Late PQ's

February 21, 2009

Has anyone else noticed that PQ's are coming in a day late? The 4 I scheduled for the 19th came in today but the 2 for today haven't come yet and when I tried to run one today for the wknd, I was told that I had reached my limit of 5 for today! :laughing: What the heck is going on....

3.1k · February 21, 2009

Mine are not a day late but they are two to three hours later than what they have been for the last few months.

Time to delete and recreate so they earlier.

1.2k · February 21, 2009

Thursday has become a busy day for PQ's since they won't run reliably on Friday.

The sad part here is not the fact that Thursday, Friday and Saturday are bad days, its that a programming change in Summer of 2008 significantly impacted how PQ's run and they have been troublesome ever since.

Its rare if not impossible for a daily PQ to run correctly, and even weekly PQ's that are scheduled for those 3 days don't come in until extremely late if they do at all.

GS introduced a problem in mid summer and has been ignoring it since.

3.3k · February 21, 2009

Thursday has become a busy day for PQ's since they won't run reliably on Friday.

The sad part here is not the fact that Thursday, Friday and Saturday are bad days, its that a programming change in Summer of 2008 significantly impacted how PQ's run and they have been troublesome ever since.

Its rare if not impossible for a daily PQ to run correctly, and even weekly PQ's that are scheduled for those 3 days don't come in until extremely late if they do at all.

GS introduced a problem in mid summer and has been ignoring it since.

And you know they have been ignoring it due to your extensive communications with them? Silly over reaching statements = losing credibility. What programming changes have you documented that caused this problem in the summer of 2008? How are PQs affected by this change that you have identified? The PQs I run are delivered pretty reliably so I just don't understand the problem. Maybe I am too lax because I don't expect a PQ to arrive in my email every Friday at 2:47 pm.

1.2k · February 21, 2009

And you know they have been ignoring it due to your extensive communications with them? Silly over reaching statements = losing credibility. What programming changes have you documented that caused this problem in the summer of 2008? How are PQs affected by this change that you have identified? The PQs I run are delivered pretty reliably so I just don't understand the problem. Maybe I am too lax because I don't expect a PQ to arrive in my email every Friday at 2:47 pm.

Its attitudes like this why GS won't fix stuff, because they know they can get by with it.

I documented very clearly last summer that the timing on PQ's had significantly changed, and a LOT of others agreed, but then there were a few like you that said it wasn't a big deal, or they didn't see the problem and such.

PEOPLE, IF YOU WANT GS TO FIX PROBLEMS YOU CAN'T KEEP DEFENDING THEM.

3.3k · February 21, 2009

And you know they have been ignoring it due to your extensive communications with them? Silly over reaching statements = losing credibility. What programming changes have you documented that caused this problem in the summer of 2008? How are PQs affected by this change that you have identified? The PQs I run are delivered pretty reliably so I just don't understand the problem. Maybe I am too lax because I don't expect a PQ to arrive in my email every Friday at 2:47 pm.

Its attitudes like this why GS won't fix stuff, because they know they can get by with it.

I documented very clearly last summer that the timing on PQ's had significantly changed, and a LOT of others agreed, but then there were a few like you that said it wasn't a big deal, or they didn't see the problem and such.

PEOPLE, IF YOU WANT GS TO FIX PROBLEMS YOU CAN'T KEEP DEFENDING THEM.

My apologies if I seem to be just a bit suspect when it comes to your complaint. Show me the data and I will form an opinion. This isn't last summer so I am not going to go searching for your previous posts. Data from last summer is likely meaningless anyway. How are PQs working now?

Answer my question regarding your communications with GS. Provide your data. I don't have an attitude. You do. If you choose to make a claim you should be ready, able and willing to support it. I am not defending GS. I am asking for you to substantiate your complaint. Seems fair to me. Show me the problem. Define it.

February 21, 2009

I have 2 PQs that are run daily except Tue. I did not receive them on Thursday. They just came in in the last couple of hours. These 2 PQ's I have had running for a long time now. At one point in time I could tell when they would come. Now I can NOT.

kf4oox - Paul

2.8k · February 21, 2009

I have 2 PQs that are run daily except Tue. I did not receive them on Thursday. They just came in in the last couple of hours. These 2 PQ's I have had running for a long time now. At one point in time I could tell when they would come. Now I can NOT.

kf4oox - Paul

Per previous, documented posts, regularly scheduled (read daily) PQs, have the lowest priority.

Assuming people are creating new queries for weekend activities, your Thursday PQs might just not be as important.

1.2k · February 21, 2009

Per previous, documented posts, regularly scheduled (read daily) PQs, have the lowest priority.

But they shouldn't be so low that they don't even run or they lap.

This IS a problem and needs to be fixed.

3.1k · February 21, 2009

Potato Finder is correct. Something did happen last summer. It is well documented somewhere in the forum. If you want to know what it is, go looking.

I have a series of PQ's that run once a week. In most cases, they run a few minutes later than the time they ran the previous week. Which means over time, they will get later and later in the day. HOWEVER, if there is a glitch that causes a significant delay, then they are even later the following week. Eventually, you have to delete the PQ's and create new ones, to get them to run early. Best advice, if you want PQ's on Thursday, create them on Wednesday to run Thursday. That seems to put them fairly early in the queue.

In one of the threads, GS has indicated there is a major overhaul of PQ's in the plan. They do not give an ETA.

February 21, 2009

:laughing: Hepl me out here!

1. Why are Pocket-que's limited to 500-caches?

2. Also it says we are limited to 40 something Pocket-que'. What happens after this number. Does this mean even if you are a Premeium Member, that's it? :laughing: :anibad:

Edited February 21, 2009 by Cherokee Bill

7.3k · February 21, 2009

Hi Cherokee Bill

1) why are PQs limited to 500 - just a guess, but I can think of 3 reasons:

back when PQs were originally designed, 500 caches was the upper limit that most GPS units would hold.

as files get bigger (even zipped files) there's more likelihood that the user's IP will grab them and not deliver.

Also, data is what Groundspeak is selling. The more they give out to each member, the cheaper it is per unit. That might be good for the member, but selling cheaper and cheaper isn't necessarily an ideal business model.

2) we are limited to 40 something Pocket-que'. What happens after this number?

When you've got 40 PQs designed, and you create the 41st, you'll have to archive one of the 40. I bet you'll find that there are a number of them you could get rid of.

On topic, I have only one regularly scheduled PQ. I'm not paying much attention to when it comes in, but I'll try to notice. I have been getting it once a week, I assume sometime on the day (Tuesday) it's scheduled.

3.2k · February 21, 2009

You do not need to "re-create" the PQ. After 7 or 8 weeks, I start to notice delays in my pq's. I simply copy them, delete the old ones and set up the skeds. They run right away. Even when I say I notice them getting later, it is the difference between 4 AM and running at 11 am when I do the copy thing.

If you are not getting your caches till the next day, it must mean you are not checking for them during the day they are sked. If you were, you would do one of the fixes to get them. i.e. they"re not that urgent or important.

Hepl me out here!

1. Why are Pocket-que's limited to 500-caches?

My first reaction is "Why not?"

As mentioned previously, this is what GS is about, so there ar limits. Besides, as documented elsewhere, no one has shown they can get 50, much less the 2500 we're allowed each day, in a 24 hour period.

2. Also it says we are limited to 40 something Pocket-que'. What happens after this number. Does this mean even if you are a Premeium Member, that's it?

Actually, 35 in a week oir 17,500 caches. When you delete a PQ, they are not really gone. Do a search in the forums, there is some way to revive them. I think it is saving the URL or something like that.

As the limitations are more than reasonble, why change them for changings sake. If it ain't broke, dont fix it.

3.1k · February 21, 2009

By "re-create", I mean copy existing one and delete the old one.

I would suggest the most people think the PQ system is broken. Or at the very least, could be better. And since GS has announced a significant (unexplained) improvement is coming, they agree.

I shouldn't have to copy/delete my PQ's every three or four months to get them to run early in the day. The PQ processor can't be that busy all the time.

5.2k · February 21, 2009

I only run PQs on-demand and every one I've asked for in the last year or so has been delivered to my Inbox within a few minutes (except for one time when the mail server crashed). Stop asking for more queries than you really need and maybe the overall system will work better for you :laughing:

1.2k · February 21, 2009

If you are not getting your caches till the next day, it must mean you are not checking for them during the day they are sked. If you were, you would do one of the fixes to get them. i.e. they"re not that urgent or important.

Its a well known fact that PQ's will often "lap", or run after midnight thus counting against the next day's limit of 5. This is more noticeable on PQ's that are scheduled to run more than once a week.

Want an example? Schedule a new PQ to run on Wed and Thu, You'll probably see it run on Wed and Fri. Especially once its more than 2-3 weeks old. The bad thing here is now you don't get your full 5 on Thu and now it counts against your Fri run too, so if you don't already have your friday pq's scheduled, you can't.

3.1k · February 21, 2009

I only run PQs on-demand and every one I've asked for in the last year or so has been delivered to my Inbox within a few minutes (except for one time when the mail server crashed). Stop asking for more queries than you really need and maybe the overall system will work better for you

Stop selling something you can't deliver and maybe it will work better for everyone.

3.2k · February 21, 2009

Stop selling something you can't deliver and maybe it will work better for everyone.

Your right. I've never really understood the need for 5 PQ's a day. Reduce it down to 2 or 3.

8k · February 21, 2009

I only run PQs on-demand and every one I've asked for in the last year or so has been delivered to my Inbox within a few minutes (except for one time when the mail server crashed). Stop asking for more queries than you really need and maybe the overall system will work better for you

Stop selling something you can't deliver and maybe it will work better for everyone.

This is probably true. If the terms allowed you to schedule one PQ per day and run up to 4 more on demand that would probably reduce the load on server enough so that everyone would get their Thursday query on Thursdays. What happens now is that many people run 5 PQs on Thursday and 5 on Friday to get 5000 caches for the weekend. Then on Saturday they decide which of these they want to load. All those weekly PQs run along with all the one time PQs that people schedule before the weekend, so that those people who schedule PQs that run every day or every other day to maintain their offline databases will sometimes see these not running on Thursday or Friday and getting pushed to the next day. If you are trying to keep an up-to-date offline database don't count on getting your PQs on Thursdays and Friday.

3.1k · February 21, 2009

Stop selling something you can't deliver and maybe it will work better for everyone.

Your right. I've never really understood the need for 5 PQ's a day. Reduce it down to 2 or 3.

To the best of my knowledge, Groundspeak put together the offering.

How would people react if their ISP wasn't available on Thursdays and Fridays?

February 22, 2009

Hi Cherokee Bill

2) we are limited to 40 something Pocket-que'. What happens after this number?

When you've got 40 PQs designed, and you create the 41st, you'll have to archive one of the 40. I bet you'll find that there are a number of them you could get rid of.

On topic, I have only one regularly scheduled PQ. I'm not paying much attention to when it comes in, but I'll try to notice. I have been getting it once a week, I assume sometime on the day (Tuesday) it's scheduled.

Does this mean that if I delete a Pocket-qry on Geocaching.com after I receive it, that I will not have to worry about the maximum # :unsure:

3.2k · February 22, 2009

To the best of my knowledge, Groundspeak put together the offering.

How would people react if their ISP wasn't available on Thursdays and Fridays?

Was geocaching.com and the forums not available when these repetitive PQ's did not run? If so, hand me a torch and pitch fork, I am right there with you.

More accurately, it is like the fact that Comcast cable (i.e. geocaching.com) offers Rhapsody (i.e. PQ'S) to their customers free. If Rhapsody goes down for a day or even two, and your ISP (Comcast) is still up, I am fairly certain Comcast will not view it as a service outage. I am also fairly certain those that call into complain about not getting what they paid for would be so small as to not even warrant being called a minority. Unlike Rhapsody being down, if your PQ's are not received by a certain time, you do have the option to run a fresh one that most likely will run in less than 5 minutes.

I don't pay for PQ's so if there is an issue (I have not really had more than 1 or 2 in 5 or so years of being a PM with PQ's), it is hard to complain since the service as a whole is still available to me. My $30 goes to keep the database and forums in place, anything else is more or less icing on the cake.

I am sure a year or so from now there will be a similar discussion when a Colorado owner can not immediatley access the system and complains because that is what they paid for.

Would it be nice if they could make sure that even repetitive PQ's ran early on a given day? Sure, however while they have repeatedly pointed out that they do not support offline databases, as much evidence points to the fact that they are working on it as they are not.

3.2k · February 22, 2009

Does this mean that if I delete a Pocket-qry on Geocaching.com after I receive it, that I will not have to worry about the maximum #

As you have stated the question, no. A PQ that has run within the last 24 hour period that is deleted will not reduce your overall count until 24 hours after the time the PQ ran.

7.3k · February 22, 2009

Does this mean that if I delete a Pocket-qry on Geocaching.com after I receive it, that I will not have to worry about the maximum #

Yes, the 40 Pocket Queries is 40 saved queries. Not 40 total queries. You can run 5 queries a day, every day, on and on and on. But you can only have 40 saved queries on your PQ page.

1.2k · February 22, 2009

To the best of my knowledge, Groundspeak put together the offering.

How would people react if their ISP wasn't available on Thursdays and Fridays?

Was geocaching.com and the forums not available when these repetitive PQ's did not run? If so, hand me a torch and pitch fork, I am right there with you.

More accurately, it is like the fact that Comcast cable (i.e. geocaching.com) offers Rhapsody (i.e. PQ'S) to their customers free. If Rhapsody goes down for a day or even two, and your ISP (Comcast) is still up, I am fairly certain Comcast will not view it as a service outage. I am also fairly certain those that call into complain about not getting what they paid for would be so small as to not even warrant being called a minority. Unlike Rhapsody being down, if your PQ's are not received by a certain time, you do have the option to run a fresh one that most likely will run in less than 5 minutes.

I don't pay for PQ's so if there is an issue (I have not really had more than 1 or 2 in 5 or so years of being a PM with PQ's), it is hard to complain since the service as a whole is still available to me. My $30 goes to keep the database and forums in place, anything else is more or less icing on the cake.

I am sure a year or so from now there will be a similar discussion when a Colorado owner can not immediatley access the system and complains because that is what they paid for.

Would it be nice if they could make sure that even repetitive PQ's ran early on a given day? Sure, however while they have repeatedly pointed out that they do not support offline databases, as much evidence points to the fact that they are working on it as they are not.

Since you want to nitpick at his perfectly valid example, lets try this differently.

What if on Thursdays and Fridays your ISP couldn't deliver any sites that started with a "G", that means that every Thursday and Friday you can't get to Google, Gmail, Oh, and Geocaching...

Your ISP still works, its only a little part of it, your not specifically paying for sites that start with "G", so it shouldn't be a big deal if all the "G" sites go down.

Honestly, thats about the level of your reply.

For most people, the ONLY reason they pay is for PQ's, yes, that makes PQ's the driving factor of premium membership. That should mean that GS should spend time, effort, and if needed money, to make sure PQ's are being delivered. Yeah, there will be one or two of you that come back and say "but I'm supporting the site, not paying for PQ's", well I call BS. If GS stopped PQ's today, you can bet good money that they would loose better than 90% of the PM's. So yes, people ARE directly paying for PQ's, they aren't a side benefit.

3.1k · February 22, 2009

What a perfect analogy! No "G" sites on Thursdays.

Thank you., Potato Finder.

And I agree. Most PM's are PM's for the PQ's.

3.2k · February 22, 2009

Since you want to nitpick at his perfectly valid example, lets try this differently.

What if on Thursdays and Fridays your ISP couldn't deliver any sites that started with a "G", that means that every Thursday and Friday you can't get to Google, Gmail, Oh, and Geocaching...

Your ISP still works, its only a little part of it, your not specifically paying for sites that start with "G", so it shouldn't be a big deal if all the "G" sites go down.

Honestly, thats about the level of your reply.

For most people, the ONLY reason they pay is for PQ's, yes, that makes PQ's the driving factor of premium membership. That should mean that GS should spend time, effort, and if needed money, to make sure PQ's are being delivered. Yeah, there will be one or two of you that come back and say "but I'm supporting the site, not paying for PQ's", well I call BS. If GS stopped PQ's today, you can bet good money that they would loose better than 90% of the PM's. So yes, people ARE directly paying for PQ's, they aren't a side benefit.

So much for civility.

Were it true, the fact that so many people would bail would be sad indeed. Fortunately that is not the case.

However, since this is more or less a non-issue for most, I'll let you guys hang around and whine about problems with your entitlements without any further interuption.

3.1k · February 22, 2009

I guess that puts you in the 'apologist' category.

Have a nice day.

1.2k · February 22, 2009

Were it true, the fact that so many people would bail would be sad indeed. Fortunately that is not the case.

It very much is the case. Don't believe it? Do a quick poll.

Here's the question:

If GS/GC were to drop PQ's, would you continue or drop your PM.

I'll go ahead and give my vote: I wouldn't wait a second and I would demand a prorated refund.

8k · February 22, 2009

Were it true, the fact that so many people would bail would be sad indeed. Fortunately that is not the case.

It very much is the case. Don't believe it? Do a quick poll.

Here's the question:

If GS/GC were to drop PQ's, would you continue or drop your PM.

I'll go ahead and give my vote: I wouldn't wait a second and I would demand a prorated refund.

The real question is whether you would drop your premium membership if GC were to remove the ability to schedule PQs every week on the same day or days. You would still be able to run up to 5 PQs a day but these would all be on demand PQs that run one time. The next time you wanted that PQ you'd need to visit the PQ page and submit it again. I suspect that some people schedule PQs to run that they never look at. Even if they use the PQs to maintain a offline database they don't necessarily use the queries they are getting every day. People who appear to be getting PQs just because the premium membership page says you can run up to 5 every day don't get much sympathy from people who limit the number of PQs they get to what they are likely to use for planning a day's geocaching.

A better analogy would be that your ISP decides to limit your bandwidth on Thursdays. Now a download that should take only a few minutes takes much longer. Maybe it takes so long you don't bother with it or you abort the download instead of waiting for it. Funny it seems that some ISPs have been doing this. And GC is not limiting your bandwidth per se. Instead they prioritorize PQs so that only the lowest priority PQs are pushed to the next day. And they even tell you how they prioritorize the PQs so you can proactively get your PQs moved higher in the scheme. I do agree however that even if people only got the PQs they actually need, eventually the demand will be greater than the servers can supply on certain days. I agree that GS should be watching for what happens at times of peak demand and try to respond to that. Shifting low priority PQs to the next day will only work for so long.

1.2k · February 22, 2009

A better analogy would be that your ISP decides to limit your bandwidth on Thursdays.

GS has already done this, THATS WHY THERE IS A LIMIT OF 5.

They have promised 5, but can't deliver. This isn't about preserving resources, GS proved they could do it before the summer change. I highly doubt that the number of PQ users changed that much at the exact same time they did "site upgrades" last summer.

GS isn't promising 5 pq's on every day except thursday and friday, they are promising 5 every day.

On top of that, they are REMOVING the ability to get your full 5 PQ's if their system decides to lap your previous days PQ's. Now a common complaint.

1.2k · February 22, 2009

But this really isn't even about getting 5 PQ's (although that is part of the problem), this is about getting PQ's reliably and in a way that doesn't count against you when GS messes up.

18.9k · February 22, 2009

Too bad that somebody can't figure out a way to keep all that Geocaching data available to all of us 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. Then with only an internet connection we could use a whole variety of devices to look up any cache anywhere and it would be gauranteed to be up-to-date and with all the latest logs. Heck they might even figure a way to delivery small chunks of that to us on demand (in a limited fashion).

oh wait...........

I grab a PQ just before heading out the door for any area I am going to be in and it is in my inbox within 5 minutes. No complaints here.

3.1k · February 22, 2009

Too bad that somebody can't figure out a way to keep all that Geocaching data available to all of us 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. Then with only an internet connection we could use a whole variety of devices to look up any cache anywhere and it would be gauranteed to be up-to-date and with all the latest logs. Heck they might even figure a way to delivery small chunks of that to us on demand (in a limited fashion).

oh wait...........

I grab a PQ just before heading out the door for any area I am going to be in and it is in my inbox within 5 minutes. No complaints here.

You must not be on the site very often. It is far from available 7/24 AND as has already been pointed out here delivery of PQ's is erratic at best.

5.2k · February 22, 2009

The PQ generator works just fine for me, because I use it in the way it was intended. To go geocaching. I run a query when I plan to go, and I get it in a few minutes. Reliably.

Groundspeak doesn't want you to maintain an offline database, so it doesn't surprise me that they're not fixing this alleged "problem" that you are describing.

I vote for getting rid of PQ scheduling completely. Make it so all PQs must be run on-demand.

3.1k · February 22, 2009

Read the thread. They are fixing it.

Late PQ's

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