Error going to "Your Books"

Both on the Enlish (.com) as on the Dutch (.nl) LT site I can't reach Your Books. Getting this message:

Some sort of error just happened. The error was logged and Tim has been alerted. If problems persist, email timspaldingAT SIGNlibrarything.com

In most cases, the problem can be fixed by using this link.

The reported error was:

Problem with the concurrent query manager in the LibraryThing Bureau of Garbage Collections.
We have an entire room of trained monkeys working to solve the problem..

>1 FAMeulstee: Confirmed for me!

I can get to my 'Your books', but not to >1 FAMeulstee:'s, or >2 rodneyvc:'s.

>3 MarthaJeanne: Indeed, I can reach your "Your Books", but still not my "Your Books".

Interesting, in an upsetting sort of way. I'm hoping that it's achieved notice from someone on staff who can fix it, but if it still appears unrepaired in a bit (it's been an hour, already, after all), I may poke Tim directly.

Same experience here, unable to get to my own account's Your Books, with same Trained Monkey message.

The suggested "In most cases" link does not make a difference other than to duplicate the brown menu header.

Mine also doesn't work, MarthaJeanne's does

Mine is okay.

I'm able to get to everyone's library using the "In most cases" link, but am also seeing the duplicate header when I do that.

>7 divinenanny:

I have no problem seeing your books.

This is weird.

>8 lilithcat: When I follow the "In most cases" link, I get my catalogue, not the one I was trying to see.

>9 MarthaJeanne:

Oops! You're right. But, oddly, in a sort that's not the one I usually use.

I've had the same problem all day - I can go to threads or a book page, but not my catalogue. I signed out and my daughter-in-law signed in to her account and all was well with her books.

As most have indicated -- unable to get to "Your Books". The link to fix does nothing. Its now been over 3.5 hours. Very frustrating.

Same problem - but TinyCat is working for me so I am able to work round the problem for now by accessing my catalogue via TinyCat.

Confirming

I'm looking into this.

>15 timspalding: Don't know what you did, Tim, but my "Your Books" is working again :-)
Thanks!

Yeah. Complex explanation:

1. There's an in-memory cache that contains some details about CK fields, like their names and such.
2. The app needs this. If it's there, it uses it; if it's not it makes it.
3. This in-memory cache got corrupted somehow. My GUESS is that it was requested during a brief downtime earlier today, and then an empty value got stored as if it were correct.
4. If your view had any CK elements, or if you were sorting by a CK element, it looked for values from this cache. When it came back empty, it errored out.
5. I started looking into it and then suddenly it started working. It started working because, on the development server, the cache is refreshed every time you ask for it. This was a convenience while developing it, not an intentional feature. But it had the effect of fixing it.

This was a weird one. And it's the rare bug that gets fixed… unintentionally. I am now analyzing the function to see if I can make it detect the corruption in the future.

Like science, observation of natural experiments often provide insights unlikely if sought intentionally ... those Eureka! moments.

I'm not a developer, but your explanation suggests to me it was a pretty difficult thing to "observe" when not actually looking for it. Nice job that you weren't so focused on your plan that you missed it.

>17 timspalding: Thank you, Tim. Interesting solution.

>17 timspalding:, >18 elenchus: My reaction as a professional software tester is to say "Yes, we get them like that sometimes..."

I recollect on one project trying to spot a bug for about three months that only ever manifested itself as a "Did I just see it do that...?" moment that I could never reproduce to order. They're hard to spot, hard to replicate and often hard to explain.