issues with MODIS Aqua and Harmony failing

Use this Forum to find information on, or ask a question about, NASA Earth Science data.
Post Reply
clifgray
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2026 4:12 pm America/New_York
Answers: 0

issues with MODIS Aqua and Harmony failing

by clifgray » Wed Jul 29, 2026 5:44 pm America/New_York

Hello, I've been trying to subset and download older MODIS-Aqua ocean color data for a very small spatial area, but whether I do it in python or in the EarthData GUI it consistently fails. I can work with PACE OCI data but not MODIS-Aqua. Anna Windle at OEL has reproduced this same error, and we both get: " Error in file '/worker/podaac/subsetter/subset.py', line 437, in function 'subset': Could not determine time variable" " and eventually the request fails after a few retrys.

This seems similar to issues faced in the past by other users:
viewtopic.php?t=7013
viewtopic.php?t=6870

For reference the request I'm sending with harmony-py (and basically exactly following https://nasa.github.io/oceandata-notebooks/notebooks/oci/subsetting_with_harmony-py.html) is:

request = Request(
collection=Collection(id="MODISA_L2_OC"),
spatial=BBox(-136.31748, 58.6961, -136.0904, 58.740),
temporal={"start": datetime(2003, 6, 1), "stop": datetime(2003, 6, 30)},
variables=["geophysical_data/Rrs_443", "geophysical_data/Rrs_555", "geophysical_data/l2_flags"],
pixel_subset=True,
labels=request.labels,
)

Is there anything I can do to workaround this or is there any chance of updating this reader to correctly find the time variable. It is in those files but I think has a different format.

Cheers,
Patrick

Filters:

OB General Science - guoqingw
Subject Matter Expert
Subject Matter Expert
Posts: 119
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2022 10:54 am America/New_York
Answers: 0
Location: NASA GSFC
Endorsed: 8 times
Contact:

Re: issues with MODIS Aqua and Harmony failing

by OB General Science - guoqingw » Wed Sep 09, 2026 11:58 am America/New_York

Hello,

Some updates have been made over the past couple of months. I just tried submitting an order using the parameters you provided, and it went through successfully.

Please give it another try and let us know if the issue persists.

Best,
Guoqing

Post Reply