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daywalk

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Everything posted by daywalk

  1. I am having a navigation problem for solved puzzles using the phone app. It must be related to the new software, since it only just started happening, and that badly designed and annoying new layout started at the same time. (I do not appreciate the new layout. I need the map as large as possible,, and I need to have the distance to the cache displayed in VERY LARGE FONT. Nothing else should interfere with the navigation screen. I am accustomed to pausing the search to refer back to read the details, hint and past logs, if/when needed. As for whoever thinks it is a good idea to have logging buttons on the navigation screen... wasted space...) Testing out various solved puzzles on my phone - The problem is that the solved coordinates for caches which you have manually updated with solved coordinates are not sent to the phone app. Only puzzle caches with solved coordinates that have been automatically updated from a Groundspeak checker are recognised by the phone app. There's no problem with the puzzles which have a Groundspeak puzzle check embedded on the cache page. With these puzzles you check your solution and the coordinates are automatically updated on the cache page. Using the app, you click on the puzzle icon, and you can follow the navigation line to the solved GZ. The problem is with all the puzzles where you have input the updated solved coordinates yourself. You have solved a puzzle at home on the computer. (Maybe there is a Geocheck.org or Certitude geochecker on the cache page, maybe a checksum, or maybe the coordinates are unmistakable once you find the solution - anyway, there is no Groundspeak checker.) You manually update the coordinates on the cache page, and the solved icon shows on the computer map. You turn on the phone app and the solved coordinates icon shows at GZ. All good, or so you think. You head off towards GZ, click on the cache icon on the phone app map, click Navigate. Your navigation line points you straight to... the puzzle start icon! So you either wing it and use the satellite view map to get to the approximate GZ, without using the Navigate feature, or you go to the browser and enlarge the cache page... and very carefully copy the updated coordinates from the cache page... go back to the phone app and make a new waypoint, paste the updated coordinates into the waypoint and save it as the Final GZ... then navigate to the Final GZ waypoint. Please reinstate the previous phone app software!
  2. This bug isn't fixed! I edited one of my 2017 caches yesterday night and had to change the placed date to 2021. Did some more editing tonight, tried to change the date back to 2017, still got the message that the placed date has to be within the last year.
  3. Thanks thebruce - but this is a situation where I was trying to do everything using the WYSIWYG editor. I don't understand how image formatting done in the WYSIWYG editor saves, looks fine, but then the formatting disappears if you reopen for editing still in WYSIWYG. Looks like I will just have to go back to html editing.
  4. So I'm using the WYSIWYG editor and formatting an image - download it, choose a suitable width, hspace, vspace, align to right or left of the text, add an alt text title... save and preview.. all looks as I want it to. BUT THEN... once I re-open the cache page for more editing, the image formatting is lost. I end up with the image I downloaded at full size, sitting in the middle of the page, and I have to go through the whole reformatting again, and save it again. Only to lose the formatting the next time I re-edit the page... So I switched to html, formatted the image in html, and saved. Then reopened the editing, all okay still. Then switched to WYSIWYG... all formatting lost again. I have also noticed that a cache page I did in WYSIWYG was okay for a while, but a few wweksa later it has lost its image formatting even though I haven't opened the page for re-editing. This is very frustrating, because I add a lot of photos to my cache writeups and like to get the images set out nicely beside each paragraph of text. Can anyone tell me what is going on here? Is there a way to save the image formatting in WYSIWYG? Or is this a permanent fault? Do I just have to go back to using html for cache page writeups?
  5. Well... there is a Dutch airline pilot who is finding it very easy to get all these promotional souvenirs. He was really busy around town yesterday, judging from the found log notifications I received for the 19th July from caches I own or watch. But although he found a fairly remote cache I own, he only logged with a fullstop (insulting!) and, checking, he didn't find any of the other caches on the way to it? Hang on, why is there no log from him showing on the cache page? Even more puzzling, his profile shows he he has no finds on 19 July...? his latest cache find was in Kuwait on the 18th July... and then it clicked. Mr Dutch airline pilot was Couch Logging to get the points needed for this latest promotion. Once he got the points, he got the souvenir 19th July, then deleted all his found logs. He must have been doing it for some time, since although he got a souvenir for caching in NZ 10 June 2016, his only find on that date was in the Netherlands... So there you are - a simple and effective way to get all the souvenirs you want, eh? Now if only I could log a NA (Needs to Apologise) on his profile page, the bad-mannered lout...
  6. Seems to be the same problem for everyone who unwittingly bought an Android phone without a hardware compass.
  7. Seems there are a whole lot of Samsung phones that don't have a hardware compass sensor. And that means that the "official Geocaching® Android App" doesn't work properly on those phones. But, the solution suggested on a local facebook group - use c:geo, which is another popular geocaching phone app - one which still uses GPS to find the direction. Probably there are other suitable geocaching apps - do people have any suggestions? I experimented with c:geo on a Samsung J6 today and it works fine. Navigating to a cache using c:geo, the directional compass and the 'go-to' red line on the map both worked as they should.
  8. Oh... no compass on the phone eh? (No, the compass rose doesn't move at all from the position it is in when you press 'Start' to navigate to a cache.) Well, that explains the problem. Thank goodness it's only a backup to our GPS. Thank you all for your help.
  9. I've just bought a Samsung Galaxy J6 and, naturally, the first app I downloaded was the geocaching app. But, I'm having a directional problem - the map and compass don't rotate. When I turn on the map, I would expect it to be automatically 'track up' but it is stuck - it isn't auto-rotating. If I rotate the map on the screen by touch, then a north-pointing compass arrow icon appears in the top left showing which way is true north - all good. If I touch that north arrow icon, it disappears and the map rotates back to the default 'north up' view. Using the 'white compass circle' icon at top right of the screen, one tap centres the screen and turns the compass circle icon green. A second tap changes the green compass circle to a green compass needle icon. I'd expect that icon should mean 'track up' view, but the map is fixed - it doesn't autorotate. Same problem with the compass. When I start to navigate to a cache and switch to the compass, the compass takes the correct bearing on where the cache is at the time you press 'start'. But, the compass doesn't rotate and the needle doesn't change from the initial bearing. The distance indication is correct as you go to the cache, in both the map view and the compass view. So that part works fine. I have tried deleting and re-installing the app, but that didn't fix the problem. I can't find any menu setting for 'compass calibration' as you have in a GPS. Is there a simple fix for this problem, or is it a bug in the app?
  10. If this souvenir promotion requires a geocacher to "find 100 caches in 4 weeks" to gain all the souvenirs, then it contravenes the Challenge guidelines which we geocachers have to abide by. I.e. "Time-limited caching: as in some number of finds per day, week, month, or year. Example, Busy Day, 50 finds in a day, 500 finds in a month, etc." The official Groundspeak Blog 25 May 2016 explained the reasoning: Time-limited challenges are not permitted. For example, “Find 500 caches in a month” or “Find 10 different icons in a day.” The aim here is at least two-fold. First, these challenges encouraged people to hurry to find caches in a short time period. That’s something a majority of survey respondents said they didn’t like about challenge caches. And it’s not something we wish to encourage. Second, we’ve seen a lot of people creating Events and/or CITOs only to add an icon to the area for “Busy Day” challenges. That’s not at all the spirit for which those activities are intended. You might wonder why the Groundspeak management would do this, since their own blog says (a) most geocachers don't like hurrying to find caches in a short time period and (b) they don't wish to encourage events being created just to help meet a time-limited challenge. (By the way, that's happening in my area, with two events/week placed already and a promise of a power trail going out specifically to help people meet this souvenir promotion. And people have changed their caching behaviour, "saving up" caches to find once the promotion starts.) My guess is that the private website company Groundspeak Inc, being a profit-driven business, wants to increase the website's attractiveness to advertisers. The more page views, the higher the the price the company can charge for advertising. Has there been a drop in website usage which they are trying to ameliorate with two promotions in a row this year? We know that the Groundspeak company has increased the amount of advertising on cache pages in the last year, which indicates that they are trying to increase revenue. Another point is that the Groundspeak company management are not concerned about the opinions of committed geocachers. They know that we are going to keep on geocaching because we love exploring different places and we love placing caches which give our caching colleagues enjoyable experiences. We're going to keep on being paying customers* for the Groundspeak website since in most parts of the world it's got a monopoly for geocache listings. The real target for these promotions is the beginner cacher, who's not yet "addicted" and is quite likely to drift away from the activity after finding a few dozen caches. But if that new cacher is presented with a reason to invest more time and effort into finding caches, and if they see a reward for their efforts, well, they are very much more likely to keep on caching and (most important) become another paying customer for the website. As an aside, it's very much easier for new cachers to find a time-limited challenge such as 100 caches in 4 weeks because they haven't yet found many caches in their neighbourhood. And, as usual, this promotion is designed for the Northern Hemisphere summer to satisfy that key USA market - it's midwinter in the Southern Hemisphere. Regarding this marketing promotion, obviously it's up to each person to decide whether they'll enjoy it. Myself, I think I'll be joining baer2006 in ignoring it. I find one promotion a year okay, if it is achievable and offers an interesting challenge. But two marketing promotions so close to one another, and (from the information so far) focused on quantity rather than quality, makes me feel unpleasantly manipulated. * I use the term "Paying customer" instead of the Groundspeak company's inaccurate term "Premium member" because we are customers buying a product, not members. The difference is crucial. Members of a non-profit club have voting rights and control how their club is run.
  11. Thanks for your input, everybody. I got this response from a 'Community Manager' I will relay this information to the responsible team. The reason you must login to your google account is because people who submit a response are limited to one response only. That is how google checks to make sure the survey is not duplicated. I replied: "That's not a reason for using a 'google account'. There are other ways of limiting survey responses to one response only. Limiting your survey spread to ONLY those people who have 'google account' is an excellent way of ensuring responder bias and therefore invalid results." It's a relief to know this survey isn't a scam, but just the effort of a statistically-challenged staff member. Hopefully a better-designed survey will be sent out in due course?
  12. This is the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfcWJBZvd5oh4XO5IEq_GmUd91xV2lZmgOrzDveGA9_VvR7Lg/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=send_form I've never seen a survey requiring a log-in to a third party. Another possibility someone has just mentioned is that it could be a scam, so be careful if you try the link. You'd certainly expect the Groundspeak Ltd marketing department to have the common sense to send out a survey everyone could answer!
  13. Got an email today "Geocaching HQ’s User Experience team is looking to learn about how geocachers identify different geocache sizes. If you are open to sharing your thoughts, please fill out this 5 minute survey." Trouble is, I then got a screen saying I had to log into "my Google account". Whatever that is, I don't have it and I don't want to download it. Why do they assume everyone has a "google account", especially as a tool like surveymonkey would have worked just as well without the limitation?
  14. Thank you! Yes, just found that section and obviously the default setting is to filter out 'found' caches. Gah.
  15. Have just bought an Oregon 700 and worked out how to use in classic mode, with a good quality topo map. Loaded a PQ, found a cache, but then found that when I marked the cache 'found' it DISAPPEARED from the map! Obviously it's still in the 'found geocache listing but... I need my 'found' geocaches to continue to be displayed on the map! Tomorrow I'm going with friends on a daywalk past some caches which I have found but they haven't. Loaded those caches so I know when we're getting close. But, you guessed it, because I have found those caches they DON'T SHOW ON THE MAP! That's useless! I need to be able to see where each cache is on the track... Looks like the only way to show 'found' caches is to go on the geocaching website, change each 'find' log to a 'note' and load them as unfound caches. Or else manually load cache coordinates as waypoints on the map! This is a really unexpected bug and a serious problem for me. I assumed that, just like my previous GPSrs, 'found' caches would be marked by a changed icon. A nice cheerful open box. Does anyone know how to cope with this stupid software glitch? Is there a way to load caches so that 'found' caches are displayed on the map? (And another annoyance - I find the tiny little black circle icons used to show a cache very difficult to see, and it's almost impossible to work out what type of cache it's meant to be. Does anyone know if there is a way to show icons more like the bright green box trads, yellow box multis, bright blue question marks etc as they were with the etrex Vista and Oregon 450?)
  16. Does a Duck Dash trackable have to be 'dropped in' at an International Geocaching Day event to 'cross the finishing line', or will 'visiting' the event also count as finishing?
  17. I'm finding this an interesting discussion to read through. I'd like to pick up on the rubbish around a cache theme. I find almost all caches have something to enjoy (and if you ask me for a list of 'best caches' it's too long to log) but the one thing which really downgrades a cache for me is rubbish. Not so much the odd bit of new rubbish which has blown in since the last cacher logged a find, which isn't a hassle to pick up, but the ancient slimy grunge from years before the cache was placed. I gather that most of you also share my dislike of CITI (Cache In Trash In) caches! There's the unpleasantness of seeing/smelling/stepping on/rummaging around too close to trash as you try to find the cache. Or perhaps the disappointment of anticipating the search for a cache, only to have to stop looking because you really don't want to rummage around in such a scungy or dangerous area. And then, there's my social conscience which urges me to leave the place a bit better than I find it, so I feel a responsibility to clean up the rubbish if I possibly can. I don't mind doing my bit, but... Why should cache finders be expected to do CITO for a cache owner who does CITI? Yes, I read through the geocaching placement guidelines and was astonished to find that there is no mention of removing rubbish. There's loads of guff about suitable cache containers etc etc, but nothing at all about CITO! So why don't we ask that the guidelines are changed to include an expectation that cache owners do CITO? (I've tried posting this suggestion before, but it's important enough that it's worth trying again.) I'm thinking there are three aspects to cover- (a) assessment of the suitability of a site for a cache should also include the amount of rubbish which is likely to collect there. If it's always going to have a lot of trash there (especially dangerous trash) then it is likely to be unpleasant/dangerous to cachers searching for your cache. ( an expectation that cache owners clean up the area around their planned cache hide before they place the cache. © an expectation that cache owners remove trash from the area around the cache as part of their regular maintenance visits. I don't feel that this is too much to ask. It wouldn't take up more than a couple of sentences in the guidelines. It's not heavy-handed; the guidelines are just recommendations, not rules, and the reviewers have considerable flexibility to make exceptions. Should CITO be part of the guidelines for good cache placement? What do you think?
  18. I think emailing the people would be a wonderful way to make friends among your local geocaching community. Even if you don't end up caching together often, you'll have made a contact to ask and give help with those tricky caches ("where do we start to try and solve that horrible computer puzzle?" or "we've looked twice but haven't been able to find that cunningly camouflaged cache which you found last month...were we looking in the right place?"). It can be pretty hard to get to know other cachers in an area, so it's important to develop your own networks. You can also email cache owners to ask for a clue after you've done your best but still can't find a cache. The majority of experienced cachers are happy to help (they'll give a clue, and if you're still stymied a more explicit clue). That gives you another person whose name you know when you attend your first caching event! Can I tell you a story from the first caching event we attended which shows how important emailing amongst cachers is? A bloke giving out a "most difficult cache" award was commenting that a number of local puzzle caches were so difficult they were only able to be solved through the "Phone a Friend" method. He said that he had even thought about placing a puzzle cache which was deliberately completely impossible to solve. His plan was that when he got emailed for a clue, he would give the cacher the co-ordinates with the requirement that the answer had to be passed on in turn to everyone else who asked for a clue...
  19. I feel really, really dispirited about rubbish around caches. I've just found a cache placed only four days ago. It is a film canister tucked beside a post at the start of a pedestrian overbridge. It was placed by a well-known, respected, very intelligent and experienced local caching duo. I jumped down beside the bridge to pull out the cache. And on the ground around the hide, caught under the bushes, there was the usual ancient rubbish you find in such places- bottles, cans, plastic bags, paper, takeaway containers, a sweatshirt... The cache owners had not tidied the area when they placed the cache. I had a 65 litre rubbish bag in the car so I fetched it and did CITO. I didn't clean up all the rubbish in sight, just what was within 3 or 4 metres of the hide. I tried to get most of the broken glass but there's probably still some underfoot. I tore my favourite old jacket reaching under a bush for bottles... So now I feel like Muggins. I'm the drongo who bought the rubbish bag, has to pay to put another rubbish bag out for collection next week, spent a quarter-hour cleaning up the area, got dirty trouser-knees and a torn jacket. Silly fool that I am, I've put more time, money and effort into this cache than the lazy cache owners have. I've let myself be taken advantage of. Certainly I'll log that I've done CITO, but I would rather earn my CITO-karma by picking up new rubbish, not pre-cache-placement trash. One of the recurring themes in these forums seems to be disgust with rubbish around cache hides. There are certainly a lot of people who do their bit with CITO, and we all appreciate finding neat and tidy cache hides. I think it would be a very positive step for Geocaching to amend the cache placement guidelines to include specific CITO recommendations. Why not add just two sentences to the guidelines? For example: Cache placement: When you place a cache, remove trash from the cache hide area and the probable search zone around the hide. Cache Maintenance: When you make a maintenance visit, remove trash from the hide area and the probable search area. Of course not all cachers would follow a CITO guideline when they place and maintain their caches, just as there are a number of cachers who don't comply with the present guidelines. And of course there would be no way for reviewers or other cachers to enforce CITO guidelines, just as there is no way of enforcing the present guidelines. And even when a cache hide area starts off tidy, rubbish will inevitably accumulate again. So what? If CITO was included in the cache placement guidelines, it would set the standard: an expectation that cache owners shall remove trash from around their cache hides. And it would be much better for the Geocaching public image! At present, according to the cache placement guidelines, trashy caches are perfectly acceptable. Include CITO in the cache placement guidelines, and Geocaching can finally point out that the geocaching community specifically expects tidy caching.
  20. I'd like to suggest that the cache placement guidelines include a specific recommendation that the cache placement area and the probable search zone around the hide should be thoroughly tidied up before the cache is placed. The general geocaching information does refer to CITO; however, reading through the cache placement guidelines I'm astonished to realise that there is no recommendation to remove rubbish from a cache hide area before placement or remove trash as part of cache maintenance. Let me emphasise that I am not speaking about responsible cachers who mistakenly put their cache in an untidy area. We were looking for one a fortnight ago where the hide had been quickly changed because of problems at the first site. Looking off the path we found a lot of rubbish, and stopped searching after finding a bag of ?possibly dog faeces? In this case, immediately after we logged a DNF and a comment about the rubbish, the owner emailed to say that they had put the cache into a new hide by reaching in from the path and therefore hadn't realised there was rubbish off the path, and that they would return as soon as possible and tidy up the area. They're the type of cachers we want to encourage! But what about the irresponsible cachers? I've encountered newly-placed caches where it is obvious that the owner has not even attempted to clean up the area before placing the cache. Recent examples include rotten and half-disintegrated rubbish under drifts of leaf litter beside the cache, broken glass near caches, and loose strands of barbed wire trailing down the bank on either side of the hide (not just unpleasant but a danger, especially to children). If I've got the time and equipment I'll do a cleanup, as I know other responsible cachers also do, but this is not addressing the basic problem. We have put one cache in a local area where there used to be a tip close by, and before placement I spent literally hours cleaning up broken glass and crockery from the cache area, a wide area around the hide and the likely approach routes. Most other cachers will have done the same. I'm happy to do ongoing litter control when I visit a cache, removing whatever rubbish has blown into the area recently, but I object to doing extensive clean-ups of pre-existing rubbish. To be honest, I'm starting to feel abused by these CITI (Cache In, Trash IN) cachers. Yet, if I ignore the rubbish I am just leaving the same unpleasantness for the next cacher to see. And it doesn't do much for the reputation of geocaching as a recreational activity if you take a proto-geocaching friend to find a cache which turns out to be surrounded by rubbish. Why not make it an explicit expectation that the hide area and probable search area be cleared of trash before a cache is placed, and that trash removal is part of ongoing cache maintenance?
  21. Well, my thanks to those who have posted replies, especially those who were on-topic. I'm still completely unsure about whether there are any guidelines at all about advising people searching that a cache is on private property. I had mistakenly assumed that, since you are required to obtain permission to place a cache on private property, the cache owner would automatically be expected to advise searchers if the cache is on private property. I've been involved with some public access advocacy, including marking public roads, putting stiles over fences and unlocking a gate illegally blocking public roads, so I'm enthusiastic about public access rights. The corollary is that I am also very aware of my responsibility to respect the rights of private landowners, and so I don't feel it's acceptable to venture onto private property to search for a cache unless I'm explicitly told that it's okay for me to be there. I'm grateful to those landowners who allow the general public to walk through their property. However, poking aroung looking for a cache is more intrusive than just walking through, so walking access does not automatically imply caching access. Remember that I'm talking from the searcher's point of view. The searcher only has a GZ, and whatever search hints are on the info page (not counting the cryptic clues, which many people use only as a last resort). There might be a 15 metre margin of error, if you're under bush or near a cliff. Suppose the GPS margin of error overlaps both public and private land, and you aren't told that the cache is on private land- where do you search? Do you assume it must be on the public land, and wonder why you haven't found a one-star cache after 30 minutes when 50 other people have? Do you just assume you're allowed to search on the private land? What if your guess is wrong, the cache isn't there, and the landowner isn't happy to have you loitering and poking around on his/her property? "I'm geocaching" is not going to be an acceptable excuse. That will just besmirch the reputation of the entire geocaching community, and make that landowner less likely to give permission for a cache if they are asked in future. So can I plead with cache owners- if your cache is on private land, can you please say so. If it needs permission to be there, we need to know we have permission to go onto private land looking for it.
  22. Thanks, hycam, that is exactly the point I was trying to make. Perhaps the rule of thumb might be: "If a cache hide location is "private enough" to require permission from the landowner, then it is "private enough" to need a "Placed with permission" advisory on the cache info, so cache searchers know they have permission to search on private land" ?
  23. This is my first attempt at a post, so please change/move it/tell me if it's in the wrong place, or if it's more appropriate to contact the geocaching reviewers panel. I've found three caches recently which are on private land, without "Placed with permission" being noted on the cache information sheet. One was in the garden of a church, one was in the grounds of a student hostel (a bush area where public informally wander through) and one was in a private carpark (open ground where people shortcut through). In each case I've felt very uncomfortable searching for the cache. These aren't public reserves or roadsides, where public access is guaranteed as of right. I know the church and university hostel allow public access, and the hotel owning the carpark tolerates people short-cutting through the carpark, but actually searching for a cache is more intrusive. I really need to be reassured that permission has been granted, otherwise I feel I'm trespassing and invading their privacy. On a more practical note, lack of the "Placed with pemission" phrase makes me a frustrated cacher. It took me a long time to find each of these caches. At GZ I assumed the cache was on public land, so initially searched the public areas again and again. It was only after resorting to the clue in each case that I ventured onto private land to get the cache. In each case I logged an entry commenting that I felt uncomfortable going onto private land to search without knowing the cache was "Placed with permission". (However, none of the cache owners have subsequently changed their cache info.) In the last case (in the hotel carpark) my log was deleted by the cache owner. Totally taken aback, I informally asked a local reviewer for advice about the etiquette of such situations. (I know he's also a friend of the cache owner, who's an older experienced cacher.) With his reviewer hat on, he answered "It's an open-access carpark used by a number of businesses and public access is accepted. If it was a carpark within a private building then permission would have to be stated. In this case it seems a grey area and not something to be overly concerned about." I have previously watched a new cache listing (in the garden of the local hospice) being picked up as being on private land. The owner (a new cacher) then obtained retrospective permission for the cache placement, and added "Placed with permission" in the cache info. I have since received an email from the cache owner "This cache is a long standing cache and has brought alot of pleasure to the caching comunity. My major concern with the log was that I saw your log as a call to consider archiving it, which is something i do not want to consider given its long standing surivial and its unique location... However be reassured that the ...hotel know of its existance ... so access is not an issue however again i dont care to write that on the cache page as i like the description as it stands." (I didn't even think of suggesting archiving- just said that I didn't search the private land because I wasn't told the cache was placed with permission.) I feel that when a cache is placed on private land, cachers need to be informed in the cache info that the cache has been "Placed with permission". Without this notification, surely you must assume that the cache is hidden on public land?
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