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Numtracker should provide a helpful error message when the instrument session is bad #279
Description
Currently, if an instrument session is typed incorrectly, a very unhelpful error message is given. A few scenarios were tried, including:
- An incorrectly formatted session id (
cm1234-1):RuntimeError: Numtracker error: [{'message': 'Authentication failed', 'locations': [{'line': 3, 'column': 5}], 'path': ['scan']}] - A correctly formatted but non-existent session id (
cm12345-1):RuntimeError: Numtracker error: [{'message': 'Authentication failed', 'locations': [{'line': 3, 'column': 5}], 'path': ['scan']}] - An correctly formatted but non-existant session id with the correct proposal number and session number, but incorrect prefix (
sm44191-3):- With no file-writing detector: A "successful" task run, with failure to write a nexus file -
{"timestamp":"2026-06-15T08:14:56.496","level":"ERROR","thread":"pool-1-thread-4","logger":"uk.ac.diamond.daq.services.BlueskyNexusFileWriterService","message":"Unable to find File for ScanID 3b700b88-21dd-420d-89e2-281c2ba28d93","context":"default","beamline":"b01-1","application_name":"Document to Nexus Converter"} - With a file writing detector: A "failed" task run, with the file-writing detector throwing an error -
<WatchableAsyncStatus, device: spectroscopy_detector, task: <coroutine object AsyncStatusBase.__init__.<locals>.wait_with_error_message at 0x7f8e7808d740>, errored: FileNotFoundError("Path /dls/b01-1/data/2026/sm44191-3/spool/ doesn't exist or not writable!")>
- With no file-writing detector: A "successful" task run, with failure to write a nexus file -
With respect to the first two errors, it would be good if some indication were given as to what was wrong - i.e. something along the lines of "Instrument session / visit was not recognised"
Activity
EmsArnold commentedon Jun 16, 2026
With respect to the third point above (correctly formatted session ID with an incorrect prefix), as the prefix is relied upon later (for file-writing detectors, NeXus writing, and I'm assuming setting the associated session ID for Tiled) its correctness should be checked, and if it is incorrect a task should fail.
tpoliaw commentedon Jun 23, 2026
The first two should be improved by recent blueapi and numtracker changes.
The third point is more difficult because I don't think the session code is in the data we're using for authz. It might be available in the new data bundle OPA. @NeilSmithDLS?
NeilSmithDLS commentedon Jul 22, 2026
As you will know, the session reference is formatted as "-" There is nothing in UAS that enforces the format of the proposal number so it can be any number of digits, therefore cm1234-1 in the first bullet point is a valid format, as will cm123456-1 once/if diamond gets to 100,000 proposals (don't ask me why but there are also some proposals with negative proposal numbers, although these are very old). This means that bullet point 1 and bullet point 2 are actually the same problem, of the proposal/session not existing
NeilSmithDLS commentedon Jul 22, 2026
regarding validation of the proposal category, yes this will be possible via OPA