> On Jun 29, 2022, at 10:04 AM, Eric Fritzler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Yup, just retried this morning and was able to submit the new job posting.
> Sunspots are an excellent explanation.

Sounds more like it’s something server side.  Typically it’s either a sign that it’s running out of memory, a weird race condition, or something wrong with the storage (either disk issues or database locks).  It can be a warning sign of a pending hardware failure.

Now, solar flares, solar energetic particles, or coronal mass ejections could *possibly* cause those sorts of issues, but there haven’t been any geoeffective storms in a while:

https://solarmonitor.org/
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

… so none of these excuses work when your boss is a solar physicist, and reads BOFH[1].

They also prefer that you call them ‘solar active regions’ and not ‘sunspots’ (as an active region may show up in magnetic maps, or x-Ray, or even as as a bright point, and only as a darker area in some wavelengths).  Active Regions being places from where CMEs & flares typically originate.

-Joe (former sysadmin/programmer/DBA for the Solar Data Analysis Center)


[1] Bastard Operator from Hell, a long running serial where ‘operator’ was a term for a sorta junior sysadmin / helpdesk folks in the olden days.  Specifically, see http://bofh.bjash.com/bofh/bofh6.html