OFFICIAL "SERVER PROBLEMS" THREAD

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by ric

Apparently, since a couple of days the page My Account/Assignments returns exponents randomly, rather than ordered by ascending exponent as before.
Emptied and refreshed cache, changed browser, another OS - all the usual stuff, but this sneezing <g> behavior remains... is it just me?

Confirmed just now for me. Strange.

[James Heinrich]

For me it shows in exponent ascending order. I can click the column header to reorder to any column, but on page reload it returns to exponent order (as expected?)

[0PolarBearsHere]

Originally Posted by ric

Apparently, since a couple of days the page My Account/Assignments returns exponents randomly, rather than ordered by ascending exponent as before.
Emptied and refreshed cache, changed browser, another OS - all the usual stuff, but this sneezing <g> behavior remains... is it just me?

Mine's in order. Are you sure you're not accidentally clicking one of the other column headers?

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by 0PolarBearsHere

Mine's in order. Are you sure you're not accidentally clicking one of the other column headers?

Funny... when I updated the site, I made that list sortable by the column headers but I didn't use the option to show the arrows to indicate they could be sorted. Whoops... or did I do that on purpose?

Anyway, as you point out, they can be sorted.

As far as I know, it *should* be sorting on the exponent field by default, but if there was a problem loading jquery, for instance, then the sorting code wouldn't load and it may display in whatever order they came out of SQL, which may be assignment date or something else.

The 3rd party jquery library is needed for the sorting, and a few weeks ago I noticed it was failing to load for a short time. It's setup to load it from the shared ASPNet CDN cache (Microsoft's setup). I use that for other projects and it's the fastest across the board although Google's cache is pretty close behind. I guess if there are issues I can switch it to the Google location instead.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

I use that for other projects and it's the fastest across the board although Google's cache is pretty close behind.

I think speed/fastness is completely the wrong metric to use here. I'd imagine reliability is far more important than the measure of milliseconds in latency difference.

But anyhow I don't use JS so I don't notice when it is down. So I take it all back, the proper metric for me is <null>. :P

[ric]

Originally Posted by 0PolarBearsHere

Mine's in order. Are you sure you're not accidentally clicking one of the other column headers?

Yes, me sure <g>. I made my homeworks before bothering the forum (fresh login to the site, cleaned cookies+cache, fresh browser instance, and the like). And, yes, I've been using as well click-headers-and-sort-accordingly since quite a bit.

Nothing more than a minimal annoyance, after all - what surprised me was its sudden appeareance around mid of current week.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by ric

Yes, me sure <g>. I made my homeworks before bothering the forum (fresh login to the site, cleaned cookies+cache, fresh browser instance, and the like). And, yes, I've been using as well click-headers-and-sort-accordingly since quite a bit.

Nothing more than a minimal annoyance, after all - what surprised me was its sudden appeareance around mid of current week.

If it's still doing that, let us know. I hope it was just a one-time thing due to failure to load the jquery external library or something.

[ric]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

I hope it was just a one-time thing due to failure to load the jquery external library or something.

Unfortunately not: this same behaviour still happens. What amazes me is that other pages (account results, GIMPS milestones/Active assignments, recent results, and so on) behave as they are supposed to.

Assignment details are returned "unsorted" (i.e. not sorted accordingly to any in-page criteria), so your point about a failure/delay to load an external library might be the cause (on "this side" of the Atlantic pond, maybe?)

In any case, I made a diff of the <head> sections for account results and assignments page, showing a missing stylesheet and two missing scripts on assignments' side:

4c4
<   <title>Account Results Details - PrimeNet</title>
---
>   <title>GIMPS Assignment Details - PrimeNet</title>
17c17
<   <meta name="description" content="GIMPS is the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, an organized search for Mersenne prime numbers. Free software provided.">
---
>   <meta name="description" content="View your account's current assignments and work in progress.">
55,56c55
<   <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mersenne.org/results/" />
<   <link rel="stylesheet" href="/scripts/tablesorter/css/theme.blue.css?v=20141025.1">
---
>   <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mersenne.org/workload/" />
58,59d56
<   <script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/tablesorter/js/jquery.tablesorter.widgets.js"></script>
<   <script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/tablesorter/js/widgets/widget-cssStickyHeaders.js"></script>
63,72c60
<         sortLocaleCompare: true,
<         theme : 'blue',
<         widgets: [ 'cssStickyHeaders' ],
<         widgetOptions: {
<           cssStickyHeaders_offset        : 0,
<           cssStickyHeaders_addCaption    : false,
<           cssStickyHeaders_attachTo      : null,
<           cssStickyHeaders_filteredToTop : true,
<           cssStickyHeaders_zIndex        : 1
<         }
---
>         sortLocaleCompare: true

No idea if the above is relevant in this context, though.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by ric

Unfortunately not: this same behaviour still happens. What amazes me is that other pages (account results, GIMPS milestones/Active assignments, recent results, and so on) behave as they are supposed to.

Assignment details are returned "unsorted" (i.e. not sorted accordingly to any in-page criteria), so your point about a failure/delay to load an external library might be the cause (on "this side" of the Atlantic pond, maybe?)

In any case, I made a diff of the <head> sections for account results and assignments page, showing a missing stylesheet and two missing scripts on assignments' side:
...
No idea if the above is relevant in this context, though.

Probably not. The table sorting options between the two pages are slightly different, but should still be functional. Other people are getting the correct sorting and are able to sort on different columns by clicking their headers.

Maybe it's a browser specific thing... what browser are you using? In Chrome you can hit F12 and bring up the debugging pane. Look at the "console" tab and refresh the page to see what errors show up or if some resources failed to load.

I don't get any errors and all of my 481 assignments show up.

I do note that with a large # of assignments, that tablesorter javascript can be a little sluggish if you sort on a different column. There was a lag of maybe 2 seconds when I click to sort on the % done column, for instance.

---- Side note ----

Actually now that I look at that page, maybe I never did add in the same table sorting code as the others (it's there, just with a more basic setup)... It looks like I started working on an update of it which includes the category info, when assignments will expire, etc but somehow since I started that work back in March I lost track of it.

Try that out here, and note it's a work in progress:
http://www.mersenne.org/workload/default.mock.php

[ric]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Other people are getting the correct sorting and are able to sort on different columns by clicking their headers.

<AOL>Me too</AOL>, once page is loaded. FWIW, I get the same "unsorted" behavior when I disable JS on that page, and of course in that case I can't sort once that page is loaded. JS is genereally enabled, however.

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Maybe it's a browser specific thing... what browser are you using? In Chrome you can hit F12 and bring up the debugging pane. Look at the "console" tab and refresh the page to see what errors show up or if some resources failed to load.

Latest Chrome, Firefox, Vivaldi, both on a Server 2012 box and a Debian derivative (Mint 18), Chromium + Firefox on a Debian 7 box (all of those fully patched), an older Chrome (29.something) on a tablet, latest Chrome + native browser on an Android 4.1 phone.

All of those in bare metal mode (= no VMs), in different locations (= different connection providers, to reduce risk of implausible glitches) and showing the same behavior. Regarding the Chrome console thing, the only messages I get are related to not loading Google analytics, due to an adblocker/do not track options. And, naturally, disabling that adblocker (Ublock)/re-enabling tracking does not change results.

I know that triaging an apparently random thing is not for the faint of heart <g>, but I'm used to. And appreciate your patience.

Originally Posted by Madpoo

I don't get any errors and all of my 481 assignments show up.

Mine as well. Only in "wrong" order <g>

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Actually now that I look at that page, maybe I never did add in the same table sorting code as the others (it's there, just with a more basic setup)...

Pls refer to my former diff...

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Try that out here, and note it's a work in progress:
http://www.mersenne.org/workload/default.mock.php

FWIW, this other page sorts as it should. Made another diff of head sections between current and mock page, and again current assignments page does not load the following styles/JS. I'm asking myself whether including at least the Ajax ones into the current assignments page could do the trick - shouldn't harm anyone.

55a56,58
>   <link rel="stylesheet" href="/scripts/tablesorter/css/theme.blue.css?v=20141025.1">
>   <link rel="stylesheet" href="//ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.ui/1.10.4/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css">
>   <script src="//ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.ui/1.10.4/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
56a60,61
>   <script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/tablesorter/js/jquery.tablesorter.widgets.js"></script>
>   <script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/tablesorter/js/widgets/widget-cssStickyHeaders.js"></script>
60c65,75

More generally, it is my understanding that present workload is fetched from the DB, passed "the way it comes" to the html page, then sorted at rendering time by the browser. If I'm mistaken, please correct me; this "view from the Moon" could help finger-pointing either "fetch" or "render" roles, and act accordingly.

And, yes, I've learnt from experience that speculating on someone's else artifacts is a risky thing, so please keep your flamethrower in the drawer <vbg>.

One last thing: I tend to clean caches/cookies frequently - I'm wondering if this can have any impact on "this happening to me only". No idea, indeed.

As I said, thanks again for your patience and support

[James Heinrich]

Originally Posted by ric

More generally, it is my understanding that present workload is fetched from the DB, passed "the way it comes" to the html page, then sorted at rendering time by the browser.

@Aaron: Is there any reason there's no ORDER BY `exponent` when fetching from the database? Or if that adds appreciable overhead to the query for some reason then it should be easy to sort by exponent in PHP between fetching it from the database and displaying as HTML.