report problems with archival description in ica atom

[camezq...@gmail.com]

Dear forum associates:

 

We are implementing the ICA ATOM version 1.3.1 - 92 in the Guatemalan National Citizen Registry. We are describing 95,000 books of civil registry through 31 series and 84 subseries. In each subserie there are described composed documental units or items that can ascend up to 2000 descriptions for each one.

 

We are the only institution using this program in Guatemala so I would like if you could answer each of the following:

 

1. When we reach 2,100 in a subserie, the ICA ATOM does´t display any report even if the books were entered in the program. What can we do about this because we really need the reports. Does the program has a restriction or a maximum quantity. 

 

2. We've had an issue with a specific serie in which we had already described the subserie and the composed documental units or items but recently we entered a referred series and it displays a message that there is an error in the server. How can we solve this?

 

We truly appreciate your support because we've realized that in an effective tool in documental description. 

 

Thanks a lot. 

[Dan Gillean]

Hi Cristian,

Thank you for posting in the ICA-AtoM user forum, and for your kind words about the project.

Before I provide any responses, I want to point out that at this time, the ICA-AtoM 1.x project is no longer being actively developed or maintained. Instead, we are focusing on our 2.x release (renamed to AtoM), and we encourage you to consider upgrading. AtoM 2 has many new features, a new look and feel, a new search index for better scalability, and the documentation has been completely rewritten. It still shares much of the same code, is maintained and developed by the same team, and is still freely released under the same open source license. There is also an upgrade path from ICA-AtoM 1.x to AtoM 2.x - see our upgrade instructions here:

• https://www.accesstomemory.org/docs/2.2/admin-manual/installation/upgrading/

Some responses to your questions below:

1. When we reach 2,100 in a subserie, the ICA ATOM does´t display any report even if the books were entered in the program. What can we do about this because we really need the reports. Does the program has a restriction or a maximum quantity. 

There is no built-in restriction or maximum quantity in AtoM or ICA-AtoM. I think you are reaching the limits of what can be done via the web browser.

Currently in ICA-AtoM and AtoM, most requests (such as the reports module) are performed synchronously on-demand via the web browser. However, most browsers have a built-in time out limit on long-running requests (usually about 1 minute). For large reports (such as 2,100 items in a subseries), the timeout limit is reached and the web browser aborts the request before the report can be generated.

In AtoM 2, we are beginning to address this with the use of a job scheduler. The job scheduler has workers that can perform long-running tasks in the background, so the request is not executed via the web browser, and will be performed asynchronously. In AtoM 2.2, we generate PDF finding aids using this functionality; in AtoM 2.3 we will manage publication status updates and CSV exports of search results using this method; in AtoM 2.4 the entire import/export functionality, and the move module, will be redesigned to use the job scheduler. Additionally, the reports module will also be moved to the job scheduler, so that large reports can be generated in the background without timing out, and made available for download to the user (as either CSV or HTML that can be viewed locally with a web browser).

So: there is a solution for this issue coming in a future version of AtoM 2! We are finalizing the 2.3 release now; we are just beginning development on the 2.4 release and at this time we do not have a firm release date for it.

 

2. We've had an issue with a specific serie in which we had already described the subserie and the composed documental units or items but recently we entered a referred series and it displays a message that there is an error in the server. How can we solve this?

It's difficult to say without more information. I would try to repeat the error while in Debug mode to see if a stack trace is generated - if so, please share the stack trace here, and we'll see if we can find anything in it that will help identify the cause of the issue. We don't have instructions for this on the old ICA-AtoM wiki, but the instructions are pretty much still the same in AtoM 2, so you can try these:

• https://www.accesstomemory.org/docs/2.2/admin-manual/maintenance/debug/
  

I would also suggest that you have a system administrator take a look in your webserver logs. Accessing these will depend on how you have installed the application, and what webserver you are using (Apache, Nginx, etc). Again, we have some guidelines for AtoM 2 here - the location of your webserver error logs may be different for ICA-AtoM, but the person who installed ICA-AtoM should be able to assist you in locating them. Try to repeat the behavior that leads to the error, and then look at the logs and share any error message you find here - we will see if we can offer any further suggestions on the cause of the issue.

Cheers,
 

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

[Cristian Amézquita]

Hey Dan,

Thank you for your valuable information. You’ve helped us a lot. I just have a few last questions:

Since you recommended us to update to ATOM 2.x, my fear is that we loose all of the information of over 20000 items that have taken a lot of time and effort.

The reason why I’m telling you this is because the current ICA-ATOM 1.x doesn´t let us export any XML files wich I consider a serious problem that I think should be solved in the current version. Could you help us how to make the ICA ATOM 1.x can export XML files?

I would also like to know the procedure to update the ICA ATOM 1.x to ATOM 2.x so that we don´t lose any information in the update.

Thanks a lot.

Best regards.

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[Dan Gillean]

Hi Cristian,

The upgrade path does not require that you first export your documents and then re-import them. I've provided an overview with some links below, but you should read the whole of the AtoM 2 documentation sections on Requirements, Installation, and Upgrading. The process looks something like this:

• Run a sql-dump of your current ICA-AtoM database from the command line (old ICA-AtoM instructions here)
• Make a copy of your uploads directory (so you can move your digital object over)
  
• Install AtoM 2.x
• Drop and recreate the AtoM 2 database
• Load your ICA-AtoM sql-dump, and run the upgrade task
• Regenerate the digital object derivatives (because they are a bit bigger in AtoM2, and the old ones will look blurry if you don't do this)
• Clear the cache, restart your services and populate the search index
• Configure your settings
  
• Done!
  

Essentially, this means: do not decommission your old ICA-AtoM site until you are certain that the upgrade has worked. This method preserves all data however - not just the main entities (like descriptions, authority records, terms, etc), but also user accounts, permissions settings, etc.

In the meantime, if you do want to export all of your EAD XML, you can use the bulk export command-line task to run this from the console, where it will not time out. The following link is from AtoM 2, so not all of the options will work (as they were added after ICA-AtoM), but the base command, php symfony export:bulk path/to/my/export-folder, will work in ICA-AtoM 1.3. See:

• https://www.accesstomemory.org/docs/2.2/admin-manual/maintenance/cli-tools/#bulk-export-of-xml-files

Because this task is run from the command-line, it will not time out in the same way as exports performed via the web browser / user interface. Note that it will not capture all authority record data (only the name, history, and entity type, which are embedded in the description's EAD XML), so if you choose this approach, you might want to also run a bulk export of EAC-CPF XML to capture the full authority records.

I hope that helps! Let us know how it goes!

Be aware that we hope to have a 2.3 release available in the next 2 weeks (if all goes well during testing!) - so you can either install 2.2.1 now and upgrade to 2.3 again later, or you might want to wait for the 2.3 public release to be available, and then begin performing your upgrade.

One last thing to be clear on - at this time, AtoM 2.2.1 (and AtoM 2.3) does NOT have full support for bulk/large XML import/export from the user interface - so you might still run into the same time-out problems after upgrade, if you are trying to export large descriptions from the user interface. However, we will be tackling this problem in the 2.4 release - some further details on this exciting development are included in this post in the user forum:

• https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ica-atom-users/cRwpCopC1hw/nDCp6UNBQAAJ

In the meantime, if you are curious, I found this older post I made last year that explains some of the history between the move to AtoM 2, and the differences between ICA-AtoM and AtoM. See:

• https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ica-atom-users/9y9b3DIIkMY/u8wDvhMBUnIJ
  

Good luck!

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

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[Cristian Amézquita]

Dear Dan:

I wanna thank you for all of your advice. I also wanted to let you know that we updated the ICA ATOM to its newest version, the 2.2.1.

It's been going great and we have been able to see the new features of this version. However we have encountered an issue,

when an item is created, it displays the following:

"Sorry, something went wrong.
The server returned a 500 Internal server Error".

cid:image0...@01D1DB6D.663B1000

Could you help us?

Thanks a lot.

Best Regards,

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[Dan Gillean]

Hi Cristian,

Will you look at the links in my first email in this thread, about Debug mode and checking the webserver error logs, and share with me any error messages you are able to find? This will help us figure out why you are receiving a 500 error. Thanks!

I'm glad to hear you upgraded successfully, and that things have been going well - before this problem! Hopefully we can figure out the cause with the error messages.

Cheers,

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

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