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Release Notes 11/13/2008


OpinioNate

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Note: This release has been delayed until the following week. Please check back later for further updates. Thank you.

 

Gift Certificates

 

Included in this release is the new option of purchasing a Groundspeak Premium Membership Gift Certificate. These gifts can either be sent directly to the recipient via email, or printed out and hand delivered by you.

 

The following changes have been made in our most recent update:

  • Fixed issue of overlapping images and text when site is viewed in Internet Explorer version 6
  • Fixed issue with Field Notes importing logs which had previously been imported
  • Fixed bug preventing the owner of a cache from canceling an adoption request
  • Fixed HTML on member only cache page when not logged in
  • Removed ability to include HTML in trackable names
  • Trackable item dropdown menu reordered
  • Passwords now trim leading and trailing spaces
  • Fixed issue with gallery images exceeding the thumbnail size
  • PQs filtered by cache attributes had previously returned results for caches which at one time had the attribute, but now no longer does. This is fixed.
  • Closed loophole which allowed movement of cache coordinates distances greater than .1 mile
  • Added confirmation dialogue to cache edit page when submitting changes

Edit: There have been some unanticipated issues with the release so we're going to temporarily roll it back. We should have things sorted out shortly.

 

Update: The release is live. Please let us know if you experience any problems with the site. Thanks!

Edited by OpinioNate
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With all disclaimers about "...feature requests..." and "...forward looking statements...",

are any Geo-IP functionality (also Loki/Skyhook perhaps?...) part of this official release?

 

It looks to be switched back on, I like It and the locs. are accurate for my use.

Also I've been noticing new HTTP requests/cookie etc...

 

No big deal at all,

I just didn't see it mention in this most recent Release Notes (Nov 13 2008 v1.0)

 

Edited2: To add services clarification...

Edited by MrCOgeo
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The PQ fix is a real help, I think. If it means that a PQ looking for an active Needs Maintence flag will return a yes only if the flag hasn't been cleared, that's great. I was getting returns for any cache that ever had a NM log regardless of when and regardless of whether it had been cleared by an Owner's Maintenance log.

 

Edit: Just tried the NM attribute! What an interesting result! Over 400 caches within 30 miles with an active NM flag. And most of them are really old and really not applicable anymore. Makes that attribute almost worthless if it's not maintained. Maybe an automatic e-mail reminder can be sent to the owners for any NM over 30 days old, or something. I know, off-topic a bit.

 

Haven't seen any problems with the update yet......

Edited by Cache O'Plenty
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Makes that attribute almost worthless if it's not maintained. Maybe an automatic e-mail reminder can be sent to the owners for any NM over 30 days old, or something. I know, off-topic a bit.

A lot of caches get a NM put on them, but the owner no longer caches. Even if a good-hearted cacher goes out and fixes the problem with the cache, the icon still remains.

 

In this case, you can contact your reviewer and let them know the maintenance has been done, and they can remove the icon. But, to remove 400 would be a pain. :D

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[*]Fixed HTML on member only cache page when not logged in

Wow, tell me more! Is/was it possible for non-members who are logged in to have gone to Members Only cache pages in addition to those who it sounds like you are saying "were not logged in"?

 

[*]Removed ability to include HTML in trackable names

I thought this was done a long time ago. At least I remember trying to do that in order to try to replicate something that someone else had done on one of his trackables.

 

[*]Passwords now trim leading and trailing spaces

Do you mean, when one defines his password (while creating or changing it), or when one uses his password (to log in). I know in the case of using it, this has been done for at least 3 years.

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Please let us know if you notice any issues related to this update. Thanks!

Hi!

 

When I click "List newest in Finland" on /my/ page, it doesn't work!

An hour ago it showed the advanced search dialogue, now it just keeps loading? Or actually "Your request has resulted in an error."

 

What's up?

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Makes that attribute almost worthless if it's not maintained. Maybe an automatic e-mail reminder can be sent to the owners for any NM over 30 days old, or something. I know, off-topic a bit.

A lot of caches get a NM put on them, but the owner no longer caches. Even if a good-hearted cacher goes out and fixes the problem with the cache, the icon still remains.

 

In this case, you can contact your reviewer and let them know the maintenance has been done, and they can remove the icon. But, to remove 400 would be a pain. :D

Yes, some are due to inactive owners, but most of the caches with NM flag active are of active cachers but the mark still is there. Either they don't know how to clear it, don't even notice that it's there, what it's implication is or don't even care. Caches that have been found/fixed since the repair have smileys so they don't even realize it has an implication and that they might even get more visits if it were removed.

 

Groundspeak even addressed the issue twice (once in the spring and very recently) in the weekly newsletter but that obviously isn't being read by those with the NM flag.

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The following changes have been made in our most recent update:

  • Fixed bug preventing the owner of a cache from canceling an adoption request

Tested this without success.

 

Edit: There have been some unanticipated issues with the release so we're going to temporarily roll it back. We should have things sorted out shortly.

I guess it's still in the backrolled state then?

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Unfortunately, this release was not stable and had to be rolled back. Because it is so late in the week we decided to postpone deployment until early next week. I apologize for getting anyone's hopes up and for the short time the site was unavailable today.

 

I will leave this thread open and post when the update occurs. Thanks.

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Unfortunately, this release was not stable and had to be rolled back. Because it is so late in the week we decided to postpone deployment until early next week. I apologize for getting anyone's hopes up and for the short time the site was unavailable today.

 

I will leave this thread open and post when the update occurs. Thanks.

 

If only there was a beta.geocaching.com or something similar in which these features could be more wide spread tested by users before major rollouts!

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In this case, you can contact your reviewer and let them know the maintenance has been done, and they can remove the icon. But, to remove 400 would be a pain. :)

(OT)

That suggestion above is pretty much a guaranteed way to get a cache archived.

 

I guarantee you they won't just remove the icon.

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Yes, some are due to inactive owners, but most of the caches with NM flag active are of active cachers but the mark still is there. Either they don't know how to clear it, don't even notice that it's there, what it's implication is or don't even care.

My guess is that people don't always know how to remove it, and then it just stays there. I say this because I see a lot of owners post notes saying they replaced the container and the cache is good to go, when they should have been used the owner maintenance log instead.

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In this case, you can contact your reviewer and let them know the maintenance has been done, and they can remove the icon. But, to remove 400 would be a pain. :)

(OT)

That suggestion above is pretty much a guaranteed way to get a cache archived.

 

I guarantee you they won't just remove the icon.

I'm not sure why you say that. I know of it happening without issue. Why would a reviewer archive a cache that someone just fixed?

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Unfortunately, this release was not stable and had to be rolled back. Because it is so late in the week we decided to postpone deployment until early next week. I apologize for getting anyone's hopes up and for the short time the site was unavailable today.

 

I will leave this thread open and post when the update occurs. Thanks.

 

If only there was a beta.geocaching.com or something similar in which these features could be more wide spread tested by users before major rollouts!

 

Beta site sounds like a useful thing :)

 

 

Beta sites always SOUND like a good idea, but when it gets down to the logistics, a wide-spread beta of an already running website can be more pain than it is worth (been there, done that).

 

Which users will be on the beta site? Will they be using the same database as everyone else (not always possible), or a copy? If a copy, how do you merge the data afterward?

 

Or will it be an independent test, where any changes to the data are just test data and not real?

 

In this case, Nate mentioned stability issues. These often don't show until you get a lot of data and a lot of users, not practical on a beta site.

 

I would suspect that they do a limited in-house beta before a release, but for a wide-spread beta, the live site is it.

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In this case, you can contact your reviewer and let them know the maintenance has been done, and they can remove the icon. But, to remove 400 would be a pain. :)

(OT)

That suggestion above is pretty much a guaranteed way to get a cache archived.

 

I guarantee you they won't just remove the icon.

I'm not sure why you say that. I know of it happening without issue. Why would a reviewer archive a cache that someone just fixed?

 

Because the owner is inactive.

 

You got lucky.

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In this case, you can contact your reviewer and let them know the maintenance has been done, and they can remove the icon. But, to remove 400 would be a pain. :)

(OT)

That suggestion above is pretty much a guaranteed way to get a cache archived.

 

I guarantee you they won't just remove the icon.

I'm not sure why you say that. I know of it happening without issue. Why would a reviewer archive a cache that someone just fixed?

 

Because the owner is inactive.

 

You got lucky.

When Rothstafari announced the policy that Geocaching.com would no longer allow 'forced' adoptions, I specifically asked him about this case. My understanding is that it is up to the reviewer, but if the cache is being maintained by the community and there are no other problems (such a needing to maintain a permit with the land manager) an absentee cache owner is not sufficient reason to archive a cache. I took the comments of several reviewers in that thread to indicate that if the cache is maintained by someone other than the owner they will remove the needs maintenance icon and not archive the cache unless they feel there is some other good reason to archive it.

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When Rothstafari announced the policy that Geocaching.com would no longer allow 'forced' adoptions, I specifically asked him about this case. My understanding is that it is up to the reviewer, but if the cache is being maintained by the community and there are no other problems (such a needing to maintain a permit with the land manager) an absentee cache owner is not sufficient reason to archive a cache. I took the comments of several reviewers in that thread to indicate that if the cache is maintained by someone other than the owner they will remove the needs maintenance icon and not archive the cache unless they feel there is some other good reason to archive it.

 

Cool, glad to hear there are some reasonable reviewers out there :)

 

"Zero tolerance" is rarely productive.

 

Anyway, this is off topic to this thread.

 

Looking forward to the bug fixes Monday.

 

-Ben

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Makes that attribute almost worthless if it's not maintained. Maybe an automatic e-mail reminder can be sent to the owners for any NM over 30 days old, or something. I know, off-topic a bit.

A lot of caches get a NM put on them, but the owner no longer caches. Even if a good-hearted cacher goes out and fixes the problem with the cache, the icon still remains.

 

In this case, you can contact your reviewer and let them know the maintenance has been done, and they can remove the icon. But, to remove 400 would be a pain. :laughing:

Yes, some are due to inactive owners, but most of the caches with NM flag active are of active cachers but the mark still is there. Either they don't know how to clear it, don't even notice that it's there, what it's implication is or don't even care. Caches that have been found/fixed since the repair have smileys so they don't even realize it has an implication and that they might even get more visits if it were removed.

 

Groundspeak even addressed the issue twice (once in the spring and very recently) in the weekly newsletter but that obviously isn't being read by those with the NM flag.

 

When I notice those & the owner is still active, I send the owner a little friendly email letting them know how to fix it. Not everyone is addicted to caching & reads the newsletter or stays current with all the changes that take place. Just help each other out as often as possible. :anibad:

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So where's version 2.0?

I'm curious too.. in fact I asked here if we were running on Pheonix which is v2 code name but got no answer.

 

"Project Phoenix" became project Tuscon became project Yuma.

 

So said Jeremy at geo-woodstock. :anitongue:

 

Basically, it's on hold, and that was in May. Especially with the economy now, i imagine they have limited funds for new development. I'm sure they have something up their sleeves but it won't be as fast as originally planned.

 

-Ben

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Thanks for pointing that out. This appears to be a bug for countries which don't list provinces, and we intend to hotfix it asap.

Now that you mention it.

If you do a search on countries that do list provinces, all 15 of them, sometimes you can select a province called unknown (actually called --search all--), and sometimes you can't.

 

I think that it would be good to be consistant, and to either have the unknown province stand for the whole country and show how many caches exist in totality in that country, or have a way to select a whole country.

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Thanks for pointing that out. This appears to be a bug for countries which don't list provinces, and we intend to hotfix it asap.

Now that you mention it.

If you do a search on countries that do list provinces, all 15 of them, sometimes you can select a province called unknown (actually called --search all--), and sometimes you can't.

 

I think that it would be good to be consistant, and to either have the unknown province stand for the whole country and show how many caches exist in totality in that country, or have a way to select a whole country.

 

I get what you're saying about some dropdowns not including "search all" as an option - which is a bug I'll document - but what is this about an unknown province? I can't find any examples of that. Thanks, Train.

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I get what you're saying about some dropdowns not including "search all" as an option - which is a bug I'll document - but what is this about an unknown province? I can't find any examples of that.

 

By "unknown province" I think he means "Search All".

 

Also, and this may be related, when creating a cache, some countries (eg Belgium) allow you to leave the province unchosen, and others (eg Germany) force you to choose one. My guess is that this is not so much a bug, as a change of policy which has not been retroactively applied.

 

Nick

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Upon viewing a few cache pages I have noticed they had bookmarks linked to them that seemed out of place (example - Kaui Island Hawaii Caches.. when the cache was placed in Canada)

 

When viewing the bookmark list the cache was not referenced.. yet it still existed on the cache page. After about 10 minutes the Bookmark was no longer on the cache page.

 

I have noticed this twice so far today

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I get what you're saying about some dropdowns not including "search all" as an option - which is a bug I'll document - but what is this about an unknown province? I can't find any examples of that.

 

By "unknown province" I think he means "Search All".

Yes, that's what I mean. My spreadsheet of countries, states/provinces I spelled it out that way for some reason.

A codebox extract of what the site knew about, last month, is within the following post. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...t&p=3686400

 

Please roll back this nonsense for Finland Immediately!

I have to check just how many new countries and provinces there are, and re-vamp my spreadsheet. But I agree Finland probably is too small to break into smaller parts.

But, on the other hand, if we go that route s.i.c., then how about breaking every USA State into it's constituant counties? A third level tier breakdown!

Edited by trainlove
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I vote for providing for US State counties. Especially useful for states the size of California, Texas, etc.

But doesn't Texas have x towns, and it also has x counties. I.E. Each town is its own county? I seem to remember it being something rediculous like that.

 

And don't forget, some Commonwealths, like Virginia, have some areas that are not in any county.

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Sure, there are all kinds of geopolitical methods of subdividing political areas all over the world such as provinces, counties, townships, etc. And, yes, some are extreme (try looking at Ohio). Providing a 3rd tier option for each cache would allow large entities (such as California with it's 58 counties) to be broken down to more managable areas. It wouldn't be a perfect solution (there never are any perfect solutions).

 

In those areas where there is no subdivision (like your Virginia example) then the cacher would just not select anything.

 

One thing this would facilitate would be Challenge Caches where you have to find one cache in each county (er... town, er... province, whatever).

 

P.S. this topic seems like it deserves it's own forum.

Edited by Cache O'Plenty
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One thing this would facilitate would be Challenge Caches where you have to find one cache in each county (er... town, er... province, whatever).

 

P.S. this topic seems like it deserves it's own forum.

Yes, new topic, for sure..

But in the interim.

 

I think that Challenge caches need to use outside, or otherwise not under the challenge finders control, methods of verification. Perhaps spreadsheets, and or maps of track outlines as I have on one of my profile web page links for New England states. I envision county, or town divisions to be much harder to do. I once tried to find a GIS layer for Mass counties and convert it to a track so I could display it on my Magellan Gold GPSr.

 

I mean, I know several caches in New Hampshire that are actually in Massachusetts, and not by mere feet and yards. I think I know a cache in Vermont that's actually in Canada. One can't expect cache hiders to correctly fill out all information correctly every time, and some may do it intentionally.

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[*]Fixed HTML on member only cache page when not logged in

 

yeah this means that while my parents have Premium Memberships all of the kids that use to be able to log under their names so that our combined house hold didn't have to pay $120 to be members of this game now means that we cannot. as for my cousin's household of 4 caching kids and 2 parents asking for $180 from that household might seem like nothing to some of you but what once allowed cachers under the age of 18 to keep up with people older means that we are no longer able to do this as well... THANK YOU!!!!

 

perhaps there could be a FAMILY MEMBERSHIP OPTION??!?!?!?! maybe an extra $5 a person instead of $30 and the only thing they could do would be log premium member caches. there is really no need for everyone in said household to be able to run pocket quarries, have book mark lists, and routes.

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Can't access /MY/ page at all?

 

Same problem: with IE and Firefox, but it does work with a good old (text only) lynx browser.

 

Also worth to mention, the 'my account' page works on my graphical browsers when I try a sock puppet account without any finds.

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Can't access /MY/ page at all?

 

Same problem: with IE and Firefox, but it does work with a good old (text only) lynx browser.

 

Also worth to mention, the 'my account' page works on my graphical browsers when I try a sock puppet account without any finds.

 

Please try again in a few minutes. We are currently performing a site hotfix.

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/My/ can't be accessed and seek/nearest.aspx?country_id=72 (Finland) doesn't work. Other searches seem to work.

All problems (/My/ not working, Seek nearest, no entries in recent logs, etc) seem to relate to the following error:

View a Cache Log

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Geocaching.UI.LogBookPanel.ShowCountryState(Int64 StateID, Int64 CountryID) at Geocaching.UI.LogBookPanel.ShowViewLogInfo() at Geocaching.UI.LogBookPanel.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)

 

This error is probably caused by the removal of provinces in Finland last nite.

 

The "bad" cache listings contain "In none, Finland"

 

Will this be fixed or do we have to start removing the erroneous provinces from the listings manually?

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