Are you getting an improper error message when saving a profile?

+25 votes
1.0k views

Hi WikiTreers,

We just released a new "data validation" system to help prevent common errors and typos.

There may still be bugs to work out. Are you seeing red or yellow messages when you shouldn't be?

Please post here if so. Be sure to include the WikiTree ID of the profile you were editing and the text of the error message you got.

Thanks for your patience!

Chris

P.S. This post replaces the one from yesterday.

in WikiTree Tech by Chris Whitten G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)
Update: We just refined the handling of these three checks when one of the dates is incomplete:

* "A birth date should not be within eight months of a sibling's birth date."
* "A death date cannot be before a birth date."
* "The birth date is after a spouse's death date."

The sibling check, especially, was coming up too often, e.g. if one sibling was born January 1, 1800 and the other was born in 1800 (without or without a "before" or "after" status indicator).
I am getting a red error message and have searched and searched and can't find any errors. The message is:A child'e birth date should not be before a parent is six years old.

The profile I am working on is: Bickhart-1

http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Bickhart-1&action=edit

I also got error messages when working on her husband: Painter-313

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Painter-313

Can someone check to see if they can find where the mistake is. Is it at all possible that the mix-up is because there are actually three Harry Eldred Painters. Harry Sr., Harry Jr. and Harry III.

Thanks,

Nikki Byer
I think I found the mistake! It was a typo on another profile.

15 Answers

+10 votes
The entry that would not save for me yesterday, saved this morning. Thanks!
by Michelle Francis G2G4 (4.7k points)
+9 votes

Not an improper error message, but it was much too emphatic -- and too difficult to escape from:

While trying to save a cleanup edit on Kuykendall-10 (an existing profile that has three duplicates that I know of), I got a red error message warning me that siblings shouldn't be born less than 8 months apart unless they are twins. I believe that message appeared because of the four profiles for her that are attached to the same parents (now that the multiple profiles for the parents have finally gotten resolved) -- it was because of all those duplicates that I was editing this profile. Under the circumstances, I thought the warning was much too emphatic.

After getting that message, I noticed that the birthdate was an "about" date when it should have been a "before" date, so I edited the qualifier. Then I clicked the button that I thought would allow me to escape the error and proceed as planned, and I was surprised to be taken back to the same edit screen I had been viewing. I looked in "Changes" and verified that my edit had not been saved (something that I believe many contributors would not remember to do), and then I saved my intended changes. I think we need much clearer instructions on how to ignore an error message.

by Ellen Smith G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)
Hi Ellen. What button did you click that you thought would save the changes but did not?
"Save Without Changes."
That's weird. Clearly, "Save Without Changes" is how you are supposed to save without changes. We wouldn't write instructions indicating something else.

I can't replicate this. I wonder if something interrupted your save. Maybe others will post if they have this same problem.
I wondered if the fact that I edited the qualifier on the birthdate had the effect of changing what happened when I hit "save without changes."
Thanks for changing "Save Without Changes" to "Save Anyway." That's the option I need when I'm cleaning up the clutter in a messy profile about someone I haven't researched.
+7 votes

Warning: Check the dates.

  1. A marriage date should not be after a spouse's death date.

Save without changes If you are saving without changes consider an explanation in the text.   [more info]

http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Van_As-92&action=edit&errcode=merge_complete

on editing the current name to a LNAB with suffix in lower case, again this message (http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Van_As-92&action=edit):

Warning: Check the dates.

  1. A marriage date should not be after a spouse's death date.

Save without changes If you are saving without changes consider an explanation in the text.   [more info]

I added the baptism date to the Date of Birth - field and the place of birth (after changing the spelling of the LNAB as can be exactly read on the baptism image). Intending to connect the profile to the parent profiles that I now are going to search for.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Van_As-92

by Philip van der Walt G2G6 Pilot (169k points)
Hi Philip,

I appreciate that seeing the same notice can be annoying. We made the decision to have red-level warnings appear every time a profile is edited, rather than just when the profile is created, like the yellow-level warnings.

To be clear, though, this is case where the marriage is dated 1799 but a spouse died in 1791, right?

Chris
No no problem. It is not the red flashing that's a problem. This time it was a great catch - I'm having PC-problems uploading the marriage record but the year reads like 1799 but it is actually 1749. So this is a healthy sign. Only (this isn't criticism because I understand the complexity - or rather understand that it is beyond my comprehension), I (and others) miss the context. If you hadn't told me, I wouldn't have realized where to look.

This was my initial point with the first time I encountered this new feature - it may or may not be a bug and is flashing red warning signs but there are still some instructions missing ...

But it is early days and so to see you haven't been to bed yet - it works!
Ah, OK.

Identifying the source of the conflict is on the to-do list. I think we'll be able to add this, i.e. say exactly which dates on which people are causing the warning to appear. It can be very confusing right now.

Thanks, Philip.
+9 votes

This one will be a speed bump for profiles with patronymic names because if the patronymic is not a LNAB it is placed alongside the first name:

Caution: Unusual information. Is the following correct?

  1. There is more than one name in the First Name field; is one a middle name?

It appears to be working as intended but I'm only seeing it when adding children to a profile as opposed to just editing a profile that has a patronym in the first name field. http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Teuniszen-2

by Carrie Quackenbush G2G6 Mach 7 (78.8k points)

Also checking the box for "No children" and attempting to save triggers There are no changes, so not saving.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cornelisz-81

Also for all the people with double first names, like all the Anna Britta, Greta Lisa, Inga Stina, Lars Erik and Per Olof we have in Sweden. I have seen in g2g that this mode of naming is common in other countries as well.

I think this warning should be scrapped. Unnecessary warnings just make people stop paying attention.

One could of course start camelcasing these names. AnnaBritta and LarsErik ;-)
Yes Eva,

In the Netherlands multiple first names are very common, and the concept of "middle name" is unknown.
Carrie, the "no spouses" and "no children" checkboxes are now recognized as changes.

Regarding the two first names, periodically I have to explain why we don't automatically separate two names in a First Name field in a GEDCOM import into a First Name and a Middle Name. I can't tell you how many times that's been asked for. Even demanded, angrily. We'd almost caved and started doing it again.

We can reconsider this warning, but you can't please all the people all the time.
Ha, so true. Thanks Chris!

Chris,

Please also answer the other members that protest against the "no multiple first names" rule, because it should not be enforced in their culture/country. See this thread, in particular Eva's suggestion to add the "no middle name" item to the create profile screen.

I guess we are all hoping for a change of the wording "We can reconsider..." to "We will reconsider..."

+9 votes
I checked the "No more children" box on a couple of profiles yesterday and got the "No changes to save" message when I tried saving. Both profiles already had some children and no other change was made. The IDs are not relevant now because I worked round the problem by making another change.
by Matthew Fletcher G2G6 Pilot (130k points)
Giffard-454. I had this happen as well with both the "No children" and "No more siblings" buttons.
This has now been fixed. Thanks for alerting us.
You're welcome. Thanks for the fix and all the recent improvements.
+11 votes

I think text on the buton is confusing. "Save Without Changes" without which changes? I think text "Save anyway" would be more clear.

Or are you saving all fields except the one creating an error.

by Aleš Trtnik G2G6 Pilot (797k points)
Oh, good point, Aleš! We'll change that.
+7 votes

Posted request to refine check on multiple first names ( a typical American check!) before I noticed this thread.

by Living Terink G2G6 Pilot (292k points)

I still say it should just be scrapped as a warning upon manual creation. No refinement needed.

The problem with first-name and middle-name ending up improperly together in the first-name field seems to be mostly a GEDCOM import phenomenon, so as it is now, this error warning is aimed at the wrong target.

+6 votes
On changing the estimated birth date of Bates-6059, I got the message "Warning: Check the dates. A child's birth date should not be before a parent is six years old." The date I was entering for the parent was "bef 1795"; the child's birth date was "abt 1810".
by Sharon Casteel G2G6 Pilot (163k points)
Hi Sharon. That error is for his father (Bates-6060), not his child. That is, Bates-6069 is the child referenced in the error message, not the parent. One thing on the to-do list is to make error messages clearer by specifying the names and dates.
+6 votes

It seems that while I was working on a substantial edit to http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Palmer-223 my long-term login on this machine expired.

After I hit "Save Changes" I got a red message banner that said (as near as I can remember) "Permission Denied" and also "Check the dates." (No explanation of why permission was denied or what was wrong with the dates). This error message was both confusing and misleading (misleading because dates had nothing to do with the denial of permission). The red banner also had a "Save anyway" box, so I clicked it. That sent me to a login screen, which is when I first realized that I had been logged out.

After I logged back in, I navigated back to the edit screen, and was relieved to find that my edits were still there. Then I hit "Save changes" and I got a message that there was nothing to save. That error message was not valid. I opened the Change History in another tab and verified that my edits had not been saved (confirming that the most recent message was not valid), then I made a couple additional edits (to get rid of the "no changes" error) and saved the page. My edit saved normally, and there was no indication of a date problem. 

by Ellen Smith G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)
It looks like http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/279200/how-do-you-sign-back-in-to-wikitree is also about problems with the errors being encountered after a login expires.
+4 votes

Hi Chris,

No error message, but the 'Add New Person' button on the page for adding an unrelated person no longer works. Could this be related to these changes?

See: http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/277117/attempting-profile-page-unrelated-save-person-does-not-work

Thanks,

Joanne

by Joanne Egan G2G6 (6.8k points)
I have noticed this happening to several people. I think it would help if you described which fields you have filled in when the Add-New-Person does not work, to pinpoint which new error check might cause a conflict.

I have tried a few times since these reports started to create new unrelated persons - and it has worked fine. Right now I created a woman (to be attached in the next step as a mother of somebody). I entered only her first name, her LNAB, and a birth year marked as estimated. No problem. Perhaps I should have tried an estimated birth year and a death year marked as "after".
Hi Eva,

I entered first name, LNAB, estimated birth year, death date, gender and death location.

I have since tried alternatively leaving out death date, gender and death location; and then all 3. I still couldn't get it to save. If I leave out both dates I do get the date boxes turning pink when I hit the 'Add New Person' button.
Forgot to say that I also gave her the gender upon creation. But that shouldn't matter.

There is definitely a problem somewhere - but from both our reports I should say this is something else, not the error checks.

This question thread should be well attended by SysAdmins, hope they pick this up.
Could it be a software version issue? That would explain why some people are having an issue and others are not. I know that before I upgraded my browser the 'compare close matches' search was no longer working for me. I am currently running Internet Explorer 11.
Looks like it, from the last comment in another of the threads about this.

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/278608/unable-to-create-sourced-but-unconnected-profile-for-1604?show=279235#c279235

Those bugs are the most frustrating ones, I think. Hard to catch - and I'm not fond of being told to update my software. (My Firefox does keep itself updated)
+4 votes

I attempted to change the biography of Domenico Ghirardelili from {{Italian Roots}} to [[Category: Italian Roots]]{{Westward Ho|sub-project=California Gold Rush}}, and I got "You have not made any changes to save."

by Jamie Nelson G2G6 Pilot (613k points)
Hi Jamie. I'm not sure why that would have happened. It worked for me when I tried it just now. I reverted the change. Can you try it again and see if you get the same result? How about if you test on another profile?
Strange, it works now.

My internet connection at work is slow today so I might have clicked the save button twice and messed something up. After I got the message the first time I hit save again without making changes (but my previous unsaved changes were still there) and got the same message.

It might be related to this post? http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/276691/why-am-getting-wont-save-when-added-cat-and-hns-cat-to-profile

If I run into it again I'll let you know.
+4 votes

While editing http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Teerpenning-5 I got this message:

Warning: Check the dates.

  1. A mother's death date should not be before one of her children's birth dates.

There are some serious issues with this profile (notably, her date of baptism and date of marriage are the same day!), but the issue described in this message is not a serious issue. Her death date is given as "about 1793" and the last child was born November 25, 1793. Probably the death date should be "after November 25, 1793" (although maybe she died on November 25). I don't think, however, that this is a situation that should generate a red warning message (particularly when it's an edit to an existing profile); it's not uncommon for a mother's death to have occurred on essentially the same date as a child's birth.

Edited to add related issue (same confused family):

When editing http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Lambertse-4 , I get this red message:

  1. A father's death date should not be more than nine months before one of his children's birth dates.

In this case, the father's death date (which looks like it might be a wild guess) is 1703 and the last child is baptized on December 25, 1703. That's not impossible!

by Ellen Smith G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)
edited by Ellen Smith
+3 votes

I just got a RED error "A Child's death date should not be before a parent is 7 years old."  I just checked all the children's dates and don't understand.  Zipperer-25.  Additionally, thinking it might be his parents, I tried adding the same marriage record source to his wife Helmly-35 and got the same error.  

by Kathy Zipperer G2G6 Pilot (465k points)
Look at the death date for his child http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Zipperer-55
Thanks, Jamie.  I accidentally fixed it entering a source for Zipperer-55.  Got the death date error and fixed that too.  Then when I went to add another source for his mother Helmly-35, it was fixed.  I just kept looking at the birthdates and didn't pay attention to the death dates.  My error entirely.
+3 votes
I have tried all the examples none work, I give up. good by
by anonymous G2G Rookie (290 points)
Welcome to WikiTree RW - it can be confusing and frustrating, as you learn your way around.  You need to respond to the email you received from WikiTree, in order to confirm your email address and prove you are a legit, real person.  You should have also, received an email with helpful info on how this all works.  

You have found the G2G forum - the place to come when you have problems and questions.  Lots of folks here ready to help, in any way we can :)
+2 votes

Warning: Check the dates.

              1. Permission denied.

Profile Kennedy-8676, Margaret Kennedy Ward.  So far there is only one date-- 1830, an uncertain estimation of when she was born. She was married to a Frank Ward, and the only record I have of either of them so far is their son's death record, which lists them as his parents. 

The son, also a Frank Ward, was born in 1853 and died in 1920. This info is in the bio-- which is under construction now. I guess most people fill in their WikiTree profiles AFTER they finish their research.... 

Anyway, I don't quite get it--there aren't any conflicting dates to check. And permission for WHAT is denied? 

by
Could you have been logged out without being aware of it?

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