MyCurator keeps logs of what it does with each article found in your feed sources. It also tracks errors and processing steps (mainly to help with problems on your site). You can reach the logs by choosing the Logs menu item from the MyCurator menu in the Dashboard.
You can use the Logs and Performance report to fine tune your keywords for a topic. For example if most of your messages say an article was rejected because of not having a specific Search 1 keyword you could remove that keyword, or use a broader one to get more articles. Similarly if a lot of posts are too short, you might adjust the minimum article length for that Topic.
Filters and Searching
You can filter any of the Logs by Topic or Source. Just choose a Topic or Source (or both) from their respective drop downs and press the Select Filter button. Only those items with that Topic or Source will appear in the Log.
You can search the Log Message and URL fields by typing in a search term and clicking Select Filter. For example you could look for a specific article (which will search the URL field which usually has the article title). Or you could search for a specific error message such as ‘duplicate’.
You can choose from the various Logs, which are described below, by selecting them in the Article drop down and clicking Select Filter.
Article Log
When you first get to the Logs page, you will see the Article log. This log shows what happened to each article that was read in your feed sources. The log shows the date/time, Topic, a Message, the Source and the URL of the actual article that was processed. You can choose a specific Topic to filter the activity for just that Topic using the drop down in the upper left of the page and then clicking Select Filter Similarly you can filter by Source to see how well a Source is performing in providing good articles for your site. Some of the messages and their meaning that you might find are:
- New live/good/bad/not sure post – This means the article was classified as listed and posted to the Live site (New Live post) or the training page for all other types.
- Post too short – this will include the length of the actual article in words for your review, and means the article was not posted because it was too short.
- No Search 1 word – this will include the word that was not found. The article was not posted.
- No Search 2 words – none of the words listed in the Search 2 keywords for this topic were found so the article was not posted.
- Found excluded word – this will include the word found. No article was posted.
- No Image found – the article was excluded because MyCurator couldn’t find an image or couldn’t extract an image.
Error Log
The error log is found by choosing Error from the drop down (usually says Article) from the top left of the page and then clicking Select Filter. The error log shows the date/time, a Topic, a message, the Source and the URL of the feed or article that caused the error. You can filter errors for a specific Topic using the Topic drop down. Some of the error types and their meaning are below:
- Error Rendering Page – This is the most common error and means that MyCurator could not extract the text from the web page. This happens most often if the page is a PDF, but the technology we use – DiffBot, while highly accurate, does have problems with some web pages and certain types of pages. Sometimes, a web page is not able to be rendered the first time, but it is then captured correctly in subsequent processing. Because of that, MyCurator will keep trying to process the page until it drops out of the feed. This means you will see the same page show up in the error log many times. You can click on the URL to see the original web page (and try to guess why the software couldn’t ‘see’ the text!).
- No rss link for feed – The entry in the Links page doesn’t have a Feed URL entered. Using the URL entry in the log, you should update the Links entry for this feed.
- A feed could not be found or Invalid feed or some other feed error message – The Feed URL was not able to be processed.
- If the Error message is Feed Not Valid, Click Here for Details – then click on the link and you will be taken to a page that details the errors in the feed. You will need to contact the host of that feed to have them make corrections.
- For other messages, check the Feed URL in the Links table by trying to Browse it and see if it looks like a feed (all the text thrown up on the screen). Maybe its the web page URL and not the Feed URL? Maybe it is actually a broken feed.
Process Log
The process log is found by choosing Process from the drop down (usually says Article) from the top left of the page and then clicking Select Filter. The process log shows when MyCurator ran, which topics it processed and how long it took. The log is primarily used by Target Info support staff to help troubleshoot issues with MyCurator.
Performance
The performance report is found by choosing Performance from the MyCurator menu. The report displays the articles posted, not posted, errors and outstanding requests by Topic and Source. It is a great tool to find out which Sources are providing the most good articles.
Reset Log Button
After making significant changes to your MyCurator Topics or the Formatting or Curation Options, you may wish to have MyCurator review and re-post the articles it previously found. MyCurator will apply your new keywords or new formatting options as it reviews all articles. This is most helpful when you are initially setting up MyCurator and trying various Topic keywords and article formats.
To reset the log, choose Logs from the MyCurator menu. Click the Reset Logs button near the top of the page. You will be prompted to confirm that you wish to continue.
WARNING: This option will most likely create many duplicate entries in your training page if you have previous articles still in the page! It is best to clear out all of your Training posts before you choose this option to Reset Logs.
MyCurator looks backwards in time for articles in RSS feeds. The default is 7 days. You can change this look back period in the Admin Options tab. This option really only affects MyCurator when you first install it, or after you reset the logs. After that, previously read articles are marked and ignored, so only new articles in the RSS feed are reviewed by MyCurator as you move forward.