[Tilesathome] 404s? Not anymore!

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Sat, Nov 10, 2007 at 07:40:16AM +0100, Christophe Cattelain wrote:
> Christopher Schmidt a ?crit :
> > So, the new tiles at home server is now set up to automatically add 
> > requests to the queue for z12 tiles which are 404s. (This means that for
> > areas not covered by t at h yet, adding tiles to the queue is as easy as
> > browsing around informationfreeway at level12.) This is largely to help
> > get tiles which are browsed onto HyperCube, so we don't have to redirect
> > most requests to dev.
> >   
> When I request a tile (control-click) on
> 
>     http://www.informationfreeway.org level-12
> 
> I don't get 'Ok' anymore, but always 'Already in queue' while the change
> of priority seems Ok.  I usually get rivers in Africa rendered in a
> couple of minutes when I control-click.  But the message is disturbing. 
> Couldn't the message be more explicit?  

Heh. I hadn't read my email yet this morning, but I have already
implemented it. The messages now tells you either that it's bumping the
priority up, or that it was already at the  requested priority. 

> Like to give the position in
> queues.  I don't know if this information is easily available but it
> would be nice to see : position 1789 in low-pri changed to position 17
> in hi-priority queue/Already in hi-priority queue (pos 17).  The minimum
> would be 'hi-priority queued' and 'already in the hi-priority queue'.

Determining the position in the queue is probably mostly unneccesary so
long as we keep the queues low. :) Currently, the priority 1 queue is
staying at less than 1, an the priority 2 queue is staying at less than
5. (Changed tiles are automatically inserted into the queue at priority
2 every four hours, which may mean that priority 2 queues get longer, but
you have to have at least 100 active requests before they come back as
going into priority 2.) 

> I am afraid you'll get a lot of empty-tiles with your system.
> Isn't it a problem for the OSM database, to get many more requests?  It
> seems to be slow lately.

If the OSM database can't cope, we'll need to improve the OSM Database
:) Returning database requests for empty data tend to be pretty easy.
Until we see evidence that this is a problem, I'm not in favor of
changing it. TomH or others may be able to comment that it's already a
bottleneck. I can't know. 

> About 'Tiles at Home-Account' requests. I feel that it is not because T at H
> would not need it that they must not be granted.  An account gives a
> better control to the guy.  He can (possibly) get his tile rendered
> faster or with a specific version of the renderer.  

I don't think this is currently an issue. Tiles that are requested in
the high priority queue currently have less than 5 minutes of
non-rendering overhead time; with that being the case, there's no need
for users to be able to upload outside the t at h request queue. That said,
I have no intentions of restricting account access at this time.

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
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