Security & Privacy
Pagemaster: Sharon Johnson
The issues listed below are the known problems and user notes for FEMIS v1.4.7.2. The
problems listed are those that may result in a system failure (i.e., GPF), loss of user data,
inaccurate results, or user confusion. If a workaround exists, it has been noted. In addition, we
have provided user notes for items that may not be bugs, but the additional information may be
useful.
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Area and Description |
Suggested Workaround |
|---|---|
AutoCalc |
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| In AutoCalc, the default names for Risk Area, PAR, and PAD are derived from the D2PC case and revision number. If the combined length of the D2PC case number and revision number is longer than six digits, part or all of the revision number may be removed from the end of the default name due to length limitations. | Because this is a default name, one solution is to provide another name. If you wish to use the default names and want the revision number to be part of the name, the solution is to arrange for D2PC case numbers that do not exceed four or five digits and limit the number of revisions so it is not longer than six digits. If you are using the automatic case numbering sequence for D2PC cases, this should not be an issue. |
AutoD2PC |
|
| Change of location for a given D2PC case using the AutoD2PC interface will not automatically reset the Met tower to the closest tower. | It is necessary to use the menu item D2PC Cases -> Set Met Towers for Selected Rows to do this. It should also be noted that AutoD2PC will only consider towers that have meteorological data associated with them. If you are performing an exercise, you may want to use the Met Injector to provide such data for all towers. |
Casualty/Evacuee Status Boards | |
| If one facility is used for both a casualty and an evacuee, then the load count should be reduced accordingly. Load count for a facility reflects only the evacuees in Evacuee Status Boards and only reflects casualties in Casualty Status Boards. | Use separate facilities for casualties and for evacuees so the load count will be correct. |
D2PC |
|
| If the area of the D2PC case or threatened area is less than one meter, you may get a message similar to the following: The area is smaller than 1 sq. meter. You may not be able to see it in your display. | Do not create a D2PC plume or a threatened area wedge that is 1 square meter or less in surface area. |
| Threat wedges can only be made from plumes that are located at or offset from, an igloo, known point, or a new point picked from the map. | Use the New Point Picked from Map option to locate the source of the wedge anywhere on the map. |
| In Planning mode, a D2PC case can be sent offpost, but it will not be the Current Operational case. | Send D2PC case offpost only when in Operations mode or in Exercise Operations mode. |
| Met Change does not work for long duration releases. | Make sure that the time to the Met Change is greater than the release time. If there are multiple releases and/or multiple quantities, the time to Met Change must be greater than the duration of the longest duration release. |
| If you first open AutoD2PC and select several cases and then later open D2PC (via the Workbench or Tracking Navigator) and Run and Plot, some, but not all, of the AutoD2PC cases will be plotted. | Because both of these programs use the same database table to store references to cases being used, do not use D2PC and AutoD2PC on the same PC at the same time or at the same time while logged in as the same user on different PCs. |
| If a D2PC case with a User Defined agent is created in the Work Plan or if a Local ID/MCE based on a User Defined agent is opened in D2PC, the case will not run and will not give any error messages. | In D2PC interface, select the User Defined agent from the Agent drop-down list. The first window to display is the User Defined Agent Chemical Properties window, and the second window is the Dosages of Interest. Entering information in these windows will provide the missing data. If presented with a message asking if you want to replace user-defined dosages with defaults, respond "No". |
| If an event description has a " | " (pipe) character, you may get errors when declaring or ending the event, and it may also affect event acknowledgements. | Do not use the " | " (pipe) character in event descriptions. |
Data Manager Tool | |
| When trying to sort a column of a table that is still loading, you may get a Dr. Watson error message. The table is not completely available to be sorted. | Wait for the table to completely load before trying to sort any of its columns. |
Electronic Planning |
|
| While trying to edit a plan, you may get an error about the local database, such as Error importing to project tables. or Error while creating local database. | Exit FEMIS and then re-enter FEMIS. Click the button on the log in window to run the Change Default Database program, reconnecting to your original sites. This will cause the problem database to be re-created. |
| Planning mode, using the Task Detail window: If you select a blank row in Microsoft Project and click the Refresh button in the Task Details window, it adds a new task. This new task is added a the bottom of all the task in Microsoft Project. |
It can be moved by selecting the row in Microsoft Project and then dragging the row to where you want it. |
| On the task details window that is opened from Microsoft Project in planning, there is a Copy Task option that allows the complete copy of a task and its resources to a new task at the end of the list. This functionality will not work if the original task does not have predecessors defined. | Establish your dependency chain before copying any tasks in this manner. |
Evacuation |
|
| The ESIM model requires at least one entry node for an evacuation case to run. | Most cases will have at least one entry node, so this is generally a non-issue. If a case exists which loads the network exclusively via centroids, a dummy entry node can be added to allow execution. |
| ESIM sometimes overestimates or underestimates the time to evacuate by up to 88%. This statement is based on review of the model's vehicle discharge relative to vehicle loading requested. | No work around exists at this time. |
Event |
|
| Event Declared window appears to be stuck. | If FEMIS has an Event Declared window displayed and you are unable to click OK on the window (or even to set focus to the window), try using Alt-Tab to switch to FEMIS, then press Return on the keyboard a few times. A message box may be hidden behind the Event window. |
| Under some very rare circumstances, if you press the New Data button while an event notification window is being displayed, you may get the Run-time error 401 message. When you dismiss the message, FEMIS terminates. | Restart FEMIS. |
Exercise Creation | |
| When an exercise is being performed by multiple EOCs who each have their own FEMIS database, you cannot see all of the other EOCs participating in the exercise. | Each EOC must use the Create Exercise function and create an exercise in each of their databases. The Exercise Number used by every EOC must be the same, otherwise the inter-EOC data transfers will not appear as expected. |
Facilities | |
| When selecting a location, the coordinates displayed on the facility window are not in the correct format. The location text box contains just numbers instead of Lat:<latitude>, Long:<longitude> (for example 0-119.4545.84 instead of Lat: 45.84, Long: -119.45). | Close and restart FEMIS. |
Filtering | |
| Unexpected results when filtering with numeric values that relate to the Default Units of Measure. For example, Wind Speed data in the Met Conditions Status Board is stored in meters per second. If you change your Default Units for Speed to feet per second and then filter on the Wind Speed field, the results displayed will show values that are nearly three times larger than what you would expect. | See the Help for the interface in question for information regarding the units employed when displaying numeric data. To change your Default Units, click File -> Preferences -> Default Units on the FEMIS menu bar. |
Geographic Information System (GIS) | |
| The GIS colors are not correct. | Verify that the PC colors are not set to True Colors. To obtain the standard FEMIS colors for the GIS map display, click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Display -> Settings tab. Under Color Palette, select 65536 Colors from the drop-down list. Click OK. If any additional messages appear, click OK or Yes, as appropriate. |
| Using a compressed format bitmap image file (e.g., KeyPrint generated .BMP file) as a hotlink in the GIS will result in a segmentation violation error and cause the GIS to lock up. | Only hotlink to a uncompressed bitmap image files or TIFF format image file. |
| A redefined symbol is overlapping an old one. | Refresh the screen using Zoom or Pan, which will delete the old symbols. |
| If you get a message asking you to discard the ViewMarks, make a backup copy of your ViewMark file in another directory, and delete them. The ViewMarks file is: M:\ |
To replace lost ViewMarks, complete the following:
|
| "Assertion" errors may occasionally occur as a result of erroneous data or unanticipated user actions. The error may have occurred prior to the current actions, e.g., an ill defined theme may not cause problems until the user tries to access it. | Click OK on the error message window. Close the GIS by selecting Exit from the ArcView GIS File menu. Restart the GIS by clicking the Map button on the FEMIS Navigator. Repeat the operations that did not complete because of the assertion error. If you still get errors, close FEMIS and log in again. |
| Exiting FEMIS and the GIS at the same time will cause a Dr. Watson (GPF) error. | Please be patient and allow FEMIS to close the GIS. |
| If the GIS is dedicated to some continuing process (i.e., D2PC Animation, AutoD2PC, AutoCalc), there may be control problems if you attempt to run other function that also accesses the GIS. | If you are running some continuing GIS function, do not simultaneously run other functions that access the GIS on the same PC. |
| If ArcView GIS does not appear to be responding, a message window may be hidden behind layers of other windows. | Minimize all window s untill you can see the message window. Click OK to close this window. |
| When two users simultaneously create a new shared ViewMark with the same name, the ViewMark object dictionary may be corrupted and when a third user tries to select a ViewMark, the third user's GIS will close. | Delete the corrupted ViewMark object dictionary on M:\GIS\VIEWMARK\SHAREDVM.ODB, and replace it with the last good copy from your server backups. Establish ground rules on naming shared ViewMarks to make the names unique to the users, such as include the user's initials in the name. |
| When using Autolabel to label zones, the labels for M and G fall outside the zones. | Try one of the following options: Move the labels as desired and save them in a ViewMark. Save the label in a file using the Popup menu, retrieve them whenever you want, and attach them to the zone theme. |
| One or more point objects having locations within your site's area of interest have been added to a user-defined known point theme by another user at your EOC, but the theme does not appear in the GIS on your PC. | Click onthe Navigator Utilities menu and select Regenerate Point Themes. |
| The full function GIS option button (F button) does not always appear on the ArcView GIS button bar or toolbar during startup. | Close the ArcView GIS application, leave FEMIS open, and re-open ArcView GIS using the Map button on the FEMIS toolbar. |
| When the Drag and Drop is used to move Met towers, the tower symbols are not erased until all clusters are moved. | If you use the Drag and Drop to move some towers, close the GIS and restart it to display all of the clusters in the same new location. Instead of Drag and Drop, use the Met Tower Details window in the FEMIS interface to move towers. |
| Empty themes appear in the Unloaded list of dynamic themes available for loading. | Empty themes will not be loaded. (This is a good way to determine which themes are empty.) |
| The GIS edit privileges do not change when the user switches modes. | In order for the GIS edit privileges to take effect when switching modes, close the GIS and start it again. |
Igloo and Met Towers |
|
| Once an Igloo or Met Tower is added, it can neither be renamed nor deleted. Some modules continue to use the Igloo and/or Met Tower names as a reference back to individual data elements. | Only add Igloos and Met Towers when necessary, and choose meaningful names for them. |
Notification |
|
| Sites where the servers' names are not consistently defined may experience no notification or dual notifications depending on the situation. The naming inconsistency has to do with the server names used to define the FEMIS topology (short or fully qualified names appearing in /home/femis/etc/eoclist.dat) and the names defined in the /etc/hosts file for the site servers with regard to the first name token (primary name) and subsequent alias tokens.
The dual connectivity problem is a femis_event issue; whereas the no notification connection problem is a name resolution issue handled at the OS level. |
No notification connectivity: This occurs when a remote system attempts to connect to a local notification service and the name it presents to the local system is unknown to the local system. This name is the name defined as the first name string after the IP address for the remote host in the remote's hosts file (primary name). The two possible workarounds are 1) define the primary names of all hosts in the site to that format used when the topology was created (as in the /home/femis/etc/eoclist.dat file); or 2) define both long and short names to the local host via the name resolution mechanism in use on the local system (such as /etc/hosts).
Dual notifications [connectivity]: This will most likely occur after the above defined situation has been corrected and only when continuing to use mixed long and short names. The workaround requires modification to the /home/femis/bin/startnotify script so femis_event is started with a command line option that disables connection rejection-dual connections are dropped, and only single connections are made. This will defeat connection rejection that is somewhat of a security feature for notification. The command line switch to add is a "-C". Note that this command line switch is case sensitive. The femis_event service will then need to be restarted (via stopnotify and startnotify) to make the change effective. |
Printing | |
| Using KeyPrint or the Print button to send information to the printer, nothing prints out and FEMIS quits. | This printing problem is caused by not having a printer properly connected to the PC. For FEMIS to properly print, the PC must have a printer driver installed and be connected to a printer, either directly or via the network. To determine if the PC is connected to a printer, use Windows NT and click on Start -> Settings -> Printers. |
| A user with minimal priviledges may receive a Dr. Watson message for Windows NT when using KeyPrint. | You can safely end the KeyPrint operation using Windows Task Manager or log out of Windows NT. |
| KeyPrint does not allow you to cancel the operation after the cursor has changed to a camera. Once you start a KeyPrint capture operation, you must complete it. | If you right mouse click trying to cancel the operation, KeyPrint stops reponding. You can safely end the operation using Windows Task Manager or log out of Windows NT. |
Remote Evacuee Registration | |
| The Evacuee History spreadsheet is always displayed empty. This occurs if a user is added after the Excercise is created, and that user then runs Remote Evacuee Registration (RER). | When working with the RER application in Exercise mode, any user who will run the application must already have a FEMIS user account. In Normal Operational mode, this is not an issue. |
Risk Area | |
| A message window may continue to display even after you have clicked No or Cancel when attempting to respond to the following message: Changes will be lost; continue closing this window? This message is displayed when there are changes pending on an open Risk Area window, and you have selected to switch FEMIS to a different hazard. | Respond Yes to the message window. The Risk Area window will close. You will lose any changes you had made on the Risk Area window. |
| If a risk area with a name of 31 characters or more is created in the Risk Area analysis window, and the OK button is pressed to save this risk area and make it the current operational risk area, a message appears: One or more fields entered were too long. Your changes will be lost. The Risk Area analysis window closes, and the risk area is saved to the database, but it is not made current operational. | Do not attempt to create, save, or commit Risk Areas with names containing more than 30 characters. |
Shared Data Between Modes | |
| The following data is shared across operations and exercise modes. This means that the
information entered into these fields will appear in both exercise and operations modes: EOC objectives, FEMIS user accounts, and E-mail. |
It is recommended that users enter real information only for these areas. |
Tracking Navigator | |
| If the blinking Map button on the Navigator is clicked when the GIS Toolbar is blanked due to Animation, GIS layers may disappear. | Regenerate the lost layers or exit/reenter the GIS. |
Windows 2000 | |
| FNotifSV.exe may crash during FEMIS login or mode changes on Windows 2000 systems. | Close FEMIS and try again. There is no reliable way to prevent the error if you are using Windows 2000. |
Work Plan |
|
| If a Risk Area that is defined locally onpost is attached to a Work Plan that is sent offpost, the offpost EOCs will not be able to view the zone list from the Risk Area window. | The list of zones included in the Risk Area attached to a Work Plan will be shown offpost in the Work Plan Details window. |
| When editing the Work Plan, the creation of a new Work Plan by another user causes detail records to be orphaned. | When a Work Plan is saved (using Save, OK, or Make Operational), a complete set of data for the Work Plan, including all associated activities with new activity ID numbers is written with a new Work Plan ID. This is necessary with the current design of the software to maintain historical information on the Work Plan. When another user is notified that a new Work Plan is made operational and then uses the New Data button, their copy of the Work Plan is replaced by the new Operational Work Plan. The new Work Plan does not contain the activities that were in the previous copy (even if they were derived from the same source, they have different activity IDs) so the user's activity windows, if any are open, are orphaned. |
| There is no automatic way for the offpost to select the onpost Threat Area or Risk Area as their current ones. | The user should look at the items in Work Plan (or Operations Tracking) and then manually enter the information into FEMIS. The same case name and number should be used for D2PC. |
| Last modified: 03/06/2001 Security & Privacy Pagemaster: Sharon Johnson |
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