UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Why a request is not answered
If you not even get a diagnostic message describing the reason of an
erroneous request, a more severe issue is at stake.
On our side, the programs might have been stopped, paused, or are overloaded.
Have a look at the queue page to find out.
There is a long list of issues originating on the user's side. A couple of them relate to measures
fending off spams and hacks, and your job might have implied or
created a pattern that looked like an untoward request.
The sender's address is blacklisted. If you think there is no
good reason or if you have learned a lesson in a former issue
leading to get blacklisted, write an email to
hgs_kanelbulle_chalmers.se,
so we can revise the system's behaviour.
Default values are used for all elements except
in the text area where you specify your stations
the ocean tide model
A common field element that spammers simply copy is the default
value of the (ocean tide) model, DFLT. Such doesn't exist. It's
simply a trap. A request for model DFLT goes the same way as above.
Filling out the site form:
The strict column format is shown together with an instructive
comment inside the form window. If a site is not within 10 km from
the earth's surface, a warning is issued already at the http stage.
Blank space is required for filling, not tabs. It must be the
character ASCII 32 decimal, 20 hex, usually generated by the space
bar on your keyboard. If characters above ASC 127 (dec) or hex-coded
characters appear, the request is termed SPAM. Reason: Abusers send
mail directly to the services' email address with form elements
copied from the home page, but instead of sites they enter rubbish
like text, links, photos, typically with a lot of hex-translations
base64 encoding and/or html-markup. That stuff goes
straight into /dev/null.
However, the DFLT model can have been selected in an otherwise
perfect request. Soon there will be extended parsing so that the
sender receives an e-mail asking to resend the request for one of
the legal models. This will be the only circumstance on which the
system will contact a sender.
The service dismisses request that are in UNICODE, UTF8, or contain
html markup. If you send your requests by e-mail to loading
_kanelbulle_barre.oso.chalmers.se,
make sure the mail composer produces only bare and plain ASCII, no
markups.
Site names may contain alphanumeric characters plus a few others
(sorry, we should give a list of permissible symbols here), but
accented characters must be avoided. Some problematic characters are
rejected at the http-page with the unspecific message "garbled". For
instance, a slash `/ ยด is not allowed. Spaces are discouraged as
they are interpreted to separate site name and monument code. Two
separate spaces (like in "Bar Le Duc"), and the loading calculation
runs havoc! Use a contiguous set of spaces to delimit a site name
and its IERS monument code, if it has one at all.
You can use an underscore to replace blankspaces in the station name,
Bar_Le_Duc.
Preliminarily:
Legitimate are \ " ' - _ ? &
Illegitimate are / $
Untested yet: : ; . = ( ) [ ] { } !