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Topic: Export hanging on gathering information

I'm trying to export a survey to NBN database format, but it's hanging at the gathering information - location stage, without any errors. It's not a huge survey (800 obs, 600 events/samples), and exporting others seems to work fine.

I suspect it may have something to do with the locations because I also can't export a 'duplicate' survey that uses the same locations. Cancelling the export and closing recorder results in an error

"Operation cannot be performed while executing asynchronously."

But I have also seen an error referencing the #invalidkeys table, but I can't reproduce it (validating the data picks up no errors and ticking the don't validate box doesn't make any difference).

Exporting to XML does work fine.

Any thoughts??

Charlie Barnes
Information Officer
Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership

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Re: Export hanging on gathering information

I suspect something in the data which isn't alowed for in the code, but working out what could be tricky. I have looked at the code and there is nothing obvious.  Can you think of anything about any of the Locations which might make them different (ie names with single quotes or special characters).  I think the error message is not related, but to do with the fact that the export is being stopped part way through. There should  be a file export_log.txt in the addins folder which will may help.

Mike Weideli

3 (edited by charliebarnes 31-05-2016 09:27:54)

Re: Export hanging on gathering information

Thanks Mike - I can't see an export_log.txt in the addins folder. I think it may have something to do with GRID_SQUARES associated with locations? Some of the locations (rivers) have a lot of GRID_SQUARES associated with them, although they export fine individually (at the event or sample level). Despite ticking the "do not validate" button, is Recorder still checking to see if they are valid? (I note it does this when entering location details, even when stdvallib.dll isn't installed). Perhaps it's just the volume of information that's making it appear to hang.

As an aside, clicking cancel on the export dialog part way through an export and then trying to export again results in the error:

Cannot drop the table '#InvalidKeys', because it does not exist or you do not have permission.
Charlie Barnes
Information Officer
Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership

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Re: Export hanging on gathering information

Thanks. I will have to dig deeper into this to see what is happening. I don't think the grid squares are checked by the validation as the export only uses the standard validation checks.  It should be possible to trap the #InvaldKeys error, but without looking at the detail not sure how big a job this is.

Mike Weideli

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Re: Export hanging on gathering information

I am pretty sure now it's the size of the GRID_SQUARES that's causing this - and suspect it's not actually hanging, just taking an inordinate amount of time to complete (perhaps there's some logarithmic expansion as there are multiple events/samples associated with these locations).

So, I suspect we are a (very) edge case - and as I want to do an export as a backup before I delete the data - it's not high priority! I'll let you know if I find out anything further.

Charlie Barnes
Information Officer
Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership

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Re: Export hanging on gathering information

Thanks. I will have quick look at the code to see if I can spot anything.

Mike Weideli