actualsize

Hi Ben - I've been a stauch iPhone app user since I started in 2010. I have appreciated all the work you and others have put in (I met Arne up at HQ a few years back), and I stayed with the "new" app and have eargerly followed its many improvements through countless updates. To me it was almost perfect until this issue came out. The timing may have appeared to be linked towhen I moved from a 6s to an Xr, but upon further reflection it may have coincided with the new-ish "Navigate" feature, perhaps the second or third follow-up bug fix that got pushed out after its initial introduction, the one that introduced auto zoom, maybe. Not sure. I noticed it when I started caching with my new Xr, but that may have been coincidental with an update your team released. Anyway, on to this 7.4.0 update and how it has been working for me. I did not respond right away because I really wanted to figure this out. I've cached in a couple of different environments now. I think I have a handle on it. The problem is not solved, but now it behaves differently - and in a slightly less random way that makes it easier to work around the difficluties that remain. 1) I still do not get an initial compass lock when I bring up the compass rose. North isn't north until I open the iPhone's own compass app, which snaps to north right away. Once I do that I can go back to the geocaching compass rose, and it's fine. This whole compass lock thing is distressing. In the past, it just worked, and worked reliably. I didn't have to consciously do anything to establish or maintain a lock on North. The app did that in the background. 2) The compass no longer randomly drifts as I walk. It will maintain lock IF I HOLD IT FLAT, horizontally. This is an improvement with 7.4.0. It used to drift no matter how I held it. 3) If I drop my phone to my side (or put it in a pocket) and bring it back up to horizontal, it will have lost North. This was not the case before this entire issue started. I used to do this all the time with my 4, 5 and 6S with no ill effects. Anyway, I can now recover north by holding it vertically (as if suction-cupped to a car windshield, at which point I can bring it back to norizontal and it will remember north and stay locked. I can't say this works 100% of the time, though, because I only happened to discover it partway through the day. For my last six cache finds of 2/9/19, yes. 4) When I open a cache and go straight to the compass rose (as in (1) above), the hold-it-vertical trick will NOT establish an initial compass lock on North. I always have to open the iPhone's compass to establish that initial lock. 5) The iPhone compass lock trick has to be repeated for each and every cache I go after. The app does not maintain any sort of synch as I move from one cache to another. It doesn't maintain for an entire session. 6) I am noticing more buggy behavior where the distance doesn't change at all as I walk around GZ, but this is not always the case and I cannot predict this behavior. It's the kind of thing you might see in heavy tree cover, but I'm in the open desert with nothing but blue sky above. This may be unrelated to all of the above. A THOUGHT - Now, if there is ANYTHING about the new Xr or the latest iOS update that may be involved (and can be solved by using different iPhone settings than before) please tell me. But I'm not inclined to think my Xr has a bad compass, because the compass always snaps to North right away as soon as I open it. Hmm, now that I think about it, it does seem to operate differently than my old 6S. My new Xr never asks me to do that weird spin move with my wrist to calibrate the compass. You remember that odd circular display with all the hash marks - the Xr (or the new iOs that came out about the same time as the Xr) never brings up such a screen. It seems to be premanently calibrated in a way that differs from the past. Could that be why your app isn't getting the proper North handshake? When I do open the iPhone compass, it does "Snap" to north; which is another way of saying it wasn't pointing there already when I initially opened the compass app. The SNAP only took milliseconds, so it knew where North was without a gyro calibration move, but it was pointing somewhere else in the moment between my button-press and the SNAP. Perhaps your sync handshake is locking on to that pre-SNAP "somewhere else" heading when your app opens. Thanks Dan

I've seen other posts where iPhone compass innacuracy is written off by regular GPS users as normal. 1) No its not, and 2) This is not that I believe something is wrong with the geocaching app, specifically, something that DID NOT affect any of my previous iPhones up to the 6s I used until recently. Several weeks ago I bought an iPhone xR, and the geocaching app's guidance compass has been pretty much useless ever since. I've looked for settings within the app to explain what I'm seeing, but I'm drawing a blank. My 6s and xR settings are identical. To explain: I have found all but one of my nearly 20,000 finds with iPhones. I have had very good luck with them in all circumstances, including the compass down to the last 5-to-15 feet, which is about as good as you can expect. I never have trouble before I get to that point. Never. But my iPhone xR is doing something different. The North indication will drift (or swing suddenly) any number of degrees up to 180 from where north really is while I'm still tenths of miles or hundreds of feet away from the cache. It's like the app loses track of where north is a few seconds after I start compass navigation. At these moments I switch to the iPhone Xr's own compass app, and it points to north immediately and remains steady as a rock. Satisfied that the phone's compass is working fine, I switch back to geocaching app, and that seems to reset the app's compass. It'll be OK for a few seconds, but then it'll start to drift off into insanity once again. It is mind-numbing. It's as if the app is not staying synched with my iphone Xr's very stable compass, and so it drifts -- sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly. But it ALWAYS drifts. I still have my iPhone 6s, and it doesn't have this trouble at all. Could it be that the geocaching app isn't optimized for the not-so-new-anymore iPhone XR? This really sucks, my 5-star geocaching app rating is down to one star. I'm going to have to switch to my 6s for caching even though it doesn't have any phone service or data. It's going to be offline caching for me until this BUG - and I'm convinced it's a BUG - gets fixed.

Hmm. I'm always very up to date. How come I'm only seeing four choices, none of which is Report a Problem? Oh, I see my mistake. I often press start without opening the cache details first. And I sometimes press the three dots before I examine the cache details. Now I see the fifth choice as long as I first open up the cache details before I select the three dots. Now that I know where it is and that the list differs slightly based on when you access it, I'm set. Thanks for that! So we're back to the D/T slider issue, the original topic!

Thanks, as for the Report a Problem option, I do not see it in the iPhone app. Are you perhaps thinking of the Android app? If a cache is selected, but I have not pressed "start" to begin navigation, I do indeed see three dots in the upper right. But the choices are 1) Add selected to list; 2) Add all to list; 3) Share; 4) Open in Browser. That's all. If I am navigating after pressing start, the three dots disappear, replaced by an "i" in a circle, which only tells me the cache type (which, I might add, is of ZERO use to anyone but a first-time n00b. I knew what a "traditional" was my first 30 minutes into this hobby. This button is a waste of space 99.9% of the time, now that I think about it.) If I press or swipe "Log", the three usual choices (found, dnf, note) appear, but there are no dots in the upper right corner. Everything except for those three choices is grayed out, and I see no path to any other choices. The three "more" bars in the lower right seem to be there for general housekeeping functions outside. Are you certain you're not speaking of an Android app function that the iPhone app lacks?

I'm headed way down south to a "neighbouring country" on a business trip, and I'll be in Sydney at an airpot hotel for one night. I'll probably get settled in by 1400 on 05 Nov, and will need to haul myself to the airport by 1130 the next morning on 06 Nov. That gives my an afternoon, an evening and the next morning to cache. It looks like the train is my best bet, but where to go? Opera house and such seems like the obvious tourist move, but I'm not sure teeny tiny micros in a city are my style. If they're good hides, sure, I'm all over it. I'm looking for suggestions. I may decide to create an event on Nov 05 (my birthday, as it happens) so I can swap bugs, too, but the location for that depends on where I might want to spend my limited time (with no wheels) caching. I suppose I could hire a car and expand my radius. Hmm. Suggestions? I'm all ears. Dan

I can do everything I need to do with the new app. Today, after a series of steady improvements, I really love it. I've only ever cached with an iPhone, so I was PO'd when the old app was retired and this one replaced it. It was a rough start, but it's golden now. Better than the old one ever dreamed of being. (And better than its Android counterpart.) But... My one remaining complaint has to do with the filter section of the live search page. It has a pair of sliders - one for difficulty, one for terrain. That's great, but both of them have a serious flaw: you cannont swipe the sliders so their endpoints overlap at a single D or T. You can only ever do a range: If you want 3.5 you have to settle for 3 and 3.5 or 3.5 and 4. You can never set the filter to 3.5 by itself. So if I want to look for a specific D/T -- let's say 1/3.5 -- I have to create a desktop pocket query to do that. (I do love how PQs now automatically show up on the phone as a List, but I digress.) It does me no good to use the sliders in the field because I'll get 1/3, 1.5/3, 1/3.5 (the only one I care about) and 1.5/3.5. This is essentially useless, especially since the D/T info is not included on a list's Details page - I have to select a cache and open its page before I can see the D/T rating. This is a royal pain when I'm working on my Fizzy grid. What gives? The Android version of the app allows its endpoint sliders to overlap at a single D or T, and the old version of the iPhone app could do it, too. Please fix. I know you can! I keep waiting for it in one of your updates, but it never arrives! Thanks, actualsize PS: not vital, but I would like to have the Needs Maintenance log type added back to the app for in-the-field use. Notes do not cut it because a prolific CO probably doesn't read every log about every cache they own, and I don't ever do much at my desktop when I get home. As a result, it is hard to give the CO a heads-up about any broken or Muggled caches, or GZs ruined by landscaping or construction I run across. I can see why this may be a conscious decision to prevent overuse by n00bs, though. Maybe only let this show up if one is a Premium member? I suppose I could use the Message feature and do it that way, but then the reviewer doesn't see it, which makes it hard to move a deserving neglected cache into Needs Archived territory.

Wow. This may cover it! Thanks a ton. I'm still wondering if there is a way, in case this ever comes up for another reason in the future. I'll go look at Project GC.

That is something I hadn't thought of.

Yes, but that doesn't work. The challenge requires the actual CO handle to be used, not an alias. Otherwise I could do it myself, if I was so inclined, which I'm not. Oh, wait, you're not talking about a jokey CO alias hide name, are you? I can't do that, either.

I've thought of that, but the challenge itself is hundreds of miles away. Most of those finders didn't come from around here. But I am running out of ideas, so I had probably do that. Last time I looked many of the logs were signed-in-advance notes, not full-fledged finds. I've also been looking at the stats pages of friends that use MyGeocachingProfile and Project-GC, services that will summarize progress toward this sort of challenge. No one I've stumbled across has a zero CO cache yet!

I've tried this many different ways, and have failed. I'm trying to find any cache placed by any CO whose handle starts with the numeral "0". I can't see how to search that way, at least not with a radius large enough that I see any results. The challenge will not accept alias CO handles, but at this point I'm not even finding those. Is there a way to search using this filter criteria beyond the maximum radius (30 miles?) of the gc.com "find a cache" utility? I've tried making random PQs of 1000 caches (the maximum number), then sorting those by CO handle in GSAK. I'm having no luck that way - I only see a 9-mile radius at a time. I would need to make 40 or 50 of those to cover the Los Angeles basin, then another like amount for Orange County and San Diego. I need to search by first letter of CO handle over a 500-mile radius, or something. There is one latent CO with a 0 handle in my area, but his caches are archived and he is one of those people that got all excited about this 6 years ago, was active for awhile, then stopped playing. I hate to bug him and guilt him into placing a new cache (if I even could) for my own selfish purposes. Alternatively, if you know of a "0" CO with active caches and you live anywhere in SoCal, along the California coast all the way up to Oregon, in Arizona or Southern Nevada, I'd love to know that CO's handle so I can locate a "0 - CO" cache THAT way.

You did. Post #19.

Someone describes me as being "in tears" and I'm not supposed to consider that harassment? It was a simple question, and I got a lecture. That's not a discussion.

Don't worry. I'll get off the lawn. I never have gotten the hang of forums. Never did feel the need to have a thousand posts and a daily presence. I just pop in when I have a question. You think I'd have learned by now.

It's nice to know that those of you that are harassing me because of my question/comment have NO interest whatsoever in stats and have zero badges on your profile pages. Why does there have to be a "right way" and a "wrong way" to play this game, anyway? Can't there just be "your way" and "my way"? The game has been designed with many facets, why is why it so much better than some recent imitators I could name.

I have that already. It's just that I've had one or two challenge cache COs check my stats using my public profile, is all. Some people are hard-line in THAT aspect of the game. I simply won't update it until I find a back-up. No big deal. It's just interesting to see how others think of the game. It's not so one-dimensional with me. I still think GC.com could fix this with software so everyone is happy. Keep past finds logged as the day they were found even if a CO makes needed or desired changes to the listing down the road.

I think that's the correct word. It's not mean-spirited and changes are perfectly within the CO's right. Such a move simply doesn't consider the ramifications with respect to those that found it before and how they choose to play the game. Stats are part of it. Geocaching.com provides tools to keep track of them including specific ones like the D/T grid. Some people really like this aspect of the game. *raises hand* And, really, what's the point of a half-point change? It almost doesn't seem worth the effort. I'm only 13 squares away from having two on every square, which should insulate me from this sort of thing in the future.

+1 IM(not so)HO, I personally think geocaching is fun enough without having to collect achievements like so many Facebook games. I see that, but I came into this as a stats geek and as someone who needs a carrot and stick to get off the couch. The beauty of geocaching is the multiple ways to enjoy it. You can make caches, find caches, go after challenges, let it lead you to places you've never been, put out travel bugs or solve puzzles. Or all of the above. No method of enjoyment is superior to another. There's something here for almost everyone.

Is there anything I can do about this? I found a nearby mountaintop cache four months ago, and it was the only nearby example of that rare breed, a 2/4.5, on the day I found it. In the intervening weeks I finished my Fizzy grid and logged a few D/T challenge caches. Then, today, the CO revamped the page after doing owner maintenance over the weekend. In the process he changed the D/T rating to 2/4. I found a 2/4.5 darn it, not a 2/4. So what if he changed the hide and made it easier afterwards? He's entitled to make changes, of course, but shouldn't anything of this sort be a "from this day forward" change? I guess I'm not going to update mygeocachingprofile.com, the one the public sees, until I find a replacement 2/4.5, the nearest of which, I think, is 180 miles away in the desert in a sweltering spot I'd rather not go until October. I really don't want to unfind--and then later refind--a bunch of D/T challenges. For one, doing so could ruin my daily streak. I'm working on a 365-consecutive day challenge and I have many single-cache days in there, the loss of any of which would torpedo that effort, too. Is this the way D/T records are supposed to work? I didn't find a 2/4, I found a 2/4.5. Shouldn't I retain credit no matter how easy the CO decides to make the cache later on? Who's with me? I'm talking with the CO about this. He's someone I know, so I might be able to get it reversed. (No guarantee, though) Still, this incident begs a lot of questions. And, as a CO, I'll make sure I NEVER change the D/T rating of any of my caches down the road. I'll live with whatever rating I assign it at the time. Doing otherwise could mess up folks who have already found the cache.

In a couple weeks I'm visiting Japan on a business trip. I'll have a free day in Tokyo and I want to pick up a couple caches if time permits. I know my AT&T iPhone will not work as a phone over there, but is there any reason I won't be able to cache with pre-saved pocket queries on-board? I'm good, right? It'll be just like rural areas without service around home, I imagine. Dan

The geocaching.com app does a most excellent job with standard PQs. That's not the issue. The problem arises when I go caching with non-iPhone friends that take PQs and edit them into a trip with a specific cache order in GSAK, with the end result being a GPX file that any GPSr (or Android phone running the official Geocaching app) can digest and use. I, too, like to trim down those globular PQs into something more manageable and targeted. Ever try to switch to map view when a PQ has 500 in it? If the GC.com PQ generator had a polygon editor like GSAK this wouldn't be an issue. But all it has is a cache radius or caching along a route. Close but no cigar. It's the difference between Android (no problemo) and iPhone (no can do) that bugs me. Meanwhile, the Saved GPX Files tab on the GC.com website implies that it works for any mobile device. It does not. I'm pretty frustrated by this. It seems they just don't care because the first threads talking about this are going on 2 years old. I see that as odd app developer behavior when we're talking about a VERY popular device, arguably the most popular one. Also, in the mobile app world, $10 is very expensive. For that price I expect a lot. Dan

Am I missing something? Is there no way to upload a GPX file created by a friend into an iPhone? Or one I just created from one of my own PQs that I massaged and edited down to a manageable size in GSAK? I just did this and resaved it as a new GPX file, then uploaded it to the "Saved GPX file" tab on GC.com, but my iPhone can't see it. I quote a paragraph from the "Saved GPX files" tab on the GC.com website: "A popular use for this feature is to first download a customized Pocket Query, followed by a massaging of the data in your preferred third party waypoint manager. Once the data is to your liking, you can upload it to the website so that it may later be downloaded by your mobile device." Should it also say: "Except if you have an iPhone. This only works with an Android." Is there a workaround -- other than buying an Android or using a "real" GPSr? As far as I can tell my iPhone can only see raw pocket queries. Edited ones or those created by friends to lay out a specific trip are worthless. I hope I'm wrong. Dan

Moved to correct thread. Would delete if I could.

I also reported this through geocaching.com's app feedback site. I got word back a day later that a fix is in the works and a new GC software release that will solve the problem is imminent!

What is going on with the Geocaching app V4.2? Note: something else is going on with Apple iOS 4.2. I have two distinct problems going on. Problem 2 may be a toxic interaction. Here's what happened: Two days ago, an app update, geocaching V4.2, was offered when I went to the app store. I always update, so I did. I immediately regretted it. I have an iPhone 3GS, and the update is supposed to make things look sharper on the iPhone 4. That may be true, but it ruined my iPhone 3GS - slow jerky maps, keyboard typing that lags way behind my slow typing. Did I say slow maps? Almost unusable. I wanted to go back to V 4.1x almost at once. Then it got worse. Today, I was offered an upgrade at the iTunes store for my iPhone operating system software, from iOS4.1x to iOS 4.2. (The coincidence is amazing, I know) Not thinking, I went ahead and did it. Now the geocaching app is 100% worse. Now it is totally unusable. I still have the slow, jerky maps and the laggy keyboard, but now my compass and navigation map reference N 0.0 W 0.0 as a starting point - somewhere off the west coast of Africa. My local caches are now 7,782 miles from me, even when I'm standing 10 feet from the GZ. Here's the weird part. The distance is fine in the geocaching list screen, where 15 or 20 are displayed. It is when I select "Navigate to geocache" that the trouble starts. My location and the cache location are correct based on the map icons, the green pin and the blue dot are fine, but the red arrow bearing line goes to Africa 7,782 miles away and along with that, that distance is what is displayed as the target distance. It's even worse with the compaas screen, where everything is east, waaaay east. There is no way to use the app to find anything. It's merely a phone now. The geocaching app is dead to me. I have resynched, rebooted and cycled the power on an off. I need some more suggestions. To sum up my experience: 1. Geocaching V4.2 SUCKS on an iPhone 3GS, even without the Africa problem. Do not make the switch if you don't have an iPhone 4. If you know how I can go back to GC V4.1x, please tell me. If not, this is just a phone now. 2. Something between GC v4.2 and iOS 4.2 isn't playing nice. Something is making it reference N 0.0 W 0.0 on any of the cahce navigation screens. Any help is greatly appreciated, short of telling me to go get an iPhone 4, that is. Not gonna do that. Shouldn't have to. Thanks! Dan