1 Reply by Rob B (edited by Rob B 09-11-2006 12:58:48)

  • Rob B
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  • Registered: 08-05-2006
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Re: Data Entry Errors

Hi there,

We've been experiencing a couple of odd errors during data entry (via Rec card/species record) over the past couple of weeks. Essentially, our volunteers are unable to save records.

As you can imagine, this is worrying.  Please see both uploaded screenshots to see what I'm referring to.
http://forums.nbn.org.uk/uploads.php?fi … aEntry.JPG
http://forums.nbn.org.uk/uploads.php?fi … 0entry.JPG

Permissions were my first port of call; however the volunteers are logged in to the workstation with my system admin login which means they are also effectively administrators of the server - not that they know that!

They use their own login to R6 only. I have changed one of the volunteers user config to system admin also but this makes no difference.

Am very confused, so as always, any & all advice welcome.

Cheers now, Rob.

2 Reply by Rob B

  • Rob B
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Re: Data Entry Errors

Further developments suggest that what may be causing the second error (Cannot taxon Occurrence) is that the user was trying to enter around 120 characters in the Location _name field.

So two further questions:
Is there a defined character limit for free text fields? (If so what & why is it not common knowledge...?)
Why does the generated error message not mention this?

The investigations continue!

I trust this finds you well & look forward to hearing from you,
Cheers now, Rob

3 Reply by Sarah Shaw

  • Sarah Shaw
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Re: Data Entry Errors

Hi Rob

The Item_Name field in the Location_Name table does infact hold a maximum of 100 characters.

As to why this is so, I would assume that at the time of development this number of characters was thought to be sufficient for this field, and as I understand it, keeping the number of characters down to a minimum helps the database to run more efficiently.

If you have SQL Server tools at your disposal, then you can view the properties of each table by going into the NBN database and double clicking on the table you are interested in, or right click and go to Properties...

In terms of error messages, I'm not sure if the error messages you are getting are pointing to this, or another problem. Though, I agree that it isn't always easy to identify the cause of the problem from these.

John van Breda may be able to suggest what is causing the errors, although I know he is working flat out at the moment on the new version.

Best wishes,

Sarah

Sarah Shaw
Biodiversity Information Assistant
JNCC

Sarah Shaw
Biodiversity Information Assistant
JNCC

4 Reply by johnvanbreda

  • johnvanbreda
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Re: Data Entry Errors

Hi Rob

Its difficult to tell from the error message. Perhaps you could details of the data you are trying to save so that I can try to replicate the error?

John

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT

johnvanbreda's Website

5 Reply by Rob B

  • Rob B
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Re: Data Entry Errors

Hi John,

I teach people to use the Location Name field as a description of the location. In this case, the actual records said this:

" Transect Line from fencepost with white mark at west boundary through Black-currant bush to big tree beyond North East corner"

After abbreviating that mouthful to "Transect from white marked fence post" no error occurred, hence previous post.

Many thanks now, Rob.

6 Reply by johnvanbreda

  • johnvanbreda
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Re: Data Entry Errors

What about the first error, has that also gone away?

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT

johnvanbreda's Website

7 Reply by Rob B

  • Rob B
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Re: Data Entry Errors

Hi John,

The first error has not occurred since & we've not been able to reproduce it either. It's very rare that a week goes by without R6 producing an error I've never seen before in 3 years of using R2K/6...The reason I included both in the first post is that they broadly cover the same subject.

Cheers now Rob.