My Portuguese residence permit expired on 8/14/2024. AIMA, the immigration service has been overloaded since Covid-19. Twice they prolonged the validity of the permit but it was impossible to get an appointment to renew. You called a number which was either busy or responded:
We are sorry to inform you that we don’t have any vacancies at the moment to organizers
No queue to get in line. Frustrated I have been calling almost daily for about a year. Last week they changed the procedure telling me to visit a new web page where I found an order form. I’m now waiting to hear back from AIMA for an appointment.
The PEEVE! An error message:
Fatal error: Uncaught PDOException: SQLSTATE[22001]: String data, right truncated: 1406 Data too long for column ‘title_number’ at row 1 in /var/www/html/services/RAR/reqrenew/request_renewal_process.php:333 Stack trace: #0 /var/www/html/services/RAR/reqrenew/request_renewal_process.php(333): PDOStatement->execute(Array) #1 {main} thrown in /var/www/html/services/RAR/reqrenew/request_renewal_process.php on line 333
Data too long for column ‘title_number’ at row 1
Why not restrict the data entry size? Then this error becomes impossible
Why a system error message for coders instead of one designed for humans.
BTW, this system error message is helpful to hackers! It reveals where the code resides:
I have yet to deal with AIMA except for information. There are several residence categories, EU citizen, investors, etc. The linked article does not say what group the author belongs to.
For a long time I pondered where to retire to, a Caribbean island, USA, Israel, Spain, Germany, and always ended liking Venezuela best. Back in 2004 of 5 there was a coup to remove Chavez, he was sent to a nearby island instead of shooting him dead. A counter coup bought him back. It was time to get prepared. By regaining my German citizenship I would have access to much of Europe snd some Caribbean islands that are part of France or the Netherlands. My mother had collected a lot of documentation which facilitated the process. The German consulate in Caracas was extremely helpful. I could get the citizenship by one of two laws, being a German or being a Jew in exile. I qualified for both, my father having been a German soldier in the Great War. Several months went by and the paperwork arrived. Then I requested and got my German passport.
Fourteen years went by and on April 1, 2019 I decided it was time to go, but where? Back in 1965 or 6, I arranged for a three month tour of Europe. Portugal was not in the itinerary. My sailing partner told me to go to Lisbon to buy a stainless steel self bailer for our Star made by Señor Duarte Bello. It was a stroke of luck, the Portuguese people are the nicest of all of Europe I visited.
Being an EU citizen eased my entry which was managed by the local Camera de Gaia after getting a few documents,
Address certificate
Tax number
Help services number
It seems that the national immigration office was always subpar. it was replaced by a new one, AIMA, and Covid-19 threw a monkey wrench in the works. Now they have a new procedure. So far no email response.