NExpress Shared Catalog

Remember back when we had regular upgrades – we would post the bugs and issues here under the ‘Known Issues” category.  A new upgrade, a new Known Issues post!

The list (reordered – new on top, fixed at the bottom):

• Wrong Holds Deleted when Using Patron Details > Holds tab. To delete a patron’s hold from their patron record, use the Check Out Tab and Holds sub-tab.
  Do Not use:
  
• Suppress Feature – Another new feature of PTFS is “Do not suppress” -  if you have an item you want to HIDE or SUPPRESS in the online public access catalog, you can.  Say you have a professional collection, COMPUTERS, equipment or books you have behind the desk just for storytime – you can hide those from patrons by Suppressing the item.
• Dual Prompts – Update: If you check in an item that is already ‘Waiting’ for a patron, you will trigger dual prompts and initiate an unwanted transfer of the item to it’s homebranch.  We have received multiple reports of dual prompts, leading to dual status messages.  We have investigated this and reported it to PTFS. We do not know if this is an ‘artifact’ of a bug that they fixed earlier this week, or a new issue.  If it’s an artifact, we may have to just work through the affected holds until we are dealing with ‘new,’ post-migration holds.
• Z-target searching in the Cataloging module is slow.  Heather deleted the NYU target, as it was unresponsive.  We sent in a support ticket for the slowness.
• Cancel Holds in Transit bug – This is STILL AROUND.  In case you want proof – here’s the video.
• Duplicate Overdue Notices – We have reports of duplicate overdue report emails – today’s match yesterdays.  We sent copies of Ottawa’s emails to PTFS.
• Renew from OPAC bug – When I renewed an item I had just checked out, the renewal date went backwards…which leads us to believe that it wasn’t accessing the correct library circ policies.  Please explain to your patrons that we are going through an upgrade and to be patient with us.  We have sent this to PTFS.  FYI, after I refreshed the staff client, as show in the video, my OPAC account said I had renewed the book twice and the due date changed again from 9/15 back to 9/23.  Very odd.
• Set to Patron Guarantor Bug - When searching for a Parent or Guarantor to set to a Child, you get 0 search results.  We have reported this PTFS. Update: A work around for this is to search by the guarantor’s patron barcode number, not by name. (hb)
  
• PRIORITY – Inconsistent Cataloging Behavior – sometimes your work is saved, sometimes it isn’t. We are looking for more examples to find any underlying source for this incorrect behavior.
• Partially FIXED as of Aug. 25 – Overdue notices cron job – we have asked PTFS to look into this.  A library reported NOT receiving their daily email of overdues.  We are investigating reports of ‘really long’ reports (25+ pages).  We have seen examples of “Items Due” notices, along with Overdue notices, in the emailed report.  Those can be disregarded, but we are still trying to determine why they are included in the report at all.
• PRIORITY – Problems with Restricted (LOCALHOLD and WALKIN) Item Types Walk-in and Local Hold items are appearing on Pick lists (THIS may be fixed, we are still investigating), even though their Circ Rules are correctly restricted to Home library only and No holds allowed.  NEW: Restricted Items are being asked to fill holds when scanned at the Check in box.  Ignore hold, if this is incorrect behavior, for example the hold is for a non-local patron or it is a Walk-in item.
• PRIORITY – The Holds Awaiting Pickup Circulation report times out.  We have reported this bug to PTFS.
• PRIORITY - If you try searching for a patron using their full name (ex, David Lee Allen, Adam James Smith, or Alan Michael Smith), you get no results. If you search using only their first, first name (David Allen, Adam Smith, or Alan Smith), you get results. All patrons that have two or more names in the first name box have to be found excluding the middle name.  Patrons with two-part last names are also problematic and this has been sent to PTFS. (8/24/10 – SEM)
• Long overdue/assumed lost display bug – We saw this in our Leavenworth LOAD server but now we see it in our Production server.  Harley hiccups with it sees an item that is Long overdue/assumed lost and mis-displays information in the search results (search.pl).  We have told PTFS about this issue.
  
• After using the “Search to Hold” feature and you close the ‘shadow box’ – you will need to Refresh your browser to see the newly-placed hold on your patron’s details page.
  Update: Search to Hold does not work if there is only one Bib that matches your search term.  The results have to show on the Results list.
  Update: Search to Hold feature does not work if you re-sort the search results.  The “Hold for Patron” button disappears.
• When doing an advanced search using the https link, the Back button clears all previously entered data (this is related to the new secure URL, not PTFS Harley 1.1).
• Misleading wording – In the Holds Priority page, the wording of “item waiting to be pulled” on items that we just pulled and put in transit is Misleading – maybe we can change that wording to simply “Item is in transit”.  Reported to PTFS, still not fixed as far as I can tell (8/24/10 – SEM)
  
• FIXED – Edit Item Bug – If you try to add a new item by filling out the form shown at the “Edit > Edit Item” screen, your changes will NOT be saved. Instead, you will be redirected to the Add Item screen.  Please use the New > New Item path to add an item OR use the Cataloging module and “Add Holdings”
• FIXED as of Aug. 25. Hyperlinks on the Bib Record Details page do not work.  Liz has disabled the hyperlinks. We turned on a System Preference called XSLTDetailsDisplay so that Subtitles, parts, numbers and medium information (245 $b, h, n, p) displayed.  Unfortunately, this is a buggy preference that tries to execute an OPAC search in the Staff Client when you click on an author hyperlink or Subject hyperlink…which leads to an error screen.  We have reported this bug to PTFS.
• FIXED  Patron name searching is still slow…scan a barcode when possible.  Some slowness will always occur, as it’s the nature of the Internet.
• FIXED with re-indexing. Holds Priority Lists may look odd – the upgrade team at PTFS had to adjust all of our existing Holds to add the new “In Transit” Status to holds already pulled and on their way from Library A to Library B.  I think this fixed itself after today’s Pick list ran.
• Heather removed two problematic z-targets – please let us know if you have issues cataloging.
• Liz Fixed This!  Woot.Dubbed, “The lying yellow box bug” – When placing multiple holds for a patron in the Staff client (by doing a search and selecting several titles from the results list), you may need to scroll down to see the real priority level.  Please ignore the misleading message “No copies are available to be placed on hold.”
  
  
• FIXED with the reindexing Aug. 24. Search results (search.pl) in both the Staff Client and OPAC may show inaccurate availability status information.
  
• FIXED with the reindexing Aug. 24. The Holdings table on the details.pl page has missing Status information.
  
• FIXED with the reindexing Aug. 24. The catalog is Not Indexing Correctly, as some catalogers have discovered.  We also noticed that the Search results list shows ‘old’ information about items recently checked in (or out).  The Items tab of the Bib record should be correct.
• FIXED as of 1 pm, Aug. 24. URGENT: Editing the Holds Priority List for a title from the Holds Tab of a Bib record in the Staff Client causes unwanted changes to existing holds.  Please edit Holds through the Patron account or have the Patron edit their holds through the OPAC.  We may hide the offending drop-down menus until this is fixed.
• FIXED with the indexing fixed Aug. 24 Transfers to Receive Circulation Report is incomplete – the “Reserved by” information is missing, that tells you which of your patrons has a hold coming. We have reported this bug to PTFS.
• FIXED “In Transit statuses are incomplete in their wording. As of Aug 30, 2010.  Patron name and information about if the item is still “on hold (in transit)” or “waiting” for a patron with a hyperlink to the patron account was missing.
• UN-FIXED – Not sure when, but it seems to be working now. Please send us screenshots or screencasts of this when you see it.
  Where’s the book, really?  Dual prompts – the scenario:

When Eudora’s book “The Help” was returned to Bonner and a hold came up for a patron in Baldwin City – Koha gave 2 messages:

“Please return “The Help” to Eudora” AND

“Hold found (item waiting…) send to Baldwin City”

The status of this item in the Holdings table says it is in transit to Eudora. The Holds Priority table says the item is In transit to fill a hold at Baldwin City. The Item information has the current location as Bonner Springs. Only the Holds Priority table is correct.

• FIXED as of Aug. 25 – Cataloging issues addressed today were also fixed with the indexing fix.  If you have items cataloged yesterday that you cannot find by searching, check them in.  That process should add them manually to the index (or something similar).

We will add more as we find them.  Please email nexpresshelp@nekls.org if you find an issue or chat with us on Monday.

Today we received a question about searching for the item Bathrooms : moneysmart makeovers by Rick Peters, and it brought to light some known bugs (1807 – that a colon (:)  messes up the search and 2604 saying that a slash (\) does the same). Here are some additional search tips, courtesy of Mickey:

1. NEVER include punctuation of any sort in a catalog search. Commas, colons, semi-colons, question marks, exclamation points, and periods should always be omitted.  This issue is fixed in Community Koha 3.2, but at this time special characters may cause faulty results.
2. Since a Keyword search looks at all the data in the record, feel free to MIX SEARCH TERMS from author and title fields. You can even include publication information if you know it. So entering the words “peters” and “bathrooms” would return your item. Just those two words alone.
3. Look for UNIQUE or less common search terms. Presented with a title like Bathrooms : moneysmart makeovers by Rick Peters, you would want to find a UNIQUE or uncommon term:  moneysmart certainly qualifies in that regard. So using that single term moneysmart is all you need to put into the search box. If you know the author’s name, you could put that in your search as well.
   
4. Avoid TOO MUCH detail in Keyword searching. No need for complete titles. Omit articles the and a, an and conjunctions or and and.
5. Remember that Koha uses a fuzzy logic search, and will return near-matches and “mystery” matches because is doesn’t stick with exact search terms. So don’t be put off if you get more hits than you think you should from Keyword searches in Koha. Look at the top 5 hits to see if your desired item is there. After the first five, most of the items below are fuzzy matches. If you don’t see what you need in the first five items, re-try your search using different terms.

Happy Searching,
Sharon

Issue: If a search contains a : (colon) or a ? (question mark) you will get no results even if there are records that match the search terms.

Explanation: This is a known bug 1807.

Solution: Re-execute the search without the : (colon) or ? (question mark).

This has been pushed to version 3.4 – guess it is going to be difficult to fix.

In Koha, we have identified three scenarios that can create a Dual Status for an item in the Holdings table.

Scenario 1: The item is checked out to AND on hold for the same patron.
Reason: A Bug, sometimes associated with the SIP (4063), but other times just a bug..

In this instance, the item used to fill the hold has a restricted item type of Local Hold. It showed up on a pick list and was sent to fill the hold, even though it shouldn’t have (a bug).
Resolution: The hold will have to be manually removed from the patron’s account. Go their holds tab and select Delete or go to the Holds Priority list and change the hold from ‘Waiting’ to ‘Del’ (delete).

Scenario 2: The item is checked out to one patron and on hold for a different patron
Reason: An Item Level hold was placed for a patron by a staff member, instead of a Title Level hold. Patrons who place holds using the OPAC can only place Title Level holds.

Resolution: Remove the item level hold and replace it with a title level hold, that way the patron will get the Next Available item instead of waiting for one specific copy to fulfill their hold.

Scenario 3: The item is checked out to one patron and on hold for a different patron.
Reason: Simultaneous Holds Bug where Two copies of the same Title arrived for the same patron, but only one of the two is actually ASSIGNED to the patron to fill the hold and, when scanned at check in, prompted the Holds Conformation box (the other one, when scanned at check in, said “Not checked out.”)

Resolution: Check out the copy/item that triggered the Holds Confirmation to the Koha-assigned patron. Route the other copy back to the home library or scan it to see if it triggers another hold for transfer.

We understand that these scenarios and issues have been occurring more since December. All of these issues have been reported to our support vendor and several others have been reported to the Community, via Bugzilla.

Holds bugs and enhancements we are watching closely include:

• 2655 – Items on the Holds Shelf appear as “Available” in the OPAC (patches in 3.2, still some bugs)
• 2830 – Hold not removed when “trapped” item on hold shelf is checked out to a different patron in the holds queue (Critical, still open)
• 3270 – Canceling a hold request after transfer initiated orphans item (Major, still open)
• 3287 – Cancel Hold script makes unjustified assumption of Home Library return (Major, still open)
• 3288 – Transit prompt not immediately triggered after hold is canceled (Normal, still open)
• 3344 – Hold priority list needs additional status for items assigned but not waiting (Critical, preliminary patch)
• 3345 – Return All items on patron detail does not initiate transfer of holds (Normal, still open)
• 3536 – Checked In item requiring transfer does not consistently trigger transfer prompt (Patch sent 12-26-09)
• 3595 – Items seen at checkin should always go to 1st priority hold
• 3792 – Checking out on-hold item to someone else replaces item-level hold with next available (Jane wants a different behavior than we do, but still an interesting bug)
• 4063 – SIP Returns sometimes cause items to have dual statuses
• 4224 – Holds queue report includes items already allocated
• 4373 – Placing and Processing Items Simultaneously causes multiple issues

Upon renewing items coming from other libraries, your patrons may get unexpected due dates on some items.

While the original checkout period is correctly taken from the transacting library’s circ policies,  the renewal is incorrectly governed by the owning library’s circulation rules, which may differ from the transacting library’s rules.

The only remedy for this situation right now is to check the item in, and then check it back out, using the “sticky” calendar to adjust the due date.

A Koha patch for this bug has already been written, and will be applied to our install as soon as our upgrade schedule has been determined by PTFS.

In the last few months, we have noticed an increase in ‘strange holds behavior‘ such as one patron receiving two copies of book or movie, when only one of the two items will actually fulfill the patron’s hold.  The more we thought about this, the more we realized that it was an issue of timing and of Koha, a Web-based program, mishandling simultaneous submissions of data.  For example two libraries processing their Pick list at the same time or two libraries checking in items or placing holds at the same time.  Liz and I devised a test and caught this on video to share with the developers, but we want to share it with you, as well.

This five-minute video shows a number of problems that can occur when items are picked, holds are placed and transfers are initiated at about the same time on different copies of the same item.

This three-minute video shows what happens when you receive an item routed to you to fill a ‘phantom’ hold.

Unfortunately, to fix these issues we will need to have an enhancement written.  With our catalog in limbo at the moment, we cannot say when such a fix could be written and applied to our Koha installation.  I hope that being aware of how this happens will help decrease the frustration and confusion somewhat.

So, you have the new Sherlock Holmes DVD, but you can’t put it on the shelf until March 30.
How do you catalog it so that patrons can start placing holds on the title before it hits library shelves?

In the recent past, several libraries have been using these cataloging specs:

Not for loan: Ordered
Collection: On order
Shelving Location: Cataloging
Item type: On order*

*We suspect that Koha gets confused when assigning holds on materials cataloged this way when/if the item type designation on the items are changed from On Order, which is completely unrestricted, to Local Hold.**

**I created an elaborate test video to recreate this scenario, but of course Koha worked just like it was suppose to!  Figures, eh?

The Best Practice is this:

• Go find a Bibliographic record from the ether
• Catalog your items as you would normally (Local Hold as Local Hold, Walk in as Walk in, Book as Book)
• Set the Not For Loan status to “Ordered”
• When you are ready to start circulating these items, edit and change the Not For Loan status back to ‘blank’

Sort of related – There is an outstanding support request regarding the “New Moon” fatal error – search for new moon in the OPAC and see what happens.  A work around for patrons and a faster way to get to the new DVD in the Staff Client is to search for “twilight saga new moon”.   A note has been posted on the Patron Catalog home page.

There is a bug in Koha wherein:

Adding a repeatable holiday creates holidays retroactively for Koha’s calendar
module.  fines.pl balks when it sees an overdue fine calculation where amount
!= amountoutstanding (it assumes a payment was made, so tries to adjust the
amountoutstanding appropriately).  This fails if the calendar module reports a
smaller number of fine-inducing days on one run of fines.pl than it did on the
previous.

Symptoms:
Overdue charges appear on patron accounts with Amount Outstanding > Amount.

This problem only occurs after a library has changed its calendar settings.  Adding Sunday as a repeatable holiday, for example,  makes Koha erroneously added the retroactive fine amount ($1 per day for movies, .05 per day for other items) to the maximum total, resulting in nutty fines like $3.25 (for books and other items) and $7.00 (for movies).

When you run across these kinds of fines, just charge the patron the $3 maximum and “write off” the remainder by paying the whole thing off regardless of the actual amount. The bug will be fixed eventually.

Mickey

Not sure what else to call bug 3270, but here’s the scenario that says you’ve encountered this bug:

Let’s say a patron or staff member cancels a hold that has already been confirmed and transferred from Library A and is on it’s way to Library B with a transit slip.  When the item arrives at Library B, and the staff scan it, nothing happens – there is no message saying to Send the Item Back to Library A or a message saying that a Hold Was Found for Patron X.  The clue that lets you know this nasty little black bug has crawled to your Circ Desk is the message Not Check Out.

What do you do??

At Basehor, they simply check the item out to a staff member and immediately check it back in.  This triggers a transfer prompt and correctly updates the Current Location.

Your reward for this work around is a circulation statistic.

Other clues that this bug present:

When an item has a status of Available, but the Current location and Home branch are mismatched.  This item belongs to Bonner Springs, not NEKLS HQ:

To fix the bug, determine with a shelf check where the item is physically located and manually update the Item Record:

Looking for a specific barcode?  Add the text ‘barcode:’ before typing or scanning the barcode to go directly to the Bib record associated with that barcode.  For example:

- Sharon

Step 1:

Step 2: