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Gear / Technical Help => TS Knowledge Base / Archive => Topic started by: greenone on September 15, 2009, 05:20:40 PM

Title: Live Music Archive/archive.org information
Post by: greenone on September 15, 2009, 05:20:40 PM
Hi folks - friendly neighborhood Live Music Archive admin here. Thought I'd drop some knowledge on the ins and outs of uploading to and managing your recordings on the LMA (http://www.archive.org/details/etree). This thread is informational only; if you have questions, ask them in the LMA/archive.org thread (link (http://www.taperssection.com/index.php/topic,127621.0.html)) or send me a private message.

Uploading
As of August 2009, the main way to upload concerts directly to the Live Music Archive is via the HTTP uploader. I've written a tutorial (link (http://www.archive.org/serve/uploaded/greenone-LMA_Uploads_082609.pdf)) which is hosted there.

The main error people seem to be making now is not clicking the "Is this a Live Music Archive concert?" link before they hit "Share my files!" for the first time. After you click that you should see three fields - band abbreviation, concert date, and rest of identifier.

You can also still use FTP - just click the "Upload" button and then click the "FTP" link on the next page, NOT the "Share" button. However, all FTP traffic is now funneled through one upload server, so at times of heavy traffic, you may not get maximum bandwidth available. Also, FTP is only available for one time per show - once you check a show in, if you need to edit it later (even to add more files), it must be done by clicking "Edit item" and doing so through the HTTP editor.

Getting your files to derive
If your upload is error-free, it should appear in the band's collection (and the search engine) within 24 hours, and the item's details page should generate mp3, ogg, zip and m3u files as well as an embedded Flash player. If you do NOT get all of these things, it could be for one of four reasons.


For #1, there's nothing you can do to change this. Artist wishes always override tapers'/uploaders' wishes.
For #2, you can queue up another derive task by clicking "Edit item" on the bottom-left box on the item's page, then clicking "change the information" in the left-hand box on the next page. At the top of the next page, click "Item manager", and you'll then see a "derive" button on the right-hand side. Hit that and the derive should take an hour or so.
For #3, take a look at the item's history by using the URL http://www.archive.org/catalog.php?history=1&identifier=YOURIDENTIFIERHERE. If the server number in the "server" column is highlighted in yellow, all you can do is wait for the engineers to fix the hard drive. Then tasks will run as normal.
For #4, you *should* have gotten an email from iasupport@archive.org detailing what the error was. If not, it likely got caught in a spam filter. Again, the item history will be a big help to you - use the link above and look for any rows of the history that are entirely in red. Click the "task_id" of the red row and read down to see what the error is.

File-based errors
Several different things can cause a red-row task to occur:

This last case is a very common one with the new system; previously you were unable to upload file names with spaces or apostrophes in them, but with the new HTTP uploader, the system simply removes them during the upload. This, of course, causes the files not to match the md5 you created, and throws an error.

To fix any of the above errors, go to your item's page, click "Edit item" at bottom-left and then click "Change the files" on the right. This will take you to the HTTP editor; click the "Share" button at top-right to upload the files that need to be replaced. Then email etree@archive.org (or PM me here) to have the derive restarted. This is not something you can do yourself.

Other errors
There are other types of errors that don't result from file failures. Admins can generally fix these - there's no need to re-upload if any of these happen:

Miscellaneous

Useful links