Pocket Query problems

[+Team Trout]

Anyone else having problems with their PQ's not running at all? I created a new one earlier in the week and checked it to run everyday of the week. As of today is has never been ran. I have another, long standing PQ that just stops running also. I'm lucky if it runs once out of five scheduled times.

 

Also, two of my long standing PQ's have suddenly stopped including the eBook attachment. Each time when I've gotten the email without the eBook file attached, I've gone in and looked at the PQ configuration and the eBook option has somehow been de-selected. In each case I've checked the box again and submitted the changes, gone back out and then back in and the option continues to show that it is selected. But next time the PQ runs, the eBook file is missing and when I check the PQ config again that option is again de-selected.

 

Anybody else having these same problems?

 

Thanks!

[+Team Trout]

Just to update, it happened again last night with my PQ's.

[Jeremy]

The Mobipocket eBook builder is honestly on its last legs, and for some reason cannot process certain cache listings - as far as we can see. Since the generator works as an unknown black box, and Mobipocket's customer service has been nonexistent, and the fact that they no longer distribute updated versions that we can use to generate eBooks on the fly, it's unsolvable for us.

 

So what happens when an eBook fails? It is flagged as an error and it goes into a secondary processing queue, where occasionally I turn off eBook generation so you at least get something back. This is what you are seeing when the eBook is missing.

 

Honestly, the eBook generator was the first thing we created until we adopted GPX, which is a far more flexible tool for geocaching. I would suggest working with the various free applications out there to do what you need. Eventually we'll have to retire the Mobipocket beast since it is so poorly unsupported which makes me kinda sad. However we'll continue to look for new formats which could work as well, like mobile PDFs.

[+The Leprechauns]

Perhaps the MobiPocket generator chokes on the same carpy HTML that makes Plucker barf. I gave up on trying to use a PDA for geocaching.

 

Yet when Groundspeak tries to curb the worst of it through things like HTML Tidy and disabling Javascript, there's an outcry. Many people would be happy to just receive cache pages in their pocket queries with information on the caches, free from all the bells and whistles that dress up the cache pages. I'd rather see a pretty cache location than a pretty cache page.

 

I would be happy to see the mobile PDF format, which seems to get good reviews and is supported by a viable company.

[+Team Trout]

The Mobipocket eBook builder is honestly on its last legs....

 

Jeremy,

 

Thanks for the explanation. For the past several months I have been trying other methods of "going paperless" using the GPX files, but frankly none of them are as simple and straight forward to use as the eBook attachments. While GPX files may be more flexible, getting them into a format to download onto a PDA is much more complex.

 

It is too bad that the simple solution has been orphaned.

 

So is the reason that the other PQs I have made aren't running because they have an error flagged and are getting stuck in some processing queue somewhere due to the eBook processing?