Lati.dude

Does the algorithm for Geocache Health Score pull any data from "Your Unpublished Disabled Caches" (i.e. caches that are in preparation, but not yet submitted for review or published)? In the Help Center, Geocache Health Score is described in Section 6.3, within Chapter 6 "Ownership after publication." This suggests that Geocache Health Score is based on just published caches. Even if all of your published caches are properly maintained, however, if you have an unpublished disabled cache, when you start the process to prepare a new listing, you get the prompt page "Your Existing Geocaches May Need Attention. Before you submit a new geocache, it looks like one or more of your existing geocaches may need some attention: [GC..... - Unpublished, Temporarily Disabled] You may continue creating a new geocache, however, we recommend making sure your existing geocaches are in tip-top shape before you do."

EXCELLENT!!! I look forward to being back in business.

Thanks for the suggestion Ambient Skater. Unfortunately, the key to solving my puzzles that rely on foreign language Unicode is to highlight and copy the foreign characters on a PC or Android, then paste them into Google Translate or run a direct Google search. That is why I used Unicode in the first place. Pretty hard to transcribe them from an image into the appropriate foreign language unless you have the right keyboard. I tried re-coding the html for my Unicode characters per the suggestion from dfx above (e.g. "&ą"), but without success. Anyone have a work around until Groundspeak fixes this bug? Luckily, I saved a copies of the original html for all my pages prior to the 1/17/2012 update. The new Groundspeak html warning should read: To prevent lost data, we strongly recommend you save an offline copy of your cache description before submitting to the website or making any revisions thereto.

Please address this bug as soon as possible. 4 of the 13 puzzle caches in my published Lost Cities puzzle series rely on Unicode to support the foreign language text of their puzzles. Upon revising the web pages today to remove a temporary advisory, the Unicode was stripped to display the foreign language text of their puzzles as all "???" "Lost Cities" is very popular series and it is a shame that cachers won't be able to pursue it due to these technical problems. This is the second bug from recent upgrades that has corrupted my cache pages. From now on, every time that there is a Geocaching.com site update, I'll cringe at the thought of what might happen to my cache pages.

Thanks for the quick reply Moun10Bike! Ok, I see what is happening. If I upload a photo to the image gallery for an unpublished cache in progress, then click on its image, the URL displayed is, e.g. "http://img.geocaching.com/cache/display/6a52815d-8bce-4b88-b306-fab547eaa26d.jpg" (i.e. the tiny "display" image). If I link to that URL in the html for my cache page, that tiny image is shown within the body of the cache page and the image only fills up about 1/2 of the width of the text margins. At least I found a temporary workaround that lets me author and submit caches with properly-sized images within their body while this bug is being corrected. If I copy that same URL, then delete the "display/" part, and use the remainder of the URL (e.g. "http://img.geocaching.com/cache/6a52815d-8bce-4b88-b306-fab547eaa26d.jpg"), it correctly references the gallery image. I can then link to that gallery image in the html for my cache page and the image displays within the cache page at the appropriate size.

Pursuant to the update on 12/6/2011, it appears that the sizes of image that are uploaded to the image gallery are automatically resized to much less than 600 pixels wide (e.g. 300 pixels wide), even if they are already under 600 pixels wide (contrary to "If your original image is under 125k or 600 pixels wide, the largest image will not be resized." as stated on the "Upload a Geocache Image" page). When authoring new caches for publication, it is very convenient to upload an image that will be used within the cache page's html to the image gallery for that particular cache page. With the new restrictions on image size, it is no longer possible to use an image that is wide enough to properly "fit" within the margins of the cache page text (e.g. just under 600 pixels wide). Currently, the width of an image that is uploaded to the image gallery and then linked to the cache page's html is only 1/2 the total width of the text on the cache page. Cache pages are part of the "look and feel" of a cache's overall experience that includes viewing, anticipation, and finally ... finding. To author a nice looking cache page, it is now necessary to use another 3rd party site for image storage. The other alternative is to not spend the time at all and just publish a boring blank cache page (to the loss of the geocaching community).