To   GCN sites getting INTEGRAL Test notices               05 Sep 05
RE   Bug fix for Test Notices from INTEGRAL

INTRO:
This message is only pertinant to GCN Sites who thought
they should be getting the Test_notice versions of the INTEGRAL notices.

BUG FOUND IN THE FILTERING:
I found a bug in the filtering code that caused the Test INTEGRAL notices
to be blocked by the Time_Delay filter.  Because the INTEGRAL Test notices
are issued (by the IBAS team) with Dates that are in the past,
the Time_Delay filter would find these delta_times (now_time - test_time)
to be too large and filter those out from being sent to the site.
Typically, sites have their Time_Delay value set to 999.9 hr (=41 days),
which is plenty open for real burst notice traffic.  But for these
INTEGRAL Test notices, that had dates of 23/May/05, then they tripped
the Time_Delay filter.  (To be technically correct, IBAS issues the Test
Noties with a date of 23/May/02, but I/GCN arbitrarily change that date
to be in the current year.  This advancement is done for other reasons
of handling time within GCN.  But, of course, even that change is not enough
to eliminate the Time_Delay filter interaction.)

THE FIX:
It makes no sense to apply the Time_Delay filter to Test notices
that are hardwired with dates in the past, so I have changed the code
to ignore the Time_Delay test for only the Test INTEGRAL notices.
(Note that all the other mission-specific Test Notices have
current date values, so they were unaffected by this bug.  And they
are also unaffected by the fix.)

ONLY AFFECTED TEST INTEGRAL NOTICES:
This bug affected the distribution of ONLY the Test INTEGRAL notices.
It did NOT affect the real INTEGRAL notices, nor any other type of notices
(because they all have a date which is real-time current).

YOU WILL START TO RECEIVE INTEGRAL TEST NOTICES:
So if your site has INTEGRAL Test notices enabled, you will start seeing
them again.  (For sites that had their Time_Delay filter value at 999.9 hrs,
there would have been a 41 day window when you would have gotten these,
but now you will get them all year round.)

IF YOU WANT THEM DISBALED:
If you find that these Test INTEGRAL Notices are not suitable for your operation,
please request that they be disabled for your site.  I will be only too happy
to change your configuration.  (And as always, any changes to any part
of a site's configuration are always welcomed.)  My apologes for this mistake.

Sincerely,
Scott


Scott Barthelmy                      NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD  20771
PHONE:  301-286-3106                 (office)
FAX:    301-286-1684                 (1st choice,  -1682 2nd choice)
EMAIL:  scott@lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov
PAGER:  3013463733@mmode.com
WEB:    http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn