DX-World

54 Responses to “LoTW – Down”

1. Don, N1DG says:

   November 9, 2012 at 14:24

   Yes, LOTW back and all records there. Can we get back to working DX now?
2. 9A7PJT says:

   November 9, 2012 at 15:36

   Thank God !
3. Sandeep Miraj says:

   November 10, 2012 at 01:44

   Ooopsie!

   Fatal error: initializeLOTWDB: -709 – CONNECT: (protocol error): General database error [initializeLOTWDB: -709 - CONNECT: (protocol error)]
4. LW3ESH says:

   November 10, 2012 at 01:58

   I’m sorry but LoTW is down now one more time!!!

   It’s 2012-11-10 01:58 (UTC)
5. Gunarso - YB1LZ says:

   November 13, 2012 at 12:41

   LOTW is normal, but we are not allowed to upload data QSO, when we can up load the data QSO again?
   Tnx
6. Tom - N4NW says:

   November 19, 2012 at 18:53

   In October, 2003 issue of QST, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) announced the start of Logbook of the World (LoTW) September 15, 2003. Wayne Mills, N7NG outlined in the announcement how LotW would work with a simple procedure under a system to ensure the validity of QSOs.

   In the past decade, LotW has grown to more than 53,000 users and nearly a half billion (456 million) QSOs on file. However, this 50k users represent less than 3% of the licensed hams in the world. In Mills original article he states that use of LoTW will be paid for by usage in the form of credits purchased by users seeking DXCC, WAS and WPX awards programs.

   If would appear that the income from the users has lagged far behind the cost of improvement and maintenance of the computer system(s) – hardware & software. Initial problems appeared after the first major DX contest in 2011 then the LoTW servers seemed to choke with the influx of logs in October, 2011. Days would pass before uploaded logs would be processed into the LoTW database. The ARRL offered little in the way of explanation other that a vague comment that it was the sheer number of logs uploaded after the contest which created the slowdown.

   In mid October of this year, once again LoTW crashed. No public comment was made by the ARRL until three days after LoTW stopped working and that was a vaguely worded comment that the system was undergoing maintenance. I received Information from an ARRL staffer that the system, ‘ ran out of memory.’ Later in the week the ARRL stated that they expected LoTW to resume operation at the end of the week. Still no official word has been forthcoming as to what actually happened, nor what steps were being taken to prevent another failure. The only thing the ARRL emphasized was that no data was lost.

   During the 2012 National Capitol DX Association DX East convention, ARRL Membership and Volunteer Programs Manager Dave Patton, NN1N, stated that there was no intent by the ARRL to change the method users become validated – LoTW system emphasizes secure authentication using cryptographic key distribution. The ARRL, unlike most other secure online systems, still relies on paper validation of users in the form of a license copy and some form of official identification document for non-US licensees to be sent via mail to ARRL headquarters and the return of the digital key being mailed back to the requester before one can become a LoTW user. Perhaps it is this antiquated method of adding users to LoTW that the ARRL relied upon to prevent usage that causes the system to crash.

   In mid November, an ARRL staffer was reported as blaiming extensive use of LoTW on contests but on third party software programs – such as DXLab & DX4WIN as the reason it is slow and crashes.

   It is time for the users, and potential uses of LoTW, contact the members of the ARRL board of directors directly and demand that sufficient resources be devoted to the LoTW system to ensure its efficient and reliable operation for not only today but in the future. A list of ARRL Directors & vice Directors with their contact information may be found at this web page http://www.arrl.org/divisions

   If you are an ARRL member ask your Director to:

   • Respond to you why LoTW is crashing and not operating efficiently,
   • Respond to you as to what steps he/she is taking to ensure sufficient resources are being devoted to the LoTW system
   • Encourage a more modern and simple means for non-US licensees can become authenticated as LoTW users
   • Create an ARRL headquarters staff position with the responsibility for LoTW & online data based awards program operations.

   If you are not a LoTW user, complete the steps to become an authenticated user and use LoTW daily to upload, maintain and back-up your logs.
7. Gust ON6KE says:

   November 19, 2012 at 19:36

   I couldn’t agree more with Tom N4NW, a well written and clear post it is.

   By the way this is what I just found on LoTW’s Home page, the ’4 days Behind’ became ’6 days Behind’.

   “Nov 19, 2012: LoTW Log Processing is About 6 Days Behind — The system is processing log data a little slower than usual, but is working. There is a very large number of logs in the queue — thanks for your patience and for using LoTW, and we will continue to work to streamline the system.”

   I find this totally unacceptable. Still as Tom says, no ARRL announcement as to what happened, as to which measures were or are going to be taken, short and middle term.

   I see queues runing full (as in overflow) once the the CQ WW CW logs are being loaded next week.
8. F4BKV Vincent says:

   November 19, 2012 at 21:13

   I remember last year, after the CQWW SSB it tooks exactly one month to proceed the backlog, and once LOTW was back to normal, then the CQWW CW appears and we were again on backlog for about a month. This year, it looks different, there is still 6 days backlog (and keep increasing) and the CQWW CW is less than a week ahead ! (I’m afraid the backlog will be counted in weeks after this weekend :)

   I’m not a database specialist but I wonder why the LOTW administrators can not disabled automatically the upload and search features of LOTW once the backlog has reached a certain amount (let says more than a day) ? So no additional logs will be added to the queue until the backlog will be resume. This will avoid the one uploading they log every second QSO and also the automatic software to generate additional load on the system for a while.

   At the end, I’m afraid the issue LOTW Admins are facing is related to the architecture of the systems, designed in 2003 and not scalable anymore 10 years later. What I hope is that after the clear warning of 2011 CQWW and the crash of this year, they will now seriously think about the architecture evolution of the LOTW.
9. Stephen Hawkins NG0G says:

   November 28, 2012 at 11:47

   I have noticed that twice now since the 19th of November, contacts that I submitted to lotw and got the “queued” message do not show up. Contacts submitted later do. I have resubmitted those qso, but this makes me think that all is not right.
10. Stephen Hawkins says:

    November 28, 2012 at 21:08

    Found one again this morning. A contact made early in the morning local cdst on the 25th of November is missing but the two following it later in the day showed up. Resubmitted and sent another email to lotw.
11. Bob says:

    November 29, 2012 at 00:11

    There was a ARRL post concerning LotW today. The found the root-cause for a few queued logs not posting and have fixed the issue. But it appears resubmittal is needed.

    http://www.arrl.org/news/view/arrl-s-logbook-of-the-world-bug-fix-is-on-the-way
12. Gust ON6KE says:

    November 29, 2012 at 07:48

    Hi all,
    I for one am happy that the ARRL finally understood it’s to better communicate with its LoTW users.
    I saw the post too and now see there’s another post mentioning the successful implementation of the fix.

    http://www.arrl.org/news/update-to-logbook-of-the-world-bug-fix
13. Gust ON6KE says:

    December 1, 2012 at 11:51

    The log book status (Home page) counters aren’t increasing, none of them.

    It’s been like that for several hours now.
14. Gust ON6KE says:

    December 28, 2012 at 10:52

    LoTW down again:

    Fatal error: initializeLOTWDB: -1003 – Too many buffers requested: General database error [initializeLOTWDB: -1003 - Too many buffers requested]