Wiki update (2021-03-02)

As well as numerous bug fixes and small improvements to the XWiki, we are also upgrading the current version of XWiki(Version 10.11.9) to the most recent version of XWiki (Version 12.10.2).

This comes with many minor improvements on top of the existing version, one of which in particular is a new "Like" feature that is now available on Collab pages. For now, it can be used to show support and approval for any Collab page you like and use, in the future, we will be expanding upon this functionality.  

If you would like to view all of the changes and improvements this upgrade brings, please feel free to check out Version 11 changelog and Version 12 changelog

If you would like to see new features or feel certain functionality is required to improve the Collaboratory, please do not hesitate to make your suggestions here. 

EBRAINS ticketing system (2021-03-02)

The categories of tickets are being aligned to the description of services on the EBRAINS.eu website. We are using this opportunity to also upgrade the ticketing system to a more recent version.

OnlyOffice license issue

We are aware that some users are getting issues when trying to use OnlyOffice similar to the following image:

.

We are working on this issue and will have it fixed as soon as possible, thank you for your patience and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. 

Collaboratory 2 release (2021-02-17)

The release going ahead on 17th February has the following enhancements.
 

1. Mounting a new "Shared" drive for the ability to easily share links from Seafile. So going forward, any links that need to be shared should be generated in the "Shared " drive. The original "/drive" will be kept so it does not break any of the already existing links.
2. OnlyOffice is being upgraded to the latest version. This should solve the issue listed below in the "Files locked in the Drive " section. The section will remain temporarily until it is verified this issue is fully fixed.
3. Seafile file system is being increased

Collaboratory 1 maintenance

Collaboratory 1 services will be down from 18:00 CET (my timezone) Thursday Jan 7 for maintenance. The services are being re-hosted from the EPFL/BBP infrastructure to the Fenix infrastructure. The OIDC authentication service will be reactivated first (within 30 minutes); all other services will follow in the evening. Once the Collaboratory 1 services are back online, you may find that files added to the storage within the last days do not initially appear. This will be remedied overnight as we synchronize the storage. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

As a reminder the Collaboratory 1 services are deprecated and will be shut down in September 2021.

If you encounter issues with Collaboratory 1 after Friday 12:00 CET, please contact https://ebrains.eu/support

The re-hosting was completed on Thursday evening. Some services relying on the Collaboratory 1 may need to be restarted to take into account the new DNS entries. Please notify support of any issues you identify.

SSL certificates (2020-12-04)

Our SSL Certificate provider (Let's Encrypt) has been using new certificates to sign our SSL certificates as described on their website. This requires updates on our servers and on your web browsers. The updates on your web browsers often go unnoticed by the user but in some cases your browser may inform you that it needs to fetch a new certificate. You can accept this safely; most browsers don't even mention it to the user.

Note that this is not the same as accepting an exception in your browser because of a bad certificate. Accepting such exceptions can put your data and credentials at risk of a person-in-the-middle attack.

We believe we have addressed all the issues that may arise from this change in SSL certificates. If you experience any issue, especially when accessing EBRAINS APIs, don't hesitate to contact support.

Files locked in the Drive (2020-09-30)

A few users have reported issues in saving OnlyOffice edits to the Drive of a collab.

We are looking into this. At the time being, it seems that a small number of files are locked by the Drive which prevents OnlyOffice to update these files when they are edited online.

We are actively trying to correct the problem as promptly as possible.

The temporary workaround

When you open a file in OnlyOffice:

1. check if other users are editing the same file. The count appears at the top right corner.
2. perform a trivial edit and save
3. if you are the only user with that file open, you can trust the presence/absence of a warning message from OnlyOffice
4. if multiple users have the file open simultaneously, you can:
   1. choose to trust the first user who opened it to have checked, or
   2. check in the Drive the timestamp of the file that you just saved

OnlyOffice will notify you when you try to save a file and the save fails. If that happens:

1. read the message
2. use File > Download as ... > docx or pptx or xlsx to save the file to your computer
3. close OnlyOffice. DO NOT KEEP LOCKED FILES OPEN IN ONLYOFFICE. It would mislead others.
4. rename the file by adding _UNLOCKED at the end of the filename, before the extension
5. upload the file with its new name
6. work on this new file

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

The Collaboratory team