user is typing.

It would be necessary to record the user input forms and then replay them against a known server state. But that is not so easy.

I will think about doing something else - maybe running inside a debugger as you suggest.

Soren

 Just run it inside gdb. When it crashes, you will see a segment violation and you will end up at the debugger prompt. Then do a "bt" to see the stack dump. From that I can guess where the problem happens.

Hi ,

i have a little problem with the guest access. There is no acces to the logbooks as a guest. Evereytime i see the loginbox after clicking the logbook.

[Informations]
Guest menu commands = List, Back, Find, Login, Help
Guest find menu commands = List, Find, Select, Login, Help
Password file = ./passwd
Self register = 1
Logfile = elogd.log
Logging level = 3
Login expiration = 24
Admin user = testuser

Theme = default
Preset Author = $long_name
Attributes = Author, Subject
Locked Attributes = Author
Required Attributes = Author, Subject
Page Title = ELOG - $subject
Reverse sort = 1
Quick filter = Date, Subtext

Thanks for help, Brassmann

[Informations]
Guest menu commands = List, Back, Find, Login, Help
Guest find menu commands = List, Find, Select, Login, Help
Password file = ./passwd
Self register = 1
Logfile = elogd.log
Logging level = 3
Login expiration = 24
Admin user = testuser

Theme = default
Preset Author = $long_name
Attributes = Author, Subject
Locked Attributes = Author
Required Attributes = Author, Subject
Page Title = ELOG - $subject
Reverse sort = 1
Quick filter = Date, Subtext

 I tried your configuration and it worked as expected. Maybe you have edited the wrong configuration file, not restarted the server, or have an old page in your browser cache.

Just wondering if there is still a maximum number of mail recipients?  I saw  a number of 112 floating around in old forum entries, and I need more, like currently 300.  When I try it, the elogd hangs, not much output to speak of, but won't reply to Apache on its port.  Any quick fix (like changing a def'd variable somewhere?)

 No quick fix, sorry. It is also limited by a fixed number of characters per line in the configuration file and many more. I will try to increase it, but it will take time. Can you maybe set-up a mailing list at your email server? This way you send only email to one destination and it gets distributed to many people.

Hi, thanks to everyone involved for giving us the elog.

A question:

Is it possible to submit entries to an elog on a remote machine by email?

Thanks, Thorsten

 Have a look at Contributions.

Hi, thanks for everyone involved for giving us the elog.

A question:

Is there an easy way (without intermediate save) to send screenshots (with irfan, snagit or hardcopy) as a new entry to an elog running on a remote machine?

Thanks, thorsten

 I use HoverSnap. This program generates a saved screenshot with one keystroke, so at least it saves you the manual save.

We have a logbook in which we use two "Status" attributes, both of which are MOptions. What we want to do is have the corresponding line of the list change its colour depending on the combination of those attributes. I have done so successfully using "Style" for a single Options or MOptions or even two Options (using conditionals and a third attribute), but up until now I have no luck with two MOptions. Conditionals do not seem to work with MOptions (the manual only mentions Options and when I tried anyway, it did not work... ) and multiple "Style" statements also do not seem to work. I've tried the following:

MOptions StatusA = Status-A-red, Status-A-orange, Status-A
MOptions StatusB = Status-B-red, Status-B-orange, Status-B

Style StatusA Status-A-red = background-color:red
Style StatusA Status-A-red | Status-A-orange = background-color:red
Style StatusA Status-A-red | Status-A = background-color:red
Style StatusA Status-A-red | Status-A-orange | Status-A = background-color:red
Style StatusA Status-A-orange = background-color:orange
Style StatusA Status-A-orange | Status-A = background-color:orange
Style StatusB Status-B-red = background-color:red
Style StatusB Status-B-red | Status-B-orange = background-color:red
Style StatusB Status-B-red | Status-B = background-color:red
Style StatusB Status-B-red | Status-B-orange | Status-B = background-color:red
Style StatusB Status-B-orange = background-color:orange
Style StatusB Status-B-orange | Status-B = background-color:orange

As far as I can see, the "Style" statement for StatusB only gets evaluated if none of the statements for StatusA matches (i.e. StatusA = Status-A). What I would want to achieve is that any "red" condition in either StatusA or StatusB takes precedence over "orange" and "none" and that "orange" takes precedence over "none".

Is there any solution for this problem short of merging both status attributes into one (which would be very unwieldy, especially, as StatusB is not used at all in some cases)? Any suggestions are most welcome!

Thanks in advance,

Thomas

I have two logbooks running, one for current accounts and one for non-active ones. The idea is to move an entry from one logbook to the other once an account becomes non-active. Both logbooks share some attributes (e.g. the name of the account, its creation date, ...), but both also have some uniqe attributes.

While I was playing with this set-up, I ran into a problem:

1. Move an existing entry from current to non-active.
   • "Type" and "Status" have options. "Created" and "Archived" are in date format.
   • "Created" and "Type" are supposed to be locked in non-active. This works.
   • "Archived" and "Status" are empty, as they do not exist in current. This also works.
   • Depending on the "Type", only certain of the additional attributes are shown on edit. This works as well.
   • I would also like "Status" to have some influence on how certain other attributes are preset and/or shown. This is where the problem starts...
2. Edit the entry in current.
   • As expected, "Created" and "Type" are shown as locked.
   • As soon as I change the selector for "State", the whole edit mask is redrawn - and the date shown in "Created" is deleted.

I've been experimenting with this quite a while and as far as can see the following applies:

• Only date format attributes are affected
• Only locked attributes seem to be deleted completely
• If I have a date attribute that is not locked and I set it partially in the edit mask (e.g. only select the month or enter a year), it is also deleted
• If I have a date attribute that is not locked and I set it completely in the edit mask (i.e. day, month and year), it is not deleted

During the experiments I came up with a stripped down version of the non-active logbook configuration, which does show the bug. It only contains Type, Created, Status, Archived. To make an entry to experiment, you'll have to comment out the "Locked attributes" line, make a new entry (with "Created" date), the uncomment that line.

I hope my description isn't too confusing - please don't hesitate to ask if anything is unclear. I'd be much obliged if you saw a chance to fix this at some point...

Best regards,

Thomas

Hi,

how can i make the author field read only on new postings? It should take the value from $long_name after login and without login there is no way to make new postings.

This is a part of my elogd.cfg

[global]
.......

Logfile = elogd.log
Logging level = 3
Login expiration = 24
Password file = ./passwd
.......

[Informations]
.......

Logout to main = 1
Logbook tabs = 1
Guest menu commands = Back, Find, Login, Help
Guest find menu commands = Find, Select, Login, Help


Preset Author = $long_name
Attributes = Author, Subject
Required Attributes = Author, Subject
........

Thanks Brassmann

[global]
.......

Logfile = elogd.log
Logging level = 3
Login expiration = 24
Password file = ./passwd
.......

[Informations]
.......

Logout to main = 1
Logbook tabs = 1
Guest menu commands = Back, Find, Login, Help
Guest find menu commands = Find, Select, Login, Help


Preset Author = $long_name
Attributes = Author, Subject
Required Attributes = Author, Subject
........

 All you need is an addition

Locked Attributes = Author

[global]
.......

Logfile = elogd.log
Logging level = 3
Login expiration = 24
Password file = ./passwd
.......

[Informations]
.......

Logout to main = 1
Logbook tabs = 1
Guest menu commands = Back, Find, Login, Help
Guest find menu commands = Find, Select, Login, Help


Preset Author = $long_name
Attributes = Author, Subject
Required Attributes = Author, Subject
........

 Thanks, works fine.

Regards Brassmann

[global]
.......

Logfile = elogd.log
Logging level = 3
Login expiration = 24
Password file = ./passwd
.......

[Informations]
.......

Logout to main = 1
Logbook tabs = 1
Guest menu commands = Back, Find, Login, Help
Guest find menu commands = Find, Select, Login, Help


Preset Author = $long_name
Attributes = Author, Subject
Required Attributes = Author, Subject
........

 Thanks, works fine.

Regards Brassmann