Adsotrans keeps losing connection to server

[Bloatedfish]

I stumbled across Adsotrans yesterday and have found it extremely useful (linked through the Sinosplice blog). However, I have also found it to be a touch temperamental, in that it will "adsotate" some sentences with no problem but then, on other occasions, return a windows message stating that connection to the server has been lost. Once this message has appeared, use of the adsotrans and access to the site seem to be frozen for a period of time. The only thing that I can think of is that it is caused by too many characters being inputed into the translation box. I wondered if a) this is the correct reason and B) if this is correct, what is the limit of characters that can be inputed, as it is very frustrating to lose access for this period of time. If my little hypothesis is not correct, does anyone know why this might be happening to me.

Many thanks.

[roddy]

Are you in mainland China, and what are you trying to annotate?

[trevelyan]

The Adso server is in Beijing. Assuming you're accessing it from outside China, you might just be running into network reliability issues. Another possibility is that you're submitting too much data in one go and the thing is just timing out.

Then again.... maybe you've found a bug? We just switched the default database to SQLite from MySQL, and had problems with the software crashing when handling UTF8 during the switch-over. I think I've fixed all of those issues by now, but it's possible there is still a strange case that is still causing problems. If you're having trouble with any particular text please either send me the text via email or copy and paste the problematic content here in this thread. Issues get fixed as I become aware of them, basically....

If the problem ends up being network time-outs, you can either try downloading the software and setting it up on your own computer, or using something like this Firefox plugin, which will fetches and Adsotate text when you click on it in your browser.

[roddy]

Have you had reports of connection to the server lost errors before? Time outs I could understand, but that particular error is what you get if the Chinese internet filters are triggered - hence I'm wondering if it's maybe the annotated content that's causing the problem.

[trevelyan]

If a lengthy piece of text is being submitted, it may just be timing out. But if it's a software issue, I'm betting it has something to do with the shift to SQLite. I can check easily enough, but need to know the text that is causing the trouble.

[Bloatedfish]

Thanks for the replies. With regard to location, I am accessing Adsotrans from the UK. In terms of text, I have been using it to read some articles from the People's Daily that I have saved in word documents on my computer (they pre-date those available on the website). Initially, I tried inputting the whole article. After that returned a message of server connection being lost, I reduced it to a single paragraph and, when that wasn't adsotated, I have kept it to a single sentence.

For the most part, this seems to be an acceptable length. However, I have noticed, when using it over the past few days, that there is some variability - particularly around 3 pm (UK time) - when it seems that anything more than 2 characters times the server out. And access to adsotrans then seems to be frozen for an unspecified period of time (somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes) - reminiscent of using google in China. For times in the morning and evening, it works fine.

As for using the download program, this would be ideal for what I am doing, but, looking at the instructions, it seems only suitable for Linux and my pc is on windows. Let me know if I have misunderstood that.

Finally, is there a recommended maximum number of characters that can be adsotated at one time using the text box?

Once again, many thanks for shedding some light on this and for developing a really useful tool.

[trevelyan]

There is a second server running the software here:

http://www.adsotate.com/adso.html

If the problem is with server load on the main Adso server, the backup shouldn't have any problems. Otherwise, the culprit is probably congestion issues on bandwidth into China. Glad the system is useful, and please let me know if you ever annotate any text that actually breaks the system (or does something incredibly stupid that should be fixed).