Issues & Bugs


Issues and bugs - these are known and currently lodged with our IT provider awaiting action

  1. .csv file formats
    In recent months it seems that some online event management systems have changed the way their databases are constructed, with a new character set called "UTF-8" being used.   This allows non-standard letters, as found in some names, to be handled better (see 2 below).   If you download a CSV file from such an online system, it will automatically be in CSV-UTF8 format. Currently PACER will not accept this type of file and you will get an error message if you try and upload it.   The simple solution is to open the CSV file in a program like Microsoft Excel and choose "Save As" selecting CSV (and NOT CSV-UTF8) from the list of allowed file types.   The re-saved file should then upload normally.
  2. non-standard" characters in entrants' names (e.g. ë as in Noël)
    Whilst PACER itself accepts such characters , when the barcode of that person is scanned at a checkpoint a ’Network Lost’ error is generated. Although there is in fact no such error its appearance could be rather alarming for the timekeeper and may result in mis-recording if not spotted and dealt with immediately. 
    It has also been reported that certificate printing can be impacted with the certificate being totally blank. 
    Until this bug is fixed you are strongly advised to visually scan your entrants list and to substitute any non-standard characters you spot, with the closest "standard" character. So for example "Noël" would become "Noel" - with, of course, apologies to any participant who does have "non-standard" characters in their name! Alternatively before/after importing to Pacer you could use Excel conditional formatting to automatically check for these characters in the entrant's name. The rules to use are :-
    Conditional Formatting Rules
  3. positioning text on certificates
    not a bug but currently a very frustrating exercise! Rather than attempting to insert entrants data (name, time, distance etc) within text pre-printed on the certificate it is much easier to formulate the whole text (background with spaces for data) as a block via the Certificates/Configure Certificates. e.g:-  
                               
    You can then position the block with relative ease - confident that the data will line up with the text.
  4. deleting an event
    again not a bug but its not at all obvious - you cannot delete an event that contains entrants
     - you must first select the participants button and hit the red X to delete entrants. Then you can delete the event.