New problems updating my TNG website -- perhaps a hosting service issue?

[paulbotts]

I've been a TNG user for more than a decade, generally quite happy with it; am now using version 13.0.1. All that time I have hosted my family-tree website on Simply Hosting. And I've generally been happy with them too...until recently. My question now is whether or to what degree my recent problems are due to a change or problem at the Simply Hosting end.

I've updated my TNG database probably 2 or 3 times a year for many years, using the GEDCOM import/export process without issues. I create a GEDCOM of my entire master database (which is in a Windows software package). use an FTP client to upload it to TNG's "gedcom" folder, then do a complete TNG import of that gedcom file. Has always reliably worked.

In March of this year though that GEDCOM import in TNG froze and gave a "too many resources" error. I'd never seen that before. Simply Hosting support checked it and said they fixed it by increasing the "memory" assigned to my website.  They did not indicate that it had been a fault of my TNG installation nor that I was exceeding the limits of my Simply Hosting account, they simply said that they'd fixed "an error". My Simply Hosting account package hasn't changed in years, I'm on the "annual basic" plan.

Then last week it all happened again: the website's GEDCOM import froze, "too many resources", rinse and repeat. Once I got the Simply Hosting support person to go look up their record of my March interaction, they again did some unspecified fix at their end and the import worked. My TNG database is now fully up to date again.

HOWEVER!! Yesterday I realized that all my media tags are mangled. I have nearly 1,000 photos and documents posted, all of them tagged to relevant individuals in my database. Those are now all wrong. I learned this when a relative, looking someone up who he knew I had lots of photos posted for, asked me why the family tree website had no photos anymore...arg!

All the media items are still there, they are just now assigned to the wrong individuals. Apparently TNG's individual-identifier numbers all got changed by one or more of those aborted GEDCOM imports. So "John Doe (1780-1862)" who was I345, is now I6758 or whatever, but of course the photos that include John Doe are still tagged to individual I345. So now I am going to have to go through all 1,000 media items and re-do several thousand tags of individuals in my TNG database. Sigh.

What would be really helpful from folks who know much more than I do about the TNG/hosting service interaction is, where does the source of this problem likely reside? What sort of "error" did Simply Hosting correct at their end? Does the problem seem likely to be at my end, like have I exceeded the limits of my hosting plan? (but if so why haven't they said that?) Does it seem like I need to change to a different hosting service? Or upgrade to a newer TNG version maybe?

Of course I'm not asking someone to fully diagnose from what I've described, but any thoughts or pointers would be helpful. I really don't even know what the problem could or couldn't be, where to start on understanding this.

Cheers,
Paul Botts

www.paulbotts.net

 

 

 

 

[fluffy82]

To avoid this, I always empty a number of tables in the database before doing a new gedcom import.

• medialinks
• people
• sources
• citations

In principle, this is not necessary. But as you I noticed that import often hangs or freezes when I don't. The shifted medialinks is because a new gedcom export in your main genealogy program doesn't necessarily maintain all person ID's. If an ID is changed, TNG keeps the old links and adds the new ones to it (even when you ask to "replace all"). Emptying the table makes sure only the most recent medialinks are maintained, and the old ones are gone.

[paulbotts]

Interesting, thanks. I am not familiar with those tables but will look into it.

I'm not sure though that we are talking about the same symptoms. You said that "If an ID is changed, TNG keeps the old links and adds the new ones to it". Wouldn't that result in TNG having both the old and new individual IDs tagged to a given photo? So in my example above, John Doe, whose ID# got changed, would still be tagged to that photo; but someone else (who gained John's previous ID#) would now _also_ be tagged to that photo. Right?

That's not what I've had happen. In my case TNG is still tagging the photo solely to individual ID I345, but since John Doe's ID# got changed that is no longer him. It is instead a random other person in my database and _only_ that person.

Or am I misunderstanding what you were describing?

 

 

 

[fluffy82]

9 hours ago, paulbotts said:

So in my example above, John Doe, whose ID# got changed, would still be tagged to that photo; but someone else (who gained John's previous ID#) would now _also_ be tagged to that photo. Right?

Yes, that's what I had. I had media files originally attached to John A (ID 5). After the new import, that same file was still attached to John A (now ID 18) and also to ID 5 who had become Sylvia B in the new import. So the media file was attached to the new and the old ID/person. Just like the places, it does not empty the medialink table upon import, it adds to it.

[paulbotts]

Okay, thanks.

Regarding those tables you listed, I'm thinking that perhaps I should deal with the medialinks one when doing a GEDCOM update of my TNG database. (Media links being thus far the one specific problem that I'm having.)

Given my specific symptoms, perhaps what I should learn to do is make a copy of my TNG medialinks table, and then if the GEDCOM update has mangled my media links I would try copying my previous table back into place. I'm not certain whether this would fix my particular problem or not but it seems worth trying.

I am not at all familiar with those TNG tables. Do you happen to know of a thread on these boards, or an FAQ file perhaps, which explains how to copy or clear or otherwise handle a TNG media links table?

Cheers,

Paul

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve1200]

The person ID in TNG and the source GEDCOM should be the same unless they were re-sequenced. If your genealogy program has not changed the person IDs, select All current data when importing the GEDCOM and TNG will use the person IDs in the GEDCOM. This occurs because this option deletes all persons from the tng_people table. When you select this option and do a new import, all prior media links should point to the correct persons except for media added after the date when the import failed. These items will need to be edited manually by deleting the old link and adding a new one.

[Steve1200]

I once corrupted my database and have since used the " All current data" option when doing an import.

[paulbotts]

Yes, thanks, I've always used the "All current data" option.

What I'm trying to diagnose now is why that has stopped working properly.

 

[Steve1200]

I would first check the person IDs, in the genealogy program, and see if they are the same. You can verify "All current data" is working if you start an import and then stop or pause it. Then select Admin Home and it will show the number of people in the database.

If you do not want to pause the import, you can also use phpMYAdmin to verify "All current data" is working by checking the tng_people table.

If the people are missing from the table "All current data" is working and there is something else causing the problem.