GoodAnchorage.com Plugin – Alpha Release

[rgleason]

Dietmar, when I first built this with opencpn.lib version 4.2.0 I got a warning that wxhttp was deprecated. I and other cruisers are finding that the downloads are not working very well. The icons come up, but there is a request that we right click again to download more for a given waypoint, yet nothing changes.

I believe that Pavel and TransmitterDan developed some better ways of downloading information when they developed the Chart Downloader which is pretty effective at downloading across the internet. I hope that you can utilize some of this work to make goodanchorage more effective. Hopefully TransmitterDan will respond with suggestions.

Also I have found that when I have charts showing and right click on an anchorage, I end up getting the second menu rather than the the waypoint properties menu for the anchorage. My way around this is to turn on an "Empty" Chart Group so that just the Background Gshhs outline is showing. I think we need to figure out a better way for users to pick the anchorage icons. Perhaps with a right click and selection of "Nearest Goodanchorage"?

Thanks Dietmar, there are a number of cruisers who really like your plugin.

[rgleason]

Also see this thread please. David K. is having troubles downloading too, and I have to agree with what he says. I could work my way around some of the problems, but the downloading does not seem to be working completely and well.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ge-160943.html

[wdkester]

I may have come up with a hint as to what's happening. When I saw ricks window I moved up to the Nantucket region and double clicked. I got data on the first five anchorages I right clicked. I then double clicked somewhat off center and several of the previously working anchorages failed to show the WP pane. If you then disable/enable the PI and double click near the center of the screeen you are able to see the previous anchorages.

The key, I think, is the PI seems to capture the first (or second) of the two clicks and the other click centers the screen. This may be causing the PI to lose the sweet spot for some of the WP's. How's that for wild speculation? My other guess has to do with timing. Also it behaves worse when you move the screen after double-clicking.

[CarCode]

David,

I guess the IP connection to the GoodAnchorage Server is faible. When I go to the link in the properties window of a GoodAnchorage waypoint received and seen on the chart then it takes very long to open the extended data in the browser. That means the browser starts immediately but the data for this anchorage point comes very slowly from the GoodAnchorage server and the browsers page build up only after more than one or two minutes.

So it seems not to be a problem with this plugin although this plugin doesn't use the Curl library for internet connections.

Gerhard

[rgleason]

Gerhard and David,
I agree with both your observations.
Does the server need to be updated and rebooted? Maybe improved?
Also I still think from the plugin side, improvements to the download engine will help. Chart Downloader has very good capabilities for speed and recovery and restart of downloads. This plugin is currently using deprecated wxhttp.

[rgleason]

It would be wonderful to make improvements.

[LeaseOnLife]

Dietmar and SkipperWebb haven't been posting on CF since Feb last year, I don't know if this GoodAnchorage is even active anymore...

Dirk

[dietmar]

Hello and thank you for your posts and suggestions.

The plugin has now been out for over 1 year and has proved very insightful.

We are very grateful for all the suggestions with regards to the new version of OpenCPN and GA .

Currently the plugin (which works with 4.0) needs several functional and interface improvements above and beyond what is discussed here.

Since I am not a programmer but a simple Unix System admin we are looking for a mariner with the technical kill sets to "own" this
- and not just for the short term.

Please contact me directly at dietmar {at} aol {dot} com.

I am finally back on the west coast after bashing back from Fiji.

Warm regards

Dietmar
( yachtmaster ocean | captain | & chief bilge cleaner at goodanchorage )
mobile 7o2 6o2 19o9

[rgleason]

Welcome back Dietmar, congratulations on the voyage from fiji.
Sean who helped with your plugin, is on this forum fairly often, and is making his way in the other direction. Have you seen his website voyage route?

[CarCode]

Dietmar,

if you are an Unix System Admin you should first check your server Good Anchorage
It make no sense trying to optimize a plugin when the server needed for it does not response. Trying to open a page of your server with FireFox takes here exactly 2 minutes and 59,18 seconds. That is too much.
Doing a traceroute I got no answer after 64 hops:

traceroute to goodanchorage.com (54.186.105.230), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
1 fritz.box (192.168.0.1) 4.083 ms 0.760 ms 0.753 ms
2 a81-14-248-243.net-htp.de (81.14.248.243) 24.833 ms 28.835 ms 24.377 ms
3 a81-14-249-80.net-htp.de (81.14.249.80) 25.503 ms 26.414 ms 26.025 ms
4 xe-0-0-0-0.hra-r-p-00.net-htp.de (81.14.249.187) 24.543 ms 25.264 ms 24.549 ms
5 bei-b1-link.telia.net (62.115.8.185) 29.763 ms 30.364 ms 30.660 ms
6 hbg-bb1-link.telia.net (62.115.142.182) 36.772 ms 36.936 ms 36.773 ms
7 nyk-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.247.127) 123.931 ms
nyk-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.247.129) 117.814 ms
nyk-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.247.127) 118.456 ms
8 chi-b21-link.telia.net (213.155.131.241) 140.286 ms 140.919 ms
chi-b21-link.telia.net (62.115.140.71) 141.087 ms
9 sea-b1-link.telia.net (62.115.117.48) 182.875 ms 183.401 ms 182.391 ms
10 amazon-ic-307566-sea-b1.c.telia.net (62.115.47.198) 183.435 ms 183.153 ms 183.370 ms
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 205.251.232.94 (205.251.232.94) 195.822 ms * *
14 205.251.232.143 (205.251.232.143) 192.864 ms 190.851 ms 191.150 ms
15 54.239.48.179 (54.239.48.179) 189.915 ms 190.463 ms 189.274 ms
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.......
64 * * *

So please what is wrong with your server?

Gerhard

[rgleason]

Nohal and goodanchorage versions compile.
Sean's repos does not compile and needs updates to json.

[Skipper Web]

Hi all,

It's true, I haven't been maintaining GoodAnchorage plugin for the last year. There's been a couple of good reasons for that, but I won't get into that today.

As far as server performance goes, it's a complex subject. First of all, if you've tried the plugin in the last week and saw poor performance it's not surprising. There was an idiotic user scraping every anchorage page on the site. "Undercover scrape" if you will, using VPN and naively expecting to stay anonymous. This abuse taxed the server quite a bit.

On the other hand, there is also an issue with waypoints not sending requests to the server in the first place. This is something that has to be addressed in the future.

Lastly, traceroute is not a good way to evaluate network performance due to firewalls.

Regards,

[CarCode]

Dimitry,

please come back when your server is working. Actually it makes no sense to use GoodAnchorage.

Gerhard

[rgleason]

Dietmar,
Please keep in mind the Gerhard is a smart German. He is actually very helpful sometimes and he has become a friend. He can be very blunt and untactful at times, but we have adopted him as one of us, who needs a special understanding. Sometimes we don't understand each other because he is also German, but he is also often right about things, so it is worth trying to understand him.
Hope that helps you.
Gerhard, dear friend, please try to be more gentle.
Rick

[wdkester]

I just spent over 2 hours trying to detect what's causing GA problems, mostly with failing to display anchorage details. In doing so, I tried to look at anchorages in 3 areas:Bahamas, south FL and Marthas Vineyard. I also looked at Cuba but there are only 30-40 anchorages there. The basic problem is the unreliability of getting data in certain areas. I was trying to determine what conditions would cause a failure. In doing this I performed hundreds of clicks in these four areas. My reward was to have my login invalidated. A smart algorithm to detect poachers (and ignore those who are trying to help) should notice that mostly the same anchorages are being right clicked and loosen the noose (so to speak).

This is the second time it happened and I thought I was getting close to some answers. My advise to others is to try to help a little bit, but not too much.