Brick Wall

The specimens on-line data has been loaded to The Pterosaur Database website in part.  The original Pterosaur Database specimen list is far too big and cumbersome to be fully on-line, so we have extracted basic information into a new database.  This entailed uploading 22 file sets to an on-line access database.  So far 3200 specimen records have been loaded, the remainder just will not load.

The website is hosted by 1and1 on a server in Germany.  This company has provided an excellent service for us since last century.  Even when they moved their local help desk service to India, the service was swift.  Now they have re-organised the company and moved the help desk service to the Philippines where I have to say, the service response is scripted and discontinuous, most of the 'help desk clerks' not understanding the systems they are there to help people with.

After a recent server migration to a new Apache server (to streamline and update the 1and1 service) a number of errors have been experienced with the web database uploads.   HTTP 500 errors suggest a server malfunction of indeterminate type.  HTTP 403 errors suggest a likely URL pointer trying to link with a directory entry instead of a web page or program.  We have been struggling with these errors on the server system for 3 weeks now.

The 1and1 help desk say they are trying to resolve the issue as soon as possible (24 E-Mails and 2 phone calls on) and as soon as this issue is corrected, I shall install the remainder of the specimens to the on-line database.  We no longer have any means of communicating with the server developers, and there is no specific timescale for the resolution of the problem.