Using Specify 7.9.6.2, Specify 6.8.03
I’ve noticed this issue years ago with Specify 6, but thought it was something that I was doing wrong.
If you change a Count field for preparations on the Collections Object record while those preparations connected to a Loan record, then the Counts for the Loan Preps and Collection Object Preps get out of synch.
Example - I have 2 shark teeth cataloged as a group. I make a loan of one tooth, then decide this is a bad idea and catalog them separately. I change the Count field to 1 on my original record, and make a new record for the second tooth. Now the Prep Count and Loan Prep Count fields do not match. If I close the loan, and later try to make a new loan with the original specimen record, I will be told that no preps are available.
I have seen this as a repeated issue with replica casts of fossils in the collections. Some more popular specimens are molded and cast. We try to keep track of those casts, but as they are loaned, new casts are made, casts are given away… the count field changes cause problems for loan prep counts. It took me a while to see what exactly was happening with those counts.
This has caused issues since I will have to increase the Count on specimen records in order to make a loan, so those fields aren’t reflecting the actual count of casts available.
Hi @Sagebiel,
Thanks for your message! I was not able to recreate this issue following your example, here’s what I did:
- Create a Collection Object with a preparation that has a count of 2
- Create a Loan and add 1 preparation from the collection object
- Go back to the collection object and change the count to 1
After that when I went to the loan form the count was updated and after closing the loan I was able to make a new loan with that same Collection Object. Can you provide more information on your workflow for this?
Thanks!
I don’t think that I do anything differently from what you describe, except that I would have multiple loans connected to a single prep type from a single prep record.
The example that has been problematic through multiple iterations of Specify 6 and 7 is a fossil cat skull.
We have one original, and multiple casts.
Original is prep# 0, the count is 1.
Resin cast replicas are prep# 1, the count varies over time as we loan, gift, use and break them and make new ones.
After recording a loan history, eventually the number of preps (prep #1) available for loan and on loan would not match the number in the prep count field. (loan preps + available preps ≠ prep count).
I’ve gone as far as deleting all of the loan records to try and reconcile the issue. My recollection was that I ended up with negative preps. My recollection is that I deleted the specimen record as well and started from scratch, but in re-entering the loan records, etc., the prep count was again not equal to the number of preps on loan plus those available.
I’ve run into this problem when there are multiple loans of multiple preps tied to one object record.
It is not something that I do a lot of, but I have seen this on multiple occasions now, so I don’t think that it’s a problematic record, I think it has to be the loan preps not correctly totaling when there are multiple loans.
Best,
Chris
Hello @Sagebiel!
It seems like the problem is that you can edit the count on the preparation to be less than the amount that are on loan. I wrote up your issue on GitHub Issue #6385, thank you for reporting this!