Double logging problem

[EHM-2198 Didimo]

I was browsing the ACARS on the main page and noticed something that is just not possible:

icon   EHM-3000   EGLL   EIDW   2009-05-22 07:48:41   Dale Edgington   AT72
icon   EHM-3000   EGLL   EIDW   2009-05-22 07:39:04   Dale Edgington   AT72

The PIREP for the same flight was submitted by the same person twice with a 9 minute difference!

I am pretty sure this was non intentional but apparently the system is not able to cope well with double submissions. A loophole for bumping up the flying hours.

I on the other hand have had the opposite problem, that FLogger crashed during submission and then my flight was not booked into the system...

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Didimo,

When instances like this are noticed and reported (thanks, btw) they can be corrected with our back-end tools, which I have now done. The disjointed nature of the automated PIREP reporting mechanism makes catching double-pump errors like this tough.

Finally, there's nothing we can do from the server side to stop FLogger crashes, c'est la vie...

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

You are right Didimo, it is possible to submit a flight twice BUT even if the flight appears in the list, it is still subject to a manual validation so such cases rarely escape unnoticed.

More particularly, there is a check that no matter the submission date and time, the flight times for the same pilot do not overlap. If they do, there is a red flag raised on the server.

In most of the cases it is obviously about unintentional duplicates, which are deleted without additional comments. In the rare cases when we found the same flight submitted 10 times, be sure we asked the author for an explanation.

As of the other problem, there is the possibility to save the PIREP before submitting it. In this case, it can be submitted at a later time so there is no risk of losing it.

And, of course, these known issues are subject to improvements in the new Flight Logger version that is still under development.

Andrei

[EHM-2467 Dale]

Didnt mean to do it peeps!!

I have emailed Dom asking him to remove the outstanding PiRep on my profile as I cant remember the hours it was flown, they were all done online (IVAO) though.

[EHM-2198 Didimo]

No worries, as I stated I did not think it was intentional Dale. I just seem to have a certain eye for details LOL.

As for catching the problem before it happens an algorithm can be introduced so that if the same pilot submits multiple PIREPs within a certain time window (adjustable threshold) it would do some extra check. Additionally it can check if the times and dates of the submitted PIREPs during that time window overlap.

Likewise, even though it is a client-server situation, the client application (Flight Logger) would in principle disable the SUBMIT PIREP button as soon as it is pressed (the event handler) and only enable it again when it has received a response from the server OR if there has been an error (recover without leaving the button disabled).

If the SUBMIT PIREP request happens to be asynchronous then it could use the asynchronous completion event to re-enable the button (or use a time out to flag the error condition).

Either way it is possible :-) the only problem of course is resources to fix it and real life commitments that preclude this fixing on the part of the people involved. After all real life takes precedence (except for addicted people).

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Exactly

This is something that Andrei [strike]was[/strike] has been working hard on for V4 of the Flight Logger; expect it to be "not an issue"