OT Known Bugs

Known bugs (and workarounds, where possible) in the Observing Tool are described here. If you find a new problem, please submit the information via the Gemini HelpDesk and include any stack trace (by default Windows does not give a stack trace).

23 June 2006
Abeja 3.3 GNIRS and GMOS-S bugs:
In the GNIRS static component the number of coadds cannot be saved in the static component, the coadds must be set in a GNIRS sequence iterator.  Also, changes to the PA in the static component cannot be saved.  The PA can be changed by dragging the slit or IFU field in the Position Editor.  For GMOS-S, the visualization of the IFU nod & shuffle focal plain units in the Position Editor is incorrect and the planned time does not appropriately account for the binning.  All of these problems are fixed in Abeja version 3.5 released 30 June 2005.

29 June 2005
Palote 3.1 not compatible with Fedora Core 4 Line distribution:
We have discovered that the Sun JRE included with the Palote_3.1 Linux distribution is not compatible with the Fedora Core 4 Linux distribution. The symptom is that the fetch/store fails immediately with a stack trace starting as follows:

ERROR [SwingWorker] 2005-06-28 18:16:28,748:  
edu.gemini.oodb.OodbClientBase - Connection problem
java.net.SocketException: Invalid argument or cannot assign requested  
address
...with several more lines...

9 January 2005
RA values considered to have units of hr:
The units for RA are assumed to be hr (hours). Values greater than 24 are 'unwrapped' e.g. 243.7, intended to be in degrees, is interpreted as 10 revolutions plus 3.7hr and is converted to an 'RA' of 3h 42m.

10 Dec 2004 - fixed in public re-release
Sequence not copied when modified observation merged:
After fetching a program and modifying observation sequences, the changes are not correctly integrated when the program is stored to the Observing Database. This only affects Grillo-01.6, which was the initial public release available for about 12hr overnight on 9 December, and is fixed in subsequent releases. 

4 Feb 2003 - fixed in river-10 internal release
Offset sequences not preserved when copies are made:
This occurs when an offset iterator is copied from one observation to another and then one of them is edited. The problem is that a new copy of the list is not being made; it is being shared between the copies. This bug also manifests as the apparent 'disappearance' of offset and nod-and-shuffle steps when exporting and re-importing saved (XML file) copies of the science program. 

20 January 2003 - fixed in river-10 internal release
Image quality observing condition not loaded correctly:
From semester 2003A, the previous image quality observing conditions (20%, 50%, 80% and "any") were changed to (20%, 70%, 85% and "any"). Some science program or Phase I proposal created with OT or PIT from 2002B or earlier and imported into later versions of OT are not correctly translated, e.g. 80% is interpreted as "any". The image quality observing conditions should be checked and changed manually.

11 July 2002 - fixed in OT river release of January 2003
Offset iterator steps are defined in wrong axis for rectangular grid:
In the telescope offset iterator, a rectangular grid of steps can be created using the grid pattern tab. The number of steps specified in the p axis (the upper button) incorrectly produces that number of steps in the q axis (and vice versa). This can be seen by inspecting the iteration table or visually by viewing the offsets in the position editor. The initial offset and spacing parameters are handled correctly. 

The pop-up tip (when the cursor is held over the step boxes) incorrectly labels them as RA and dec. The relation between the [p,q] coordinate system and (RA, dec) depends on the defined position angle on the sky. 

17 April 2002 - fixed in OT limberlost release of 10 July 2002
GMOS OIWFS does not correspond to current hardware configuration:
As it has an asymmetric configuration relative to the optical axis, the GMOS on-instrument wavefront sensor's patrol field will change when the instrument is mounted on the up-looking and any side-looking port. (The effective patrol field is flipped about the x-axis by reflection in the science fold mirror). Thus although the same guide star may in principle be used regardless of port, the instrument may need to be rotated to acquire that star and the OIWFS probe arm will vignette a different part of the field. 

The current public OT release (OT2002A.11) assumes that GMOS is on the up-looking port; in fact the instrument is now mounted on a side-looking port. PIs should continue to define their programs using the public OT; their Gemini Contact Scientist will notify them of any problems. 

5 February 2002 - fixed in OT river release of January 2003 (use the Position Editor...Catalog...Proxy Server menu)
Guide star catalogue or digital sky survey searches fail because user machine is behind proxy server:
If the user's computer connects to the outside world via an HTTP proxy server then PIT catalogue assistant searches, PIT proposal submission (UK, Canada and Australia) and OT guide star or image searches will fail, often with the error exception occurred while retrieving the data: java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused.  This problem arises because PIT and OT currently do not support sites with an HTTP proxy (support is being added for the next public releases of PIT and OT).

There is a workaround for those using PIT and OT under solaris or linux operating systems. (If you are using Windows, please contact us as there may also be a solution). The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on Solaris and Linux allows setting two system properties at runtime to indicate that HTTP access should go through an HTTP proxy server.

The two system properties are:

• http.proxyHost -> The host name of the proxy machine
• http.proxyPort -> The port used by the proxy host

A modified command for starting PIT would look like the following (where the -D allows setting the system property on the command line):

 
  exec java ${JFLAGS} -Dhttp.proxyHost="proxy host" -Dhttp.proxyPort="port" edu.gemini.phase1.tool.app.PIT 

An example PIT.sh script is available that includes two new variables (called PROXYHOST and PROXYPORT) and can be edited with your local information. Similar modifications should work for the OT.

23 October 2001 - only an issue for semester 2001B
Bugs in Phase I - to - Phase II skeleton conversion. In the translation of approved Phase I proposals to the XML skeletons for Phase II several errors were introduced: 

• In some Science Programs no instrument component (NIRI or GMOS) was included in each observation, in others the instrument was included but with default parameters. In both cases the PIs should define the instrument configuration required for their observations.
• The observing condition constraints often were incorrectly transcribed. The observing conditions included within the Phase I proposal summary element of the Phase II XML file are correct, but the conditions within each observation are wrong. PIs should check and, if necessary, correct the observation conditions. 

3 May 2001
In (first) public release OT1.0.0

• Help-page tutorials are those from old OT
• When WFS tags are deleted in the position editor they are correctly deleted from the (target component) target list but not from the offset iterator table
  

Last update February 5, 2007: Bryan Miller