Can't upload from file

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Wed, 09/18/2019 - 23:33

I keep getting an uploading error and it is not covered in the manual and I have tried multiple file types, and plugins but still keep getting a "Not found in the observation period" error message when just trying to upload a CSV file, text file, fits file... 

I do not know what is going on, am I trying to upload the wrong file type or what is going on?

I would be glad to do a skype session if anyone has some ideas or would be willing to do so, that way you can see what I am looking at.

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Upload from file

Hello Melanie,

Sorry to hear that you are having trouble with file uploads in VStar.

As described on page 9 of the VStar User Manual  (which you can download from here: https://www.aavso.org/vstar), there are only two acceptable formats for file uploads:

AAVSO download format - which is what you get when you download data using our Data Download tool: https://www.aavso.org/data-download and is also described here: https://www.aavso.org/format-data-file

Simple format - Which is just Julian Date,Magnitude

Either can be comma or tab delimited, but they must be plain text (ASCII) files (i.e. no Word docs or .fits files).

There is one other way to upload data for plotting into VStar and that is through use of a plugin such as the one that reads data in the AAVSO Upload File Format which is described here: https://www.aavso.org/aavso-extended-file-format This is exactly the same format that you would use to upload a file of data using WebObs. Using a VStar plugin requires the extra step of installing the plugin which is described here: https://www.aavso.org/vstar-plugin-library

If you are still having trouble, please feel free to contact me offline (sara [at] aavso.org) or give me a ring at AAVSO HQ today.

Best wishes,
Sara

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Thank you

Hi Sara,

Thank you so much, I had seen CSV files uploaded successfully into VStar and so I tried to do the same.  But I tested out your suggestions and they worked but it only let me import the url, I could not download the data that it displayed in another tab, is that the way it works?

Thanks again!

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
CSV now does not upload from the ASAS-SN files

Hey does anyone know how to upload the CSV ASAS-SN data files?

I uploaded them weeks ago and it worked and I have since tried tonight and gotten a "no observations in that period" error.  It is the same file, the plugin has been updated and it is a CSV file downloaded from the ASAS-SN database....

Help and thanks!

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Cannot open an AAVSO upload file

I am having the same Open-New Star From File issue.

I have successfully uploaded the files to the AAVSO Database and when I try to open them

locally with VStar, I get "No observations for the specified period.'.

 

Nothing on setting a ' Date Range ' in the manual, so looks like a real bug.

Seems like this has been around a while, the threads show this issue back to 2019???

Is this being worked on???

 

DK

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
File that does not upload to VStar, but good into the database

David

Here you go, this is a small file which fails.

Thanks a lot,

Dave

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
File does upload - with small modification

Hello Dave,

When I opened your file in my plain text editor, I could see a bunch of extra commas and some quote marks that were (presumably) put there by Excel. Actually I am a bit surprised that WebObs even accepted that file.

Anyway, once those extraneous marks were removed, it opened just fine in VStar. Please see attached files:

Original_file.png - a screen capture of the file you tried to upload
AAVSO_fmt_TV-Boo-Fixed.csv - Your file after I removed extra commas and quote marks
VStar_plot.png - The plot of your data in VStar

Personally, I am always a bit leery of uploading files in WebObs or VStar that were created in Excel without checking them in a plain text editor first.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,
Sara

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Upload still fails

Sara/David

I edited my files as you show here and it still fails.  I downloaded the file you list as "fixed" and it still fails on my system in VStar.

I even opened them in Win Notepad and re-saved them as well as saved them as a xxx.txt. All fail the same way.

Is there some reason that you cannot use the same parser as the database upload does?

This is very frustrating not to be able to work offline on data that has been successfully uploaded.

 

Dave

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Hello Dave,

Hello Dave,

I tried AAVSO_fmt_TV-Boo-Fixed.csv (which Sara attached above in her post) and it worked correctly on VStar 2.20.0 on my Windows 10 machine.

I recommend using something better than Notepad as a plain text editor in Windows 10. Notepad has no ability to show hidden characters. I use the free Notepad++. This program can turn on/off the hidden characters and allows you to inspect your file for any 'funny' characters. The fixed csv file has just the hidden characters CRLF at the end of each line of text.

I hope this helps you.

John

 

Affiliation
Astronomical Society of South Australia (ASSAU)
Upload still fails

Hi Dave

Does the file Sara attached in her reply load though?

AAVSO_fmt_TV-Boo-Fixed.csv

This is an AAVSO Upload Format file so requires that observation source plugin. Is that the one you're using?

To answer your question about parsers, VStar is written in Java, while the parser in WebObs is not so direct reuse of code between them is not possible.

David