"Internal server error" when IDing "state of matter life" observations

Please fill out the following sections to the best of your ability, it will help us investigate bugs if we have this information at the outset. Screenshots are especially helpful, so please provide those if you can.

Platform (Android, iOS, Website): Website

App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About): -

Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) : Firefox

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: one example: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/132771151

Screenshots of what you are seeing (instructions for taking a screenshot on computers and mobile devices: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/):

Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

Step 1: click ā€œcompareā€ on the Life-id from another user to get cv suggestion

Step 2: as source choose ā€œvisually similarā€

Step 3: error pop-up

Happens also in ID mode. Reproducable as long as taxon is ā€œlifeā€ and source ā€œvisually similiarā€.

3 Likes

I can reproduce using the link above. Here is the problematic request (note that this doesnā€™t work without the headers inserted from the observation page):

https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/taxa/suggest?place_id=1189&taxon_id=48460&source=visual&order_by=default&featured_observation_id=132771151&locale=en&image_url=https%3A%2F%2Finaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fphotos%2F226044857%2Fmedium.jpeg&lat=40.892955&lng=-73.88884

It gives a 500 internal server error.

1 Like

I can reproduce in Chrome.

2 Likes

Iā€™ve been meaning to report this issue as well - I first noticed it earlier this week. Iā€™m using Firefox.

2 Likes

Weird, it just popped up for me on this observation which is IDed to Bees. Does it happen for others on that observation as well?

If I switch the taxon manually to Life then it does - if I just leave it as Bees, it works fine.

Using Chrome

OK weird, itā€™s working for me now. FWIW I didnā€™t see any errors in the console when it wasnā€™t working.

This is what it looks like for me setting Life manually on the bees

Similar problem here with a ā€œbeach blobā€ in life, maybe the same cause: when Iā€™m in the observation https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/165916173 I can look at the suggestions. In the ID module (reached from page https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Ccasual&page=60&iconic_taxa=unknown&photos=true&created_on=2023-06-06&createdDateType=exact, then click on the image, the page number might shift if people identify stuff that comes before because I filter for ā€œunknownā€) when I go to the ā€œSuggestionsā€ tab of the ID frame and select ā€œvisually similarā€ as source I get the internal server error as in the screenshot.

Thank you for reporting this! I noticed it about a month or two ago when I was going through and trying to help clean out the observations of ā€œState of matter Lifeā€ from my state. I was just too lazy to file a bug report for it. :(

It happens consistently for me every time I try to access ā€œVisually Similarā€ suggestions and the taxon is set to Life. It occurs consistently regardless of if the taxon was already set to Life when I visited the suggestions page or if I set it there from a lower rank.

I use Firefox.

1 Like

Works for me now - I could ID it as Cnidaria with my knowledge
but CV offers
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/742930-Chrysaora-chesapeakei
?

You have to use the suggestion tab from Identify mode to see the issue.

Iā€™m away from the computer now, the android app offers me the same species (but being land-locked, I donā€™t know cnidarians unless they wave their tentacles at me or are clearly Physalia or Velella on the beach). I had put it into Beach Blobs, there are people who look into that project from time to time and ID stuff.

The bug was new for me because I rarely encounter observations marked as life that look like I can add something (mostly life seems to be created when somebody thinks a beetle is sick and IDs the fungus, somebody else says ā€œno, it is healthy, thatā€™s just dirtā€ and IDs the beetle) or similar situations (galls on plants caused by infections or insects, wilting leaves due to insects or old age, ā€¦), or things that one thinks is a fungus and somebody else says slime mold (is there a project for that, akin to Beach Blobs?).

1 Like

I am in Identify. I never use Explore.

Pull up an observation of Life in Identify (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?place_id=any&exact_taxon_id=48460) and go to the Suggestions tab and click the ā€œSourceā€ drop-down:

Set it to ā€œVisually Similarā€ and then after a few seconds you should get this:

No I donā€™t. I have used that workflow thru most of today.
Never hit an ā€˜internal server errorā€™.

Well, shoot. Not sure why it doesnā€™t error for you too, but good for you!

I have found that I can work around the issue by clicking OK on the error message and then wiping ā€œState of matter Lifeā€ out the taxon field, then suggestions load just fine. Not sure if that helps alleviate the pain for anyone for now.

Intermittent. I open in a new tab for the problem obs ā€¦ there everything works as usual.
It is the Identify popup that trips.

Please fill out the following sections to the best of your ability, it will help us investigate bugs if we have this information at the outset. Screenshots are especially helpful, so please provide those if you can.

Platform (Android, iOS, Website): Website

App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About): 124.0.6367.60

Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) : Chrome

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages:

Screenshots of what you are seeing (instructions for taking a screenshot on computers and mobile devices: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/):

Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

Step 1: Iā€™ve been doing IDā€™s and have tried to load suggestions and have gotten this error message many times. Bummer!

Step 2:

Step 3: