FAO Dave Reid

[bratters]

Hi Dave

In a recent thread about routes you wrote:

DaveReid
Hero Member

Posts: 1256


    Re: Routes - or rather lack of them
« Reply #11 on: May 11, 2010, 07:59:17 am » Quote 

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Quote from: abrad41 on May 11, 2010, 07:53:43 am
Thanks for the info, so if you empty the route information, you think it will be re-populated.

Well I haven't been brave enough to try so far - but I'll give it a go today and post the results !

Did you get a result and is it worth a go? Right now cheapo carriers like Ryanair Thomson Whizz etc might as well be operating mystery tours. ;)

regards John

[tarbat]

Well, I'm not Dave, but I have emptied out the ROUTES table, and as each new aircraft appears, the route has NOT been populated into the ROUTES table.

So, now restoring my backup of the routes table !!

[bratters]

Thanks for the reply Tarbat and for being the forum guinea pig. Lesson learnt.

This "guess where I'm from and guess where I'm going" game is starting to get on my wotnots.

[tarbat]

This "guess where I'm from and guess where I'm going" game is starting to get on my wotnots.

Agreed.  Airnav really need to get on top of these data issues before they lose all credibility.

EDIT: Problem seems to be that lookups to the Airnav server for FlightIDs are getting no response.  Airnav, this needs fixing.

For example - http://www.airnavsystems.com/cgi-bin/ANLV_SV/ANLV_SV_user.exe?usgetorgdst=0&usemail=PGANRB111111&usversion=ANRB301&fnumber=DLH493

[bratters]

I've just taken a bog-standard random screenshot of NW England. (attached)

Unless I've miscounted, the full details of 19 flights can be seen and of these, 8 flights have no route information.  That's over 40%.

Nuff said?

[DaveReid]

Problem seems to be that lookups to the Airnav server for FlightIDs are getting no response.  Airnav, this needs fixing.

Sorry chaps, I've been a bit preoccupied with trying (unsuccessfully) to get my LHR website working with RadarBox, so I've only just got round to testing with an empty routes table.

I can confirm that, while some routes are being populated from the server on the radarBox screen (e.g. AAL113 & AIC188 in MyFlights at the moment) and some aren't (e.g. AWE733 & DLH2UT, should be EGKK-KCLT and EDDF-EIDW, respectively), the route data isn't being saved in the NavData Routes table.

WIHIH ?

[tarbat]

Okay, now that the Airnav server is back up, I can confirm that after deleting all entries from the ROUTES table, routes for aircraft in MyFlights are being populated into the ROUTES table.  21 entries added in ROUTES table in the last hour or so.

So, looks like it works as intended.  Whether the routes are correct or not is another matter.

[DaveReid]

Okay, now that the Airnav server is back up, I can confirm that after deleting all entries from the ROUTES table, routes for aircraft in MyFlights are being populated into the ROUTES table.  21 entries added in ROUTES table in the last hour or so.

Interesting - it would indeed appear that the routes are being written to the database but the updates aren't committed until you exit RadarBox.  I've now got 15 routes in the table from an earlier session, but the ones currently showing on the screen aren't visible yet via SQLite, presumably they will be after I've closed down RB again.

[anorak]

As my box is on 24/7 does this mean my data isn`t getting updated?
(Numpty question?)
Dave.

[DaveReid]

As my box is on 24/7 does this mean my data isn`t getting updated?
(Numpty question?)

Very sensible question, in fact - and probably one best answered by AirNav.

I can see that it would be frustrating if your RadarBox or PC crashed after it had been on for an extended length of time but before downloaded routes were written to the database, so it may be that the updates are committed periodically - that would make more sense.

[tarbat]

Radarbox uses SQLite databases, and the journals should be getting commited on a regular basis.  If you find that the journal files are getting big, then it would indicate that the journals aren't getting commited by Radarbox.  I've never seen this happen, but others have and it results in data being lost from Mylog, for example.

This needs a more definitive answer from Airnav, but I've always had concerns that under some conditions database updates remain in the journals, and then get lost.  Possibly a failure in atomic commits in Radarbox?  Or maybe an interation between the NTFS journal system and SQLite journal system.  I'w always put SQLite databases on a FAT32 drive to avoid NTFS journalling - it's an overhead you just don't need.

Dave, you might want to post an explanation on the other forum.  I also tried answering this on the other forum before being banned again for being helpful :(

[RodBearden]

I've just done a little experiment - I've added FALE to the airports table with full details including Lat/Long.

Then I replaced all references to FADN in the Routes table (in NO and ND) with FALE. Exited RB and reloaded, and checked that all references in the Routes table to FADN had in fact been replaced with FALE.

And then a flight shows up showing FAJS-FADN. I recheck the database and the flight shows FAJS-FALE - see pic. So where on earth is thie displayed route information coming from? The fact that it's descending into FAJS is yet another issue!

As a side issue, I can't use the Locate button on the toolbar to go to FALE exen though it's now in the database - I guess it has to be "built into the map" for that to work :-(

Rod

[tarbat]

And then a flight shows up showing FAJS-FADN. I recheck the database and the flight shows FAJS-FALE - see pic. So where on earth is thie displayed route information coming from?

If it's a network flight, then the route data comes from whoever received the aircraft locally I think.  So, if their route table says FAJS-FALE, that's what will show in the Network flights list.

I'm pretty sure the routes table is only used for local flights.  But again, only Airnav can confirm that.

[DaveReid]

If it's a network flight, then the route data comes from whoever received the aircraft locally I think.  So, if their route table says FAJS-FALE, that's what will show in the Network flights list.

I'm pretty sure the routes table is only used for local flights.  But again, only Airnav can confirm that.

Now it's getting complicated, I don't think I'll be posting any explanations until I understand better how it works :-)

I would be surprised, though, if an incorrect route in a sharer's local database was propagated to other sharers when the AirNav server had the correct route - but, as you say, only AirNav can answer that, and they appear to be on holiday at the moment,

[AirNav Development]

>and they appear to be on holiday at the moment,

We are not on holiday: we daily read your always interesting posts on several forums - we actually pay more attention to them when they don't have second intentions - it seems the case with this one.

>I would be surprised, though, if an incorrect route in a sharer's local database was propagated to other sharers when the AirNav server had the correct route

This is not correct. Flight routing information shared by users is not used by the central server and not propagated to other users.