MPC Offline 2023 Aug 2 & 3

[PMSchu]

For the last 2 days the Minor Planet Center website has been offline.

The URL that I've been using to access their website is:

minorplanetcenter.net

SkyTools 4 Visual isn't able to download the MP data from the MPC either.

Does anyone know what's wrong?

TIA,

Phil S.

[razvan]

I think they have a problem with their CDN or with routing. From here in Canada I cannot access their server either, it just times out, but if I VPN to the US, it works.

[PMSchu]

I get the 'Timeout' message here in Ohio, but Greg C. says that he can access the MPC fine from New Mexico. 

Thanks for the additional information.

Phil S.

[razvan]

Phil, for me it's still inaccessible, but you can use the workaround I mentioned (a VPN) to download the MPC data, if you need to have the latest. While there are many very shady free VPNs available, the one from Proton (https://protonvpn.com/) has an excellent trust reputation. This in case you don't already user a VPN service.

[PMSchu]

Thanks, razvan. My antivirus software offers a VPN, but I don't use it. Since I'm in the US, how would using a VPN to change my apparent location to the US help the situation?

I tried using the link from a general web search for the MPC & that link doesn't work either. Everything worked fine on 2023 Aug 1. It's still not working on 2023 Aug 4. I can't even report an issue because I can't contact them  .

Phil S.

[razvan]

The outbound VPN node may be in a different network from which the routing works. It's not guaranteed to work, but worth trying.

The link from the search won't work since it's only the IP of the destination that matters, not how you got it.

[PMSchu]

The outbound VPN node may be in a different network from which the routing works. It's not guaranteed to work, but worth trying.

The link from the search won't work since it's only the IP of the destination that matters, not how you got it.

I didn't expect the link from the internet search to work since that's how I got the URL for the MPC initially.

Joy! Rapture! The MPC is back up and working again.

Phil S.

[bigmasterdrago]

For some reason, I did not encounter the issue. If I had, asteroid elements can be fetched from the Lowell download but recently the downloads are extremely slow. Also, they are not generally containing the very latest finds, like 2023 PA which passed us on 30 July at 0.2078AU at mag 16.9.

I'm still wondering why SkyTools does not have the option to fetch the elements from JPL as they have the latest discoveries.