[Archivesspace_Users_Group] Continuing Problem in Re-Ordering of components - Critical

Thu Aug 13 10:35:17 EDT 2015

Hi Chris, 

Could you just take a moment to lay out for us what specific information is required to troubleshoot this issue, so we can all start collecting/sharing data in a helpful way? What specific information about the server environment do you need to know? And how would you like us to share what the data looks like? Would attaching an XML version of the record suffice? 

And is there a better way to collect this data from the institutions experiencing this issue than the listserv? I think it may be worth looking for ways we as a community can start working more stridently toward a solution on this. It's disconcerting t his issue has lingered through several versions of ASpace especially since, a s Emma suggested, this issue is kind of a deal-breaker when encountered. It not only stifles work, it also creates distrust by users working in the system, which works against our efforts to advocate for ASpace locally at our institutions, and more broadly in the archives community. 

Thanks, 
Ben 

Ben Goldman 
Digital Records Archivist & 
Sally W. Kalin Early Career Librarian for Technological Innovations 
Penn State University Libraries 

From: "Chris Fitzpatrick" <Chris.Fitzpatrick at lyrasis.org> 
To: "Archivesspace Users Group" <archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org> 
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 10:09:46 AM 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Continuing Problem in Re-Ordering of components - Critical 

Hi Lora, 

Thanks. One thing to keep in mind is that LYRASIS hosting is separate from the ArchivesSpace, so if you're having problems with the application, you should send that information to the ArchivesSpace project team if you want support from us on it ( "us" being ArchivesSpace and not LYRASIS ). 

Also, going through all these "reordering issues", one of the problems with troubleshooting this has been it is heavily depending on how the data is structured, what user is doing, and the server environment. So, it's really helpful to get a description of what the data looks like, what actions the user was doing, and your server environment ( in your case, you're hosted, which is enough information ). 

best, chris. 

Chris Fitzpatrick | Developer, ArchivesSpace 
Skype: chrisfitzpat | Phone: 918.236.6048 
http://archivesspace.org/ 

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org <archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org> on behalf of Lora Davis <ljdavis at colgate.edu> 
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 3:59 PM 
To: Archivesspace Users Group 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Continuing Problem in Re-Ordering of components - Critical 
All, 

Just a quick between-meetings post to note that we at Colgate (Lyrasis hosted) are also seeing a reappearance of this component reordering trouble. Our Processing Archivist will contribute a longer post detailing the issues she's had (including a new behavior we've never encountered before) later today, but for now I wanted to jump in and say "us too." 

As a hosted instance we have also reported these issues to Lyrasis as well. 

Best, 

Lora 

On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 9:34 AM, Chris Fitzpatrick < Chris.Fitzpatrick at lyrasis.org > wrote: 

Hi Patrick, 

It's on the MySQL server that there's usually a bottleneck. What are the setting there? 

Also, it's probably a good idea to try out the dev releases and see if you run into these issues. You can download the latest here: 

https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/releases 

Releases · archivesspace/archivesspace · GitHub 
archivesspace - The ArchivesSpace archives management tool 
Read more... 

b,chris. 

Chris Fitzpatrick | Developer, ArchivesSpace 
Skype: chrisfitzpat | Phone: 918.236.6048 
http://archivesspace.org/ 

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org < archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org > on behalf of Galligan, Patrick < PGalligan at rockarch.org > 
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 2:58 PM 
To: Archivesspace Users Group 

Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Continuing Problem in Re-Ordering of components - Critical 

Chris, 

I’ll chime in and say that reordering has continued with the update to 1.3.0. I have not resequenced since the upgrade, which MIGHT fix the problem, but two archivists have identified that it still happens at the RAC. Sometimes the finding aids are large, but sometimes they are just medium sized. 

We only have AS running on our VM, and it should have plenty of ram. See top information below: 

top - 08:56:43 up 44 days, 23:58, 1 user, load average: 0.36, 0.11, 0.03 

Tasks: 181 total, 1 running, 180 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie 

Cpu(s): 0.2%us, 0.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 98.8%id, 0.2%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st 

Mem: 10131060k total, 9929312k used, 201748k free, 106888k buffers 

Swap: 6160376k total, 30592k used, 6129784k free, 7918028k cached 

Patrick Galligan 

Rockefeller Archive Center 

Assistant Digital Archivist 

914-366-6386 

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org [mailto: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org ] On Behalf Of Chris Fitzpatrick 
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 8:38 AM 
To: Archivesspace Users Group ( archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org ) 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Continuing Problem in Re-Ordering of components - Critical 

Hi Emma, 

How much RAM do you have for the application and for the MySQL server? When reordering components with lots of siblings ( hundreds or thousands ), the positions of all the sibling components need to be updated. If you're running into a bottle neck on the server, this can timeout and cause the reordering to be incomplete. 

There is some documentation on performance here : http://archivesspace.github.io/archivesspace/ 

I've recently added some code that freezes the tree until the move operation has been completed, which should help with this problem. Closing the record does not actually do anything other than change the browser's page. If you refresh the page, it will refresh the tree as well. 

b,chris. 

Chris Fitzpatrick | Developer, ArchivesSpace 
Skype: chrisfitzpat | Phone: 918.236.6048 
http://archivesspace.org/ 

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org < archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org > on behalf of Emma Jolley < EJOLLEY at nla.gov.au > 
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 3:50 AM 
To: Archivesspace Users Group ( archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org ) 
Subject: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] Continuing Problem in Re-Ordering of components - Critical 

Dear ArchivesSpace 

We are continuing to encounter the component re-ordering problem when we edit resources even though we have recently upgraded to the latest version of ArchivesSpace. 

For example, we created a new resource record by importing an EAD XML finding aid to ArchivesSpace. We then started editing the resource record, creating new components and moving existing components around the component hierarchy. Screenshots of the edited version, prior to closing the resource record, are attached (Set 1). As soon as the resource record was closed, many of the components re-ordered themselves (see screenshots Set 2). 

We then tried re-re-ordering the components, one change at a time (Edit - change – Close, Edit – change – Close, etc.). Following this method, the preferred order of components did seem to ‘stick’. However, this is not a viable solution as this adds significantly to the time required to make even minor changes to resource records and will greatly hamper our use of ArchivesSpace for resource description and is virtually impossible when dealing with some of our larger collections which have thousands of components in them. 

This is extremely frustrating and means that we are unable to undertake any detailed work or data entry at component level of Resource Records as it is too difficult to use. This is a critical problem for us as we are currently in a massive finding-aid project that requires extensive work on resource records. 

Is there any advice on the delivery of a solution to this problem? It seems to have been around for a long time and we would be extremely grateful to see an urgent solution. 

I would be happy to log this as a Bug if someone could send me advice on how to do so. 

Many thanks 

Emma 

Emma Jolley | Curator of Digital Archives, Pictures and Manuscripts Branch|National Library of Australia Canberra ACT 2600 
e: emma.jolley at nla.gov.au |t: 02 6262 1456| www.nla.gov.au/ms 

http://www.nla.gov.au/support-us/make-a-collection-offer-pictures-and-manuscripts 

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org [ mailto:archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org ] On Behalf Of Chris Fitzpatrick 
Sent: Saturday, 15 November 2014 9:52 AM 
To: Archivesspace Users Group 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] reordering objects in resource records 

Hi everyone, 

Thanks for this and sorry about the pain this has been causing. A few points: 

1) Just to clarify, this isn't a 1.1.0 bug. It's actually affects all versions of AS. 

2) Payton from Hudson Molongo's patch is included into github now, but I still need to write tests for it. If you want the fix now, you can do a fresh build on the current version in github. and let us know if it works for you 

3) In regards to process, I think the problem was that this was reported along with another similar issue involving instances re-ordering. Also, in trying to replicate this issue, I mistakenly assumed that it was strictly a "drag-and-drop" issue and was missing the key edit part of the problem, so I wasn't able to see the problem immediately. 

But, regardless, we all need to make sure that PT tickets get made for any bug or feature request. If its not in PT, it's probably not going to be addressed. 

I know not everyone has "create" access in Pivotal Tracker ( there's a license/cost issue there ), but there are quite a few colleagues who can submit tickets. 

I'm also trying to think of ways we can ensure discussions generated here get captured into tickets, with good suggestions. Anyone have some suggestions on things that work or that they think might work? 

Let me know what you think. 

best, 

chris 

Chris Fitzpatrick | Developer, ArchivesSpace 
Skype: chrisfitzpat | Phone: 918.236.6048 
http://archivesspace.org/ 

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org < archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org > on behalf of Ben Goldman < bmg17 at psu.edu > 
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 9:51 PM 
To: Archivesspace Users Group 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] reordering objects in resource records 

Thanks to everyone who's been testing this and reporting back to the list. At Penn State we have not had a chance to test this yet as we haven't upgraded to 1.1, but I would just add that this particular bug has led us to effectively freeze all data entry at the component level of resource records, because the results are just too unpredictable and difficult to remediate. I suspect that other ASpace users might feel the same way. I would hope that ArchivesSpace could prioritize this fix for immediate release. 

Thanks, 
Ben 

Ben Goldman 
Digital Records Archivist 
Penn State University Libraries 
University Park, PA 
814-863-8333 
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/speccolls.html 

From: "Lora Davis" < ljdavis at colgate.edu > 
To: "Archivesspace Users Group" < archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org > 
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 3:43:19 PM 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] reordering objects in resource records 

Yes, just to reiterate what Allyson, Elliot, and Teresa have shared - this happens at random but does not seem to be directly correlated (at least for us) to actually dragging/dropping/moving components. A case in point: I've been going through and adding access restriction notes to various components within existing administrative collections. Last week I clicked on several existing components in a resource record, added conditions governing access notes to those components, saved the changes, and went about the rest of my day. The following day I pulled up the resource to answer a reference question and, lo and behold, it appeared as if someone had dipped a giant wooden spoon into the cauldron that was the collection and stirred all the components about in an infuriatingly nonsensical way to make component soup of our previously well-ordered resource record. 

Payten - Thanks for sharing this code, but just to confirm, have you tested this fix against the scenario I describe (editing but not moving a component)? I just want clarification since the description for your patch ("Patch for drag and drop causing record to lose position/parent") does not align with the primary problem we are encountering. Again, thanks for your hard work. 

Chris - Do we have a timeline for this release? We are seeing many benefits to our transition to ArchivesSpace, but this problem has been a constant thorn in our sides since we first reported it in June. We had hoped that 1.1.0 would resolve this issue (as we'd been told it would), but we remain anxious for the day when we can rest assured that ArchivesSpace gnomes won't enter our resources at night and scramble them all about. 

Best, 

Lora Davis 

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 8:40 AM, Chris Fitzpatrick < Chris.Fitzpatrick at lyrasis.org > wrote: 

Ah, awesome Payten. 

I couldn't get this to replicate and was thinking it was something in the backend. 

Will apply this and include it in the next release. 

Thanks! 

b,chris. 

Chris Fitzpatrick | Developer, ArchivesSpace 
Skype: chrisfitzpat | Phone: 918.236.6048 
http://archivesspace.org/ 

From: Payten Giles < payten.giles at gmail.com > 
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 5:44 AM 
To: Chris Fitzpatrick; Archivesspace Users Group 

Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] reordering objects in resource records 

Hi there Chris, Allyson, 

Eavesdropping a little bit and the guilt of writing this code became too much! 

Chris, this looks like a little bug in the tree.js where we aren’t checking the correct node.. the comment says the right thing while the code does the wrong thing. Here’s a gist of a potential patch: 

https://gist.github.com/payten/649819e7f08d0de3e945 

To replicate I have a Resource hierarchy something like this: 

- Resource 

- AO Parent 

- AO Child 1 

- AO Child 2 

- AO Child 3 

- AO Child 4 

I select and go to edit ‘AO Child 3’. When that form is visible I drag ‘AO Child 4’ above to become the first sibling. I then continue to edit ‘AO Child 3’ and refresh the page. ‘A0 Child 3’ is now positioned directly under ‘Resource’. 

Happy to put together a more formal pull request if you like. 

Cheers, 

Payten 

BQ_BEGIN

On 11 Nov 2014, at 12:53 am, Chris Fitzpatrick < Chris.Fitzpatrick at lyrasis.org > wrote: 

Hi Allyson, 

Unfortuantely, I haven't been able to replicate the problem of component movements not sticking. See => 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRF7huQ7tqKS29oM2RZZWNubGc/view?usp=sharing ) 

In edit mode, I'm able to drag and drop components, reload the page, or go to the view page. 

Is this happening for every record every time for you? Or is it an infrequent thing? 

Not doubting you ( I promise! ) , just trying to see when this is happening... 

b,chris. 

Chris Fitzpatrick | Developer, ArchivesSpace 
Skype: chrisfitzpat | Phone: 918.236.6048 
http://archivesspace.org/ 

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org < archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org > on behalf of Allyson Smally < asmally at colgate.edu > 
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 6:04 PM 
To: Archivesspace Users Group 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] reordering objects in resource records 

Hello all - 

Unfortunately, after upgrading to the newest release, we are still having this problem. 

Archival objects are reordering themselves after being edited. 

Is anyone else still having this problem? Does anyone know of a solution? 

Thanks very much, 

Allyson 

Allyson E. Smally 
Processing Archivist 
Colgate University Libraries 
13 Oak Drive 
Hamilton, NY 13346 
(315) 228-7867 

On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 8:14 AM, Ben Goldman < bmg17 at psu.edu > wrote: 

Hi Chris, 

Archival object tree. 

Thanks! 

-Ben 

From: "Chris Fitzpatrick" < Chris.Fitzpatrick at lyrasis.org > 
To: "Archivesspace Users Group" < archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org > 
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2014 3:46:10 AM 

Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] reordering objects in resource records 

Hey Ben, 

Soon, I promise! 

But just to check, are you talking about reording the archival object tree for the resource or the order of things like notes and subjects? 

b,chris. 

Chris Fitzpatrick | Developer, ArchivesSpace 
Skype: chrisfitzpat | Phone: 918.236.6048 
http://archivesspace.org/ 

From: archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org < archivesspace_users_group-bounces at lyralists.lyrasis.org > on behalf of Ben Goldman < bmg17 at psu.edu > 
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 10:19 PM 
To: Archivesspace Users Group 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] reordering objects in resource records 

Thanks, Allyson. I knew it sounded familiar! 

Do we have an ETA on the next release yet? :) 

-Ben 

From: "Allyson Smally" < asmally at colgate.edu > 
To: "Archivesspace Users Group" < archivesspace_users_group at lyralists.lyrasis.org > 
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 4:15:04 PM 
Subject: Re: [Archivesspace_Users_Group] reordering objects in resource records 

Hi Ben, 

Yes, from what I understand this is a known issue. It has been happening to us a lot as well. 

At SAA this August, I was told it would be fixed in the next release. 

-Allyson 

Allyson E. Smally 
Processing Archivist 
Colgate University Libraries 
13 Oak Drive 
Hamilton, NY 13346 
(315) 228-7867 

On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 2:52 PM, Ben Goldman < bmg17 at psu.edu > wrote: 

Hello, 

I've just experienced an issue and on a cursory search can't tell if it's been noted in PivotalTracker yet or discussed here yet. 

I've been editing an inventory object-by-object in a resource record, saving each object as I updated it. In one instance I reordered one of the objects by dragging it further down the tree, then continued editing other objects. Then I reached an object that could be removed, clicked to delete it, the resource reloaded in View mode, and the objects appeared to shuffle, and not seemingly in the order I started with. 

-Ben 

Ben Goldman 
Digital Records Archivist 
Penn State University Libraries 
University Park, PA 
814-863-8333 
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/speccolls.html 

-- 

Allyson E. Smally 
Processing Archivist 
Colgate University Libraries 
13 Oak Drive 
Hamilton, NY 13346 
(315) 228-7867 

_______________________________________________ 
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_______________________________________________ 
Archivesspace_Users_Group mailing list 
Archivesspace_Users_Group at lyralists.lyrasis.org 
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-- 

Lora J. Davis 
Assistant Archivist 
Colgate University Libraries 
13 Oak Drive 
Hamilton, NY 13346 

Tel: (315) 228-6376 
Fax: (315) 228-7934 

_______________________________________________ 
Archivesspace_Users_Group mailing list 
Archivesspace_Users_Group at lyralists.lyrasis.org 
http://lyralists.lyrasis.org/mailman/listinfo/archivesspace_users_group 

_______________________________________________ 
Archivesspace_Users_Group mailing list 
Archivesspace_Users_Group at lyralists.lyrasis.org 
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BQ_END

-- 
Lora J. Davis 
Collections Archivist 
Colgate University Libraries 
13 Oak Drive 
Hamilton, NY 13346 
Tel: (315) 228-6376 
Fax: (315) 228-7934 

_______________________________________________ 
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