IRSA Viewer Known Bugs and Issues

Software version released: October 2024.

This list last updated: October 2024

Reporting Bugs
Suggested Browsers
Known Major Bugs
Known Minor Bugs
Idiosyncrasies

Reporting Bugs

The known bugs and issues in this version of the IRSA Viewer are listed here. If you think you have found a bug, before reporting it, please check this list, and read the online IRSA Viewer help. It may be a "feature" we already know about.

If you have found a real bug then please do let us know by sending email to the Help Desk. Please include your operating system version and your browser software and version.

Suggested Browsers and Platforms

Safari: at least version 15
Firefox: at least version 120
Google Chrome: at least version 120
Edge: at least version 120
Tablets: iPad Safari : Seems to work ok, though not on the iPhone. Cursory testing of a Droid tablet suggests it probably works ok.

Older browser versions than these may work, but we may not be able to support bug fixes for them. We make no guarantees for anything on Solaris.

Known Major Bugs

Sending Email. The tool won't send you email when it is done packaging data for you.

Workaround: None known.

Posted: 24 April 2024

Known Minor Bugs

Plotting spectra. There are several new features involving plotting spectra. Depending on the order in which you click things, you can run into odd errors. Combining spectra a second time with or without cascading can yield opposite results than expected (e.g., ask it to combine with cascading and it combines without cascading). Apply a redshift and then remove it, and then you are blocked from combining spectra. Combine two spectra with a cascade and then apply a redshift, whereupon it removes the cascade.

Workaround: Restart the tool and try again.

Posted: 24 April 2024

Pixel values. When IRSA Viewer displays an image that is an extension of a multi-extension fits file, in the upper right of the tool, it often displays the pixel value as NaN when the number is very, very small or very, very large.

Workaround: None known.

Posted: 30 August 2017

VO catalog results not displayed

For VO catalog searches, the tool retrieves the catalog but is unable to display it.

Workaround: Download the catalog yourself from another VO access point (see here) and upload it separately to the tool.

Posted: 23 March 2016

Known Idiosyncracies

Regions files saved as overlays from large catalogs do not include all the sources.
If the file has >1,000 sources, it will show catalogs hierarchically -- that is, the tool will bin up the catalogs based on HEALPix pixels, and it will show symbols with a number indicating the number of sources in that region. Then, when you zoom in, it will dynamically adapt to show you smaller and smaller cells until it shows you all the individual sources. Saving the regions file at will not save all the sources.

Workaround: Save the catalog from the table as a regions file; that will save the entire catalog, but not any of the other overlays from the image.

Updated: October 2024

'Lost' targets
In some cases, images will be returned for a search where the target is just off the edge of the viable data from the image. In this case, the requested target will not appear on your retrieved image, and it may not be immediately obvious that your target is not, in fact on the image. This most often happens for big and/or irregular mosaics.

Posted: 12 November 2013

'Lost' Downloads
Depending on how your browser is configured, when you download data, your browser may save it in a counter-intuitive place. Under Safari (on the Mac), for small downloads, it might not appear to have done anything at all. It actually has; it's trying to be helpful by doing it quickly. To find where your browser has put your data, (a) search on your local disk for recently modified files; (b) look in the preferences for the browser configuration option of where to put downloaded files; or (c) look for a directory called "Downloads" or something similar.

Posted: 12 November 2013

Links from Data Discovery don't open in IRSA Viewer (or NED links don't open in NED)
Data Discovery is launched from the box on the main IRSA page. When you search on targets in this box, it gives you back a list of data sets. Sometimes, when you click on the IRSA Viewer icon to load data into IRSA Viewer, the browser will start a new session of IRSA Viewer but not actually load anything into it. Sometimes when you click on the NED link, it points to an old (obsolete) version of NED. Either of these happen most frequently on Safari. To fix this, clear your browser cache.

Posted: 14 Oct 2020

Some multi-plane images can't be cropped
Some multi-plane images can't be cropped down by the tool, so even if you request a region that is smaller than the native tiles provided by the survey, the entire tile is served up by the tool.

Posted: May 2023

"Title" and "Save As" are confusing
There are two places to customize a download -- "title" and "save as". The latter is what the file is called on your disk, and the former is how it appears in the background monitor.

Posted: May 2023

Strange behavior when requesting catalogs
Our catalog search options depend on other services, often other IRSA services, to search and display the catalogs. Sometimes these other services are down for maintenance or may be experiencing unusually heavy loads. On those occasions, the user may get an "Unresponsive script" error or a "Call failed on the server" error. Please do let us know if you continue to get these errors; we may not be aware of an overloaded or down server.

Posted: 12 November 2013

Slow behavior when requesting large tables
When rendering long tables, the table can take several seconds to finish loading. For example, if you conduct a search returning 1000 entries, and change the page size from 50 to 2000, the browser will struggle for a few seconds trying to load the table. A message appears to let you know that that is what is going on.

Posted: 12 November 2013