Multiple "this encounter" annotations in a single encounter record

In which Wildbook did the issue occur? ACW

What operating system were you using? Win 10

What web browser were you using? latest chrome

What is your role on the site? researcher & admin roles - able to replicate in both roles

What happened?
Sighting: https://africancarnivore.wildbook.org/occurrence.jsp?number=BPC_OvrvwWtd_Fldr10_2019_11_13
Some, but not all of the encounter records have more than 1 thumbnail with an annotated body, marked as “this encounter”.
Ex1. https://africancarnivore.wildbook.org/encounters/encounter.jsp?number=9071ef72-1552-43de-8d5c-e24265f903e6
Ex2. https://africancarnivore.wildbook.org/encounters/encounter.jsp?number=47fa5196-ceea-40df-9755-b8b62afa08a6
Ex3. https://africancarnivore.wildbook.org/encounters/encounter.jsp?number=6434f189-77e5-440f-ad2f-ece3774b6a8e
There was only 1 media asset uploaded per row in the Excel upload file (emailed to services@)
What did you expect to happen?
Each encounter record has a single annotation (+ tail annotation) per record

What are some steps we could take to reproduce the issue?

If this is a bulk import report, send the spreadsheet to services@wildme.org with the email subject line matching your bug report Done

Here’s another good example:
https://africancarnivore.wildbook.org/encounters/encounter.jsp?number=c067b562-103f-442b-8cc9-2fe92c0116b3

We created ticket WB-945 and are digging deeper on this issue.

Thanks,
Jason

@jason - should we ask our researchers to hold off on matching while you work out what’s causing this problem?

Looking at the deeper issues, it’s looking like you should hold off on matching. This seems to be unwinding a couple different issues that we have to unpack.

Hopefully you can get this figured out. I blame our researcher “G”. Whenever we’re on a call together, he comes across another bug…

Hi @tanyastere, any updates on this issue? Should we still be holding off on matching in ACW? I have a call this evening with 2 of our researchers and another in the am with another researcher and I know they’re hoping to get going with matching again so if you think we should still wait, do you have any sense of when we could start again? thanks

Heyya,
We’ve tracked through what is needed to get this completely fixed, and it’s a bit of a doozy. What we can say is single-animal sightings are safe to upload. This is an issue with the system not being conservative enough with encounter creation in situations with multiple animals with parts.
So:

  • If you sift out the several-wild-dogs-in-a-picture pictures, wild dogs should be fine
  • Cheetahs and Leopards should be able to go as normal with their no-parts and solitary lifestyles.

Timeline for the actual fix:
We have a dependency to get out the door first; we’re making a substantial change to a couple of methods, so we need to get that safely out before we start developing against the same code. Estimate is end-of-next-week, and maybe another day or two for some testing.

Yikes. So that I’m clear, until the fix is completed, we should:

  • Halt bulk uploads of multi-animal sightings as well as matching of multi-animal sightings

  • Only process matching on:

    • single wild dog sightings
    • any/all cheetah and leopard sightings

Hello,

Images that contain multiple animals with different classes (like the different classes for wild dog coloration) are the root of this problem. So sightings that contain multiple animals, and encounters that contain multiple images are fine but the individual images of wild dogs should contain no more than one animal for the time being.

Hope that helps.

Hello WildMe team @tanyastere @jason @colin FYI @ACWadmin1

Could we get an update on resolution of this issue? I understand that it is a complex problem but I need to provide some kind of an ETA to our key researcher on Wild Dogs as to when they can get back to work on matching.

Thank you

We have it in testing now. I’m not comfortable providing an estimate with any degree of accuracy. We hope this week, but we’re doing a staged testing-and-release for the fix in case it causes massive issues with encounter associations. Because this is critical, foundational aspects of the software, we appreciate your patience as we work to get it right.

Thanks for the quick update Tanya. Hope the testing goes well and we are back in business soon. Regards, Paul and @ACWadmin1

Hi Tanya

Any updates on a satisfactory resolution to this issue ?

Thanks

Paul fyi @ACWadmin1

@jason
@colin
@tanyastere

Hi folks

We have reached a critical stage with wild dog data uploads and user training. Can you give us an update on this bug so we can manage expectations? I have the next EWT KNP Census kicking off next week and we are dead in the water on Wild Dogs. Never mind the BPC team who are standing by to finish their uploads, training and ID work.

Thanks

Paul fyi @ACWadmin1

As previously stated, we’re looking to have this resolved this week.

@PaulK @ACWadmin1 The (tentative) fix is ready to be deployed today. When is a good time? (If I don’t hear back, we’re looking at 4PM PST)

@tanyastere - Can you please clarify the “tentative” aspect of the fix? Meanwhile, please go ahead anytime now and then please notify us when it’s completed. thanks
@PaulK - FYI

We’ve tested locally and are pretty sure we’ve resolved it, but I am fully prepared for there to be an edge case that we didn’t account for and us to need to do an additional update when you find it in two days. I’m planning on leaving this report open for at least a week just to confirm that we’ve done it.

Makes sense. Unfortunately, I’m away and out of internet reach for the whole of next week so can I suggest leaving it open for 2 weeks? I don’t expect Paul will have time to get to it much next week so we likely wouldn’t find any edge issues until after that. thanks