screen-scraper freezes
I'm trying to build a scraping session to capture a list of doctors from the following site: http://www.molinahealthcare.com/. I have no problem walking through the steps in a proxy session; all the pages are recorded. But when I select one in order to move it into a scraping session, I get a gray screen and the application freezes. I end up having to shut down the app, and I can't figure out why it's getting hung up. Any ideas?
screen-scraper freezes
John,
Thanks for your patience on this one. We've made an update in screen-scraper that should fix this. Please upgrade to the latest alpha by following [url=http://screen-scraper.com/support/faq/faq.php#Upgrade2Alpha]these instructions[/url].
The reason screen-scraper was freezing was due to a post parameter's value being over 1 million characters long. That's over 1MB of data being passed through a skinny little phone line just for one post parameter.
ASP.NET is known for many stellar achievements and this could be one of their best. Thank you, Micro$oft.
Our fix forces such egregiously large parameter values to truncate at around 1,000 characters but still allows you to see the entire string when needed.
Please let us know if this fixes the issue for you.
-Scott
Alternative browser...for now?
John,
That would a separate issue. Have you recently upgrade your browser? Firefox 3 non-beta is making it hard if not (so far) impossible to allow screen-scraper's proxy in the middle of some SSL connections.
Until we figure out what the deal is would you mind giving it a try using Opera?
Thanks,
Scott
Still freezing
Scott,
I downloaded Opera, and using that plus View Source, I was able to create a scraping session. However, I'm still having problems with the app freezing, for example, when I save. Maybe it's because the VIEWSOURCE parameter is so long?
John
Optimizing screen-scraper
John,
You'll find useful tips on how to optimize screen-scraper and prevent this type of thing here.
http://community.screen-scraper.com/FAQ/Optimizing
Let me know if it helps.
Thanks,
Scott
screen-scraper freezes
Thanks, Scott.
I upgraded to version 4.0.16a, but when I try and walk through the process in the proxy session, I get the following message which I didn't get before:
Could not establish an encrypted connection because certificate presented by eportal.molinahealthcare.com has an invalid signature.
Once I get this error, I can't proceed any further.
screen-scraper freezes
I'm running Windows xp Professional SP2, and for screen-scraper, I'm using version 3.0.7a - enterprise edition.
screen-scraper freezes
John,
We were able to closely replicate the problem. screen-scraper's GUI wouldn't go grey but it would lock up. To help us narrow it down, what operating system are you running and what version of screen-scraper?
Thanks,
Scott