Because of some software updates and network rummaging, our web asset servers have gone down a couple of times, necessitating a restart. Naturally, whenever that happens, the reliant Specify7 web servers lose their ability to serve attachments, the corresponding tab disappears, and any related buttons are greyed out.
However, we noticed that when we get the web asset servers in question up and running again, the web applications do not automatically re-establish the connection and still act as if their web asset server is down. The only thing that helps is restarting the respective site containers. Why doesn’t the web application to see that the web asset server is up again on its own accord?
Also related: It would be a bit more transparant if the “Attachments” tab does not completely disappear, but is greyed out or displays a message whenever the web asset server is down.
You are correct: currently, when the web asset server goes down, Specify detects this and hides most Attachment-related features. At the moment, there is no logic for the application does not periodically check to see if the asset server comes back online, so those features remain unavailable until the site containers are manually restarted. This is not ideal, so I appreciate you bringing this to attention!
To address this, I’ve created a feature request on GitHub to:
Add regular health polling so Specify can automatically detect when the asset server is available again and re-enable the attachments features without requiring a restart.
Improve UI transparency by keeping the Attachments tab visible (but disabled) when the asset server is down, with an explanatory message for users.