IMSLP Forums

When I attempt to open the work page for Ariadne Musica by J.K.F.Fischer I get a blank page with Mozilla branch browsers and an error message with Google Chrome:

I think the issue is the size of the page - there are now 344 files on it, and I think it's already been reported that enormous pages like that do not load well. Would it be possible to split the page up into smaller subpages so the file concentration per page would be lessened? (You can still edit it here.)

I can't load the page either, so I'm not sure what is causing it, but is it one of the pages where everything has been uploaded by individual movements? That would cause a huge overload in the number of files if there are many pieces or arrangements.

This is one of the real disadvantages of not concatenating small files into larger files. I realize there are 20 preludes and fugues and a few other things in this collection, but most typesetting programs create really small pdfs. Even all 20 together (per arrangement or edition) would still be a small file. Could any of these be combined so that there is a manageable page?

The 300+ items probably did it in. Basically, the server will kill any page that loads for longer than 30 (or maybe it was 60) seconds as a hung page. I may try raising the limit, though the fundamental problem would unfortunately still be there.

If it is not hard to combine the files, I'd suggest doing so. Otherwise, we could wait for the limit raise. In the long term we might want to think of other ways to deal with such pages.

imslp wrote:The 300+ items probably did it in. Basically, the server will kill any page that loads for longer than 30 (or maybe it was 60) seconds as a hung page. I may try raising the limit, though the fundamental problem would unfortunately still be there.

If it is not hard to combine the files, I'd suggest doing so.

For test I performed a concatenation of the full score and the separate parts for Prelude no. 1 arr. for brass quartet

• Open the ''Ariadne'' work page in edit mode
• Comment out the 6 item entry for Prelude no. 1
• Replace the 6 item entry for Prelude no. 1 with a 3 item entry
• Save the work page - this actually restores a readable work page
• Mount WIMA's ''public_html'' directory tree as a local file system on my home pc (using sshfs)
• Copy the full score pdf file to a fall-back file
• Concatenate the full score pdf file with the separate part pdf files (using pdftk)
• Upload the the concatenated full score and parts file - having the same name as the full score file in order to preserve the WIMA/IMSLP rdirection

This is a cumbersome procedure. And when I returned to the Ariadne work page after the replacement action the work page was blank again

imslp wrote:Otherwise, we could wait for the limit raise. In the long term we might want to think of other ways to deal with such pages.

I have my hands full with transferring WIMA files and keeping track of the transfers performed by other transfer project participants. So I can't possibly go into a file combination task like that.

Just a thought: you say that there is a max page load time and then the load process terminates. If load time is the crucial issue couldn't we suspend the call of the external service for mp3 files (there are plenty of them in ''Ariadne'') for huge pages. It is my impression that the repeated call of the external service is by far the most time consuming part of the page load process.

KGill wrote:I think the issue is the size of the page - there are now 344 files on it, and I think it's already been reported that enormous pages like that do not load well. Would it be possible to split the page up into smaller subpages so the file concentration per page would be lessened? (You can still edit it here.)

It turns out that the arranger/contributor Michel Rondeau has uploaded complete sets of mp3- and midi files - luckily arranged in separate entries.

I've commented out the mp3 entries and thereby made the ''Ariadne'' work page accessible again.

I still believe we have a major problem with mp3 sound file items. ''Ariadne'' is not the only work page suffering from repeated calls of an external service for mp3 files. This is for example true for many J.S.Bach pages!

Just a few details:

I do not want the MP3 player to call an external site; in fact, I did not know it did that until it was pointed out to me. It appears that JWPlayer (the MP3 software that IMSLP uses) has a built-in "phone home" feature that exists to make sure that the maker of the software gets license fees (JWPlayer is free only for non-commercial use).

I don't know how to disable it (if possible at all), and unfortunately, I have found no better alternative as of yet (JWPlayer is the free player that plays the widest variety of formats). If you discover another free/open source player that plays the same range of formats (I'm focusing here on MP3, OGG & MP4), please do tell me.

Also, the load time I mentioned is server-side load time (i.e. not including any Javascript/Flash stuff, which would include the MP3 player). I can work on optimizing the load time for pages with a few file blocks of many files each, but it may take until the end of the summer for me to implement this (very swamped right now). In the meanwhile you can comment out the MP3 files (I assume this does not happen very often anyway).

This page is another example of a workpage being overloaded with files. There are getting to be quite a few of these. It's a downside of having so much early music from WIMA (an area we were quite lacking in before) - simply because music was published most often in collections in earlier times out of economic necessity. Praetorius' Musae Sioniae contains more than 1200 pieces - for one particularly terrifying example. One of the library and cleanup tasks for collections of this nature will be to create individual pages for the individual works contained in the collection and move the arrangements there. Michel Rondeau has arranged all 25 works in this collection. The 5 ricercare have separate pages already, but pages will need to be set up for the 20 preludes and fugues (please not 40 separate pages - splitting the preludes from the fugues like the arranger did). With all the arrangements and their related MIDIs/MP3s moved off the collection page, Ariadne Musica can function normally again. This is one of the reasons I lobbied Feldmahler to create the collections feature, which is being employed more and more.

Another task which will be necessary after WIMA is transferred is the merging of many hundreds of parts files which have been split into multiple movements and for large-ensemble arrangements of short excerpts from large works. For example, Michel Rondeau added his band arrangements of 3 movements from Handel's Messiah today - plus a transposition of the one made of the Hallelujah chorus - which increased the already large page by about 120 files. It would take a lot less space to have two files for each movement arranged in this case - one for the score and one for the set of parts, plus whatever is needed for the engraving files. The parts for the Hallelujah chorus are mainly single-page, so merging 32 files into 3 or 4 would definitely improve things.