Since many days I get after successful uploading a file the message of RG-system in red color: "An error has occurred. Please try again!" The message did always appear after pressing the blue button "continue", that means that the finishing process of the upload didn't work, and the type of publication - preprint, article etc. - didn't play any role, the message comes in every case.
How did you solve the problem? (Because after quitting RG you have to start uploading process anew!).
I don't know if the error is caused in my doing, or if it is a fault caused by RG. Please tell me your experience, because the answer of RG endures normally a week, (a have written an e-mail to the support center). It is important that RG members have a talk on this kind of problem
Hein,
As you might expect, I take a pretty laissez-faire attitude to this type of thing. I do get a message occasionally when I use my computer's return button to exit a publication's abstract page. This says something like "loading pdf file has failed." I haven't tried to upload one, so why the message, I just don't know.
My first inclination would be to continue on despite the message and take another look later. If that's no good use the "help centre" icon (bottom of all pages). If that's no good keep asking rubbish questions until you're given the opportunity to email. Then do that...
Christopher NOCK
Hi,
This has happened to me several times. I simply left the RG site and entered again after an hour and everything was fine. It seems that the reason for this is or the RG maintenance, or a problem with Windows.
Christopher Nock
Dear Christopher, thank you for your experience. Yes, help center, is my last source to report a problem, but, in my experience, they can't give an advice immediately, it endures a longer time, I remember 5-7 days. I needed this file uploaded because in following files I have to mention and quote it. But you are right when you say we should see such problems more relaxed, indeed there happens in the system sometimes things we don't understand. It is necessary than to decide what is important and what is not so much important uploading a complex file. I tried all the day. I changed the browser and the operating system of the computer, used my notebook for uploading, I was busy all the day. In the late evening I had success, but to get it I had to change some details of conditions, for instance to short the title and the summary etc.
Such things happen if your file is a little more complex than a text written in WORD or a simple pdf-version. If you use embedded scans of original historical texts and - in addition - you have an English and a translated version in the same file - It could be that the RG system is'nt in the situation up to now to manage this.
I think this is important to discuss here, because historical work often works with new newly discovered archival material, which is then presented with a commentary and a source designation in RG.
And now I would like to know from you, Christopher, which category name you would choose in such a case from the title categories. This is neither an already published article or chapter, nor a poster or conference paper. I am missing the category "documentation". Do you have experience with such a process? Which category would you choose from the given range of possibilities? I took "preprint" (without doi), even if it's not quite true. Maybe I'll ask that again in RG as a technical question. But maybe you know a solution.
Hein
Avishag Gordon
Dear Avishag, thank you for your helpful comment. In the meantime my impression is that problems of uploading belong to - at last - three different categories:
(1). System disturbances, which RG causes, must eliminate and after some time also eliminate - this however not only take hours, as you reported from your problem, sometimes it was also 1-2 days.
To know if this category is relevant for a current upload problem, you have to try some things, change PC, change operating system or browser, etc.
(2) A second problem arises, according to my previous experience, that RG only uploads files with relatively little disk space (MB) without complications. If I want to copy a book (which I once wrote) with the large scanner in the institute, the file, if it has e.g. 50 MB, is much too large. In my experience, the files that RG uploads without any problems are smaller than 10 MB.
(3) A third problem arises and is apparently not handled by MB if a file contains many scans incorporated into the running text, summaries and titles are very extensive. I had happily uploaded the file, but because I try to publish German and English simultaneously in the same file, the summaries and headings become very long. I then shortened them and added after. That finally worked - but it takes a lot of time. If you ever have a similar problem, I would ask you to report it in RG to use the experience of other RG-users.
Hein
Try clicking "Other". There's many options there. Choose one!
Good luck
Christopher
Dear Dr. Hein,
Thanks for the elaborate clarification. I just hope not to encounter serious problems on RG in the future. It seems that every system has its limitations, and we are learning while using it.
Christopher Nock
Christopher, thank you for your hint, but these categories are not satisfying, because they define only "materials" or unclear things. My problem must be a problem of all historians who find valuable documents (for instance from archives) which have decisive relevance for answering certain questions. This would achieve a category namend "documentation" or similar, but this simple type is not available.
Hein
If it's a document that relates to one of you existing pieces of research or a project, you can upload to those under "document" or something close to that.
NOCK
And at the bottom of the "Other" categories, it looks like you are able to create your own!
You have now exhausted my limited capacities in this matter!
NOCK
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