GSAK and archived caches

[+drsolly]

I'm guessing that a lot of people use GSAK, and keep it updated with PQs. But I've encountered a problem.

 

As far as I can tell, you can't get a PQ of archived caches. And once a cache's details is in your GSAK database, if it gets archived subsequently, there's nothing in the PQs to tell GSAK that the cache is now archived.

 

As a result, your GSAK database gets a gradually increasing number of archived caches. And when you go look for them ... well, you can guess what happens, and it isn't much fun.

 

This came to light for me a few wqeeks ago, when I spent an hour hunting for a cache, and then eventually went online while out in the field, at which point I discovered that it had been archived. Feh.

 

So I wrote a thing that would filter out archived caches from my GSAK database before they were put on my PDA, problem sorted, sort of. Sorted for me, anyhow.

 

Then yesterday, I went out with Sensei TSKC. The first cache we passed, he suggested we stop and get, so we did. But that cache wasn't on my database, and when we investigated, sure enouigh, it had been archived. During the day, two more caches were on his database but not mine, and those were also archived. Sensei's GSAK database was only eight weeks old (and had been updated regularly since then), so this can be quite a problem.

 

Unfortnately, the thing I wrote to do this filtering, is very specific to my setup (it only runs on Linux, for a start).

 

Does anyone know of a way to get a PQ that lists archived caches? Or do people have some other ideas for handling this?

 

Anyway, I thought I warn folks about this issue.

[+Jonovich]

I thought caches are generally made "Unavailable" before being "Archived"? Thus would not excluding "Unavailable" caches from exports to the PDA will remove them from temptation?

 

J

[+Haggis Hunter]

I thought caches are generally made "Unavailable" before being "Archived"? Thus would not excluding "Unavailable" caches from exports to the PDA will remove them from temptation?

 

J

Nope I archived one of my caches just this week without any advance warning of a problem.

[markandlynn]

Go into gsak filter out archived caches

 

List by last GPX update.

 

This gives you a list of caches not updated by PQ's in descending order the ones at the top are most probably archived.

 

Personally i then double click each one and download the gpx file from the archived cache page to help obtain the last logs, this is under the assumption that at some point i may go and look for an archived cache to clear up geo litter if the last logs show this might be the case.

 

there is a macro to do this somewhere on the gsak site

 

I wish they could be made unavailable for a certain time period before they are archived it would get arround this issue.

 

Also locally i have set up and instant notification for each cache type to tell me if any get archived within the 50 mile limit if you then follow the link and download the gpx this also keeps your local database up to date.

 

If anyone could work out all the 50 mile cirlce's requied to cover the UK i would be VERY gratefull.

[Deego]

If you feed it the same pocket queries each week, then just filter out any caches that have not had the GPX updated with in the last 10(or longer) days and delete the caches.. You can check them before hand if you wish.

[+Pieman]

I get round this problem by filtering by last GPX date and deleting caches that weren't updated on my last update.

[+MartyBartfast]

You can set up an Insta-Notify subscription to be notified by mail whenever any cache gets archived, but then I guess you'd still have to write something to process those mails & update GSAK.

 

Unfortnately, the thing I wrote to do this filtering, is very specific to my setup (it only runs on Linux, for a start).

 

Does this mean you've got GSAK running on Linux? If so I'd be interested to know how you're doing it.

[+drsolly]

You can set up an Insta-Notify subscription to be notified by mail whenever any cache gets archived, but then I guess you'd still have to write something to process those mails & update GSAK.

 

Unfortnately, the thing I wrote to do this filtering, is very specific to my setup (it only runs on Linux, for a start).

 

Does this mean you've got GSAK running on Linux? If so I'd be interested to know how you're doing it.

 

No, I'm running GSAK on Windows. Then I export a GPX file with the criteria I want for loading on the PDA.

 

Then I run a Perl script (on Linux - I know you can run perl on Windows, but I find Linux a lot easier) that classifies them into trad/multi/unknown, into micro/not micro and into "last log was DNF"/or not.

 

That means I can load into memory map, a csv that gives me a visual story about what caches I can go for around wherever I am (colour coded for type of cache). At the same time, I create HTM files for all those, so that I can double-tap on the cache flag and see the HTM. Since I set all this up, I haven't used Cachemate or GPXSonar.

 

Now the script does additional processing to weed out the archived caches, but I do it by analysing the latest PQs, and seeing which of them aren't there but are on my GSAK.

 

It would be nice if I could do a PQ that makes a list of archived caches, even if it were only the cache GC-number. But I can't see a way to do that.

[+sTeamTraen]

I wish they could be made unavailable for a certain time period before they are archived it would get arround this issue.

 

There are a few reasons why this won't happen or work:

- People can archive their own caches for various reasons. The most common is "DNF, DNF, disable, check, CBA , archive" but there's lots of other scenarios

- How long would the "certain time period" have to be?

- Groundspeak have stated on many occasions that they do not intend to provide any feature or policy whose sole purpose would be to make life easier for people to run offline databases. That's a business decision which will occasionally be inconvenient for those of us (like me!) who keep data offline for some time, but it's their site. In order for this to work, the reviewers would have to be told to disable all caches for a week (etc) before archiving them. But sometimes, caches need to be archived right away (I'm sure we can all think of some examples.)

 

My suggestion would be, before you set out:

- Identify a start point and a radius for your trip

- Run a PQ for that area and wait for the e-mail to arrive

- Set up a GSAK filter for that area and delete everything which you have stored (apart from manual points you added yourself) within it

- Import the PQ from the e-mail.

Edited July 4, 2007 by sTeamTraen

[+MartyBartfast]

No, I'm running GSAK on Windows. Then I export a GPX file with the criteria I want for loading on the PDA.

 

I see, thanks. That's pretty much what I do too, the only time I go on the kids Windows PC is to use GSAK, but it'd be great to have it run on my Linux laptop.

[Alan White]

Sensei's GSAK database was only eight weeks old

It's a good job I'd put down my coffee before reading that, otherwise the monitor would now be showered in coffee . Given the rate of change of caches around here an eight week old database is not a lot of use.

 

I find that keeping GSAK up to date with archived caches is near enough a full time job, and I refresh the PDA and GPSs every other day.

 

What's more interesting is: did you find those three archived caches?

[Alan White]

it'd be great to have it run on my Linux laptop.

Unix and I don't get on (despite 20 years of being an Oracle DBA with most databases running on a variety of Unix flavours) so I can't help with the detail, but in case you've not seen it there's a long-running thread about running GSAK on Unix here.

[+The Cache Hoppers]

Out caching in North Wales, my caching partner had a cache on his GPS that wasn't on mine - Menai Micro. We found it, but it was only when it came to logging it I realised it was an archived one. It was a pretty good cache too.

[markandlynn]

Out caching in North Wales, my caching partner had a cache on his GPS that wasn't on mine - Menai Micro. We found it, but it was only when it came to logging it I realised it was an archived one. It was a pretty good cache too.

 

I remember that one its one of our favourites and the appropriate container in the appropriate place if i remember rightly you have to put your head inside the structure too locate it properly ??

[Alan White]

If anyone could work out all the 50 mile cirlce's requied to cover the UK i would be VERY gratefull.

These are the centres I use:

# Latitude, Longitude and UTM coordinates are in WGS84 datum

#

# Each record includes the following fields

#

# Waypoint Name

# Latitude in decimal degrees (negative is south)

# Longitude in decimal degrees (negative is west)

Borders,55.5015830,-2.7715000

Carmarthenshire,51.7173670,-4.2349330

Cleveland,54.6279830,-1.1141000

Cornwall,50.3919167,-4.7233333

Cumbria,54.3377500,-3.0664670

Derbyshire,53.3886830,-1.9792670

Grampian,57.2930330,-2.5750830

Gwynedd,52.9988170,-3.7150500

Hampshire,51.2723830,-1.0981000

Hebrides,57.2382330,-7.0431330

Highland,57.4894500,-5.0596830

Humberside,53.7612670,-0.0665170

Kent,51.4476667,0.3625167

Lewis,58.4045500,-6.7184670

Mull,56.2235500,-5.8710000

Norfolk,52.6135830,1.4595170

Northamptonshire,52.5268670,-0.4794500

Orkney,59.1993500,-2.7254170

Shetland,60.4412170,-1.2665330

Somerset,50.8881670,-2.9307500

Strathclyde,55.2096830,-4.8209500

Sutherland,58.4518000,-4.2197500

Tayside,56.4537000,-3.8296000

Worcestershire,52.1541670,-2.3887670

Some caveats:

- the centres aren't optimal. I started at the south-east and worked up. There are probably better ways.

- the names are things that are meaningful to me. No discussions on the rights and wrongs, please

- as you'd expect for something based on circles there are overlaps - sometimes more than one - so you get multiple notifications for the same event

- because notifications have to be done by cache type you need more than one account to cover the UK. I restrict to Trad, Multi and Mystery, which requires 72 notifications

- setting them up takes ages

 

Edited to add:

The most obvious caveat is that, while I believe the whole of Great Britain is covered, I don't guarantee it. E&OE

Northern Ireland is not covered, though a small portion of it creeps in.

Edited July 4, 2007 by Alan White

[markandlynn]

If anyone could work out all the 50 mile cirlce's requied to cover the UK i would be VERY gratefull.

These are the centres I use:

# Latitude, Longitude and UTM coordinates are in WGS84 datum

#

# Each record includes the following fields

 

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<immense snippage>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Worcestershire,52.1541670,-2.3887670

 

<<<<<big snippage>>>>

THANK YOU

[+Whistlen]

How about a way to click on your GSAK list to auto check back to gc.com to auto update the status of the caches?

 

I've downloaded caches to gsak then to the gps and pda, gone out a few days later not knowing that a cache was disabled. If there was a way to have gsak check the status of a cache, that would be a real time saver.

[+MartyBartfast]

it'd be great to have it run on my Linux laptop.

Unix and I don't get on (despite 20 years of being an Oracle DBA with most databases running on a variety of Unix flavours) so I can't help with the detail, but in case you've not seen it there's a long-running thread about running GSAK on Unix here.

 

Thanks, I had tried wine some time ago but it didn't work and I thought that was still the case. I'll have another go now I know it can be done.

[+scanker]

Something like ..... Waypoint > Status Check ?

[+drsolly]

Sensei's GSAK database was only eight weeks old

It's a good job I'd put down my coffee before reading that, otherwise the monitor would now be showered in coffee . Given the rate of change of caches around here an eight week old database is not a lot of use.

 

I find that keeping GSAK up to date with archived caches is near enough a full time job, and I refresh the PDA and GPSs every other day.

 

What's more interesting is: did you find those three archived caches?

 

What I meant was, he'd created the database 8 weeks ago, then updated it since then. That meant that caches that had been archived in the last 8 weeks, weren't showing up as archived.

[Alan White]

What I meant was, he'd created the database 8 weeks ago, then updated it since then. That meant that caches that had been archived in the last 8 weeks, weren't showing up as archived.

Sure, I understood that. Lester still has an out of date database. Most of the caches have been updated but some of them won't have been. I can understand an offline database being a couple of days out of date, but eight weeks

[+Sensei TSKC]

Sensei's GSAK database was only eight weeks old

It's a good job I'd put down my coffee before reading that, otherwise the monitor would now be showered in coffee . Given the rate of change of caches around here an eight week old database is not a lot of use.

 

I find that keeping GSAK up to date with archived caches is near enough a full time job, and I refresh the PDA and GPSs every other day.

Alan,

 

GSAK corrupted the database I had and I created a new database with all of the UK caches. This database is updated daily by new PQ's, however, what is evident here is the fact that as soon as a cache is archived, future imported PQ's do not update the current dBase. So that's the problem. It means that I have to do additional database cleansing to remove archived caches which I didn't know about or do beforehand.

 

The GPS is loaded the night before with the waypoints so it's the non-updated caches that are being loaded that causes the problems.

 

Does any one have a macro that will remove archived caches from a database OR BETTER STILL change the status to archived so that a full database can be maintained as a reference tool?

 

No, the caches were not there.

 

Lester

[Alan White]

Sorry. Lester. I wasn't getting at you. It was just drsolly's initial statement about you apparently working with a database that's eight weeks out of date that had me laughing .

 

I'm surprised that a seasoned GSAK user like yourself wasn't aware that archived caches aren't included in PQs but now that you are there are many ways you can deal with it. On the GSAK forums there are a number of methods and macros which will help, but the bottom line is that there is a manual element involved.

 

I used to use the same technique as markandlynn suggest above: filter on the last GPX date where it's earlier than your PQ cycle then download the individual GPX and load it into GSAK. Some people just delete caches returned by the filter but I prefer to have the whole history.

 

Another method, as markandlynn and I discuss above, is to set up notifications on the archived log. This is a much more proactive system because you don't have to wait until the cache is aged out so you can see it's archived. The downside is that it's a lot of effort to setup and, depending on your dataset, may need more than one account.

[+Sensei TSKC]

I'm surprised that a seasoned GSAK user like yourself wasn't aware that archived caches aren't included in PQs but now that you are there are many ways you can deal with it.

It's never really raised it's head before. The last cache that I and Graham from the JGG found that had been archived a year earlier, didn't pose us much of a problem, because we found it! It was exactly where it was supposed to be and in good health. Previous cachers just couldn't find it. As you say, to a seasoned cacher (LOL) it wasn't a problem. Hahahahaha.

 

I contacted the owner - who had moved away - unarchived it, adopted it and it's back up and running. HM3 I think it was. Thanks Peter.

[Alan White]

It's never really raised it's head before. The last cache that I and Graham from the JGG found that had been archived a year earlier, didn't pose us much of a problem, because we found it! It was exactly where it was supposed to be and in good health. Previous cachers just couldn't find it. As you say, to a seasoned cacher (LOL) it wasn't a problem. Hahahahaha.

 

I contacted the owner - who had moved away - unarchived it, adopted it and it's back up and running. HM3 I think it was. Thanks Peter.

Yes, I remember that one. When I saw it had been archived I thought "I bet it's still there. We'll check it when we're next in the area". You just got there first .

[+Whistlen]

Something like ..... Waypoint > Status Check ?

 

Uhh...YEAH!

[+scanker]

I only found it myself the other day!

[fraggle69]

NICE

[+KiwiGary]

This is what I do, I have created a filter that includes any cache that hasn't been updated in 14 days. This filter also excludes caches with corrected co-ords. This prevents me losing co-ordinates to puzzle caches that I may have worked out.

 

I then run this macro everytime I start GSAK.

 

>>>#

# This macro will delete old waypoints, based on the filter

#

 

debug status=off

 

CANCELFILTER

DATABASE NAME="KiwiGary" Action=select

 

FILTER Name="Old Caches (Over 14 days old)"

 

if $_filtercount=0

return

endif

 

INPUT msg="Are you sure you want to delete old waypoints? (y/n)" default="n" VarName=$answer

if $answer = "y"

DELETE Settings="items_in_filter"

endif

<<

 

You will have to change the database name and the name of the filter for it to work for you.

 

Might not be the best soloution, but it works for me.

 

See ya...Gary