+baer2006 Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Hi, in the last months, I have repeatedly seen cache listings, which have images directly embedded in the HTML code instead of links to external (e.g. hosted on geocaching.com) image files. In the HTML source, it looks like this: <img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEBLAEsAAD..... Depending on size and number of images, this can create extremely large GPX files for single cache listings. 1 Megabyte or more are common, while "typical" GPX files have only a few dozen kilobytes. These super-large GPX files are unusable by many geocaching programs and devices (e.g. my Garmin eTrex 30 freezes, when I try to open the "Cache Description" for such a big GPX). Also, if you have a PQ which contains several (or even _many_) listings with such embedded images, the PQ's GPX files grow even larger - several 100 MB would be possible for a 1000-cache-GPX! I doubt that such huge GPX files can be properly handled by typical software and equipment. All this is of course not really a bug of the GC.com website. Listings with embedded images load significantly slower, but apart from that they are displayed ok. However, as I said, many external tools and devices have significant problems with such listings. Therefore I'd like to ask for a modification in the "HTML sanitizer" ;-) of the cache listing editor. Even now you cannot enter arbitrary HTML code in your listing (e.g. things like <script> are automatically filtered out). I think it would be a very good idea to forbid embedded BASE64 data in <img> tags as well. Thank you in advance for your consideration! Best regards Andreas Munich, Germany Quote Link to comment
+Lil Devil Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 All this is of course not really a bug of the GC.com website. Actually, it is. All you have to do is select an image on your hard disk, open the new Cache Submission Form using Firefox, and paste. Voila! Several megabytes of Base64 data imbedded right into your cache description. This doesn't appear to happen when using Internet Explorer. I haven't tried it in other browsers. Quote Link to comment
+MastahMatt Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Do you have an example cache (or two) that you could give me? I'd like to test this on my Garmin Oregon 450. Quote Link to comment
+baer2006 Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 Do you have an example cache (or two) that you could give me? I'd like to test this on my Garmin Oregon 450. GC3VR1R creates a GPX file of 2.4 MB. I've logged "Needs Maintenance", asking the owner to change the embedded images to normal links. But it would be interesting to see what an Oregon does with the GPX. After all, it has a significantly higher performance than my eTrex 30 . Quote Link to comment
OpinioNate Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 We are aware of this issue and have scheduled it to be fixed in the next web release. Quote Link to comment
+BY-Pega Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 We are aware of this issue and have scheduled it to be fixed in the next web release. Anything new about this. Since september there had been some downtimes without fixing this issue. Quote Link to comment
Moun10Bike Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 This issue has been fixed in that it is not possible to use the cache submission form to create such bloated listings anymore, but it is not able to "unwrite" those listings that have already been created this way. Those listings should be reported (either here, to your local reviewer, or to contact@geocaching.com) so that we can manually fix them. Quote Link to comment
+java.lang Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 This issue has been fixed in that it is not possible to use the cache submission form to create such bloated listings anymore, but it is not able to "unwrite" those listings that have already been created this way. Those listings should be reported (either here, to your local reviewer, or to contact@geocaching.com) so that we can manually fix them. Am I the only one missing things like these in some regular "Release Notes" posts? I know you don't intend to post them anymore (http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=303613) for minor things, but for the ones interrested in the site's progress this would be very helpful. Quote Link to comment
+Marmotte Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Those listings should be reported (either here, to your local reviewer, or to contact@geocaching.com) so that we can manually fix them. Thank you for the update. Here I had a look in my local DB, and found 52 entries (LongDesc LIKE '%data:image%'), sorted descending by last date GC3N6G9 GC33MWY GC38X4W GC3925T GC2KDVM GC3YVVV GC3XM05 GC34JBE GC3RZE8 GC3X27G GC3WE8N GC3WVZ4 GC3XKYB GC3PHYZ GC2R0G8 GC3N6G9 GC3K1BK GC3B6A1 GC3C93E GC3N7MV GC3DVHF GC3TM97 GC3GQAF GC3GQ8X GC3GQ5G GC3B66H GC39XQP GC395BN GC38X1N GC37QD4 GC3PVTM GC3PJFX GC3NPJH GC3MCYJ GC3T5BY GC3RVTM GC3RBGD GC3QV6V GC3QV5W GC3JM24 GC3HYN5 GC397RR GC30YJ4 GC2ZEM8 GC2ZEG1 GC2YERF GC2DQMZ GC2A9TM GC28JKH GC281R0 GC34GVC GC2H292 GC35F22 Hope, this is a little help for you (and us all) Quote Link to comment
Moun10Bike Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 That's a bigger list than we are prepared to manually deal with. World-wide I'm sure there are many more. Please report these to the cache owners themselves and, if that does not get a response, your local reviewer. If you run into caches that are causing breakage of a browser or GPS receiver, please email the problematic cache to contact@geocaching.com. Quote Link to comment
+BY-Pega Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 (edited) Muhaha, what did you think? Did you really mean there are only a few caches affected? I already contacted ALL of the owners in my database using this kind of images. Result: 3 changed Listings of 38. I think it's the job of Groundspeak to fix this, I just contacted my local reviewer with this list: GC3FP0T GC2PZQB GC38FAM GC3E9WR GC3QCN5 GC3VTF0 GC3QEQE GC37X4E GC370ZN GC2Y36X GC2Y4YE GC3R790 GC3VNBN GC3N31Q GC3WW4F GC3WW18 GC3WXJ7 GC3WW1V GC3WW3T GC3WXMR GC3WW2Z GC3F7AH GC3QJJP GC3EA7A GC3RQA0 GC3N0F3 GC3T3VA GC3WQZE GC3WR01 GC3Q7Y7 GC3C7F4 GC36E87 GC3REGE GC3VXX1 GC3X88Y Edited November 3, 2012 by BY-Pega Quote Link to comment
+GeoTrekker26 Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Am I the only one missing things like these in some regular "Release Notes" posts? I know you don't intend to post them anymore (http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=303613) for minor things, but for the ones interrested in the site's progress this would be very helpful. No you are not the only one missing release notes. What is minor is depends on the viewer. Someone who has adopted a work around for a bug may never learn that the work around is no longer required. I do not understand what value is gained from keeping changes from the customer. Previous updates have generated much discussion and often complaints, but those have largely been focused on feature changes not bug fixes. Also no amount of beta testing can catch all problems as you cannot replicate all possible hardware and software combinations. Publishing the changes will allow more rapid feedback about the changes. Yes staff time is required to prepare the list of changes for publication but that is only a trivial summary transcription of the the change management control documents. Please bring back the release notes. Quote Link to comment
+Fritz-aus-Bayern Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 Muhaha, what did you think? Did you really mean there are only a few caches affected? I already contacted ALL of the owners in my database using this kind of images. Result: 3 changed Listings of 38. I think it's the job of Groundspeak to fix this, I just contacted my local reviewer with this list: GC3FP0T deaktiviert GC2PZQB deaktiviert GC38FAM deaktiviert GC3E9WR vom Owner bearbeitet GC3QCN5 vom Owner bearbeitet GC3VTF0 deaktiviert GC3QEQE vom Owner bearbeitet GC37X4E deaktiviert GC370ZN deaktiviert GC2Y36X deaktiviert GC2Y4YE deaktiviert GC3R790 deaktiviert GC3VNBN GC3N31Q GC3WW4F GC3WW18 GC3WXJ7 GC3WW1V GC3WW3T GC3WXMR GC3WW2Z GC3F7AH GC3QJJP GC3EA7A GC3RQA0 GC3N0F3 GC3T3VA GC3WQZE GC3WR01 GC3Q7Y7 GC3C7F4 GC36E87 GC3REGE GC3VXX1 GC3X88Y Quote Link to comment
+Eastpak1984 Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 My List with base64 Caches has about 300 entries. Can I post it here? Quote Link to comment
+Lil Devil Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 My List with base64 Caches has about 300 entries. Can I post it here? That's a bigger list than we are prepared to manually deal with. World-wide I'm sure there are many more. Please report these to the cache owners themselves and, if that does not get a response, your local reviewer. If you run into caches that are causing breakage of a browser or GPS receiver, please email the problematic cache to contact@geocaching.com. Quote Link to comment
+BY-Pega Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 My List with base64 Caches has about 300 entries. Can I post it here? That's a bigger list than we are prepared to manually deal with. World-wide I'm sure there are many more. Please report these to the cache owners themselves and, if that does not get a response, your local reviewer. If you run into caches that are causing breakage of a browser or GPS receiver, please email the problematic cache to contact@geocaching.com. Probably the best is to ignore this caches, I dind't get any answer on my Email to our local reviewer I wrote on November 3rd. Obviously Groundspeak doesn't care about this problem. In my area there had been two new published caches with this kind of images even after it got fixed as the post of Moun10Bike indicates. Quote Link to comment
+The A-Team Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 (edited) This issue has been fixed in that it is not possible to use the cache submission form to create such bloated listings anymore... This issue has been fixed for the old submission form, but the new submission form still accepts base64 images. I was able to copy-and-paste a JPG file directly into the description field, and it remained there after I saved the cache. Moun10Bike, you can see the result at the unpublished cache GC41DZB. I dind't get any answer on my Email to our local reviewer I wrote on November 3rd. Have you contacted the individual cache owners first as suggested by Moun10Bike? You should do that before involving a reviewer. Edit to add: @BY-Pega: While we're talking about broken code, I'd like to point out that you have some broken HTML in your signature that's affecting the "MultiQuote" and "Reply" buttons on all of your posts. Edited November 17, 2012 by The A-Team Quote Link to comment
+BY-Pega Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 This issue has been fixed in that it is not possible to use the cache submission form to create such bloated listings anymore... This issue has been fixed for the old submission form, but the new submission form still accepts base64 images. I was able to copy-and-paste a JPG file directly into the description field, and it remained there after I saved the cache. Moun10Bike, you can see the result at the unpublished cache GC41DZB. I dind't get any answer on my Email to our local reviewer I wrote on November 3rd. Have you contacted the individual cache owners first as suggested by Moun10Bike? You should do that before involving a reviewer. Edit to add: @BY-Pega: While we're talking about broken code, I'd like to point out that you have some broken HTML in your signature that's affecting the "MultiQuote" and "Reply" buttons on all of your posts. I allready mentioned that I contacted all users before contacting the reviwer (this can be read in post #11 here). As I got no signature in this Board I don't know what you mean. Quote Link to comment
+BY-Pega Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 As mentioned, the signature field in my options is empty: Quote Link to comment
+Lil Devil Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 Try putting just a space in your signature field and save that and maybe it will fix it. Quote Link to comment
Moun10Bike Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 Try putting just a space in your signature field and save that and maybe it will fix it. Any change he made will fail to take until he logs out of the forums and back in. I just did that for him and it has corrected his signature. Quote Link to comment
+Jon Snow Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Here are some I found in my Home query GC3K1QH GC1MTMM GC3N4EC GC3N4EQ GC3N4ER GC3N4EX GC3N4EZ GC3N4F1 GC3N4F3 GC3N4F4 GC3N4F7 GC3N4F8 GC3N4FB GC3N4FD GC3N4FE GC3N4FG GC3N4FH GC3N4FJ GC3N4FM GC3N4FN GC3N4FQ GC3N4FR GC3N4FT GC3N4FX GC3N4G0 GC3N4G1 GC3N4G2 GC3N4G5 GC3N4GC GC3N4GD GC3N4GK GC3N4GM GC3N4GP GC3N4GR GC3N4GT Quote Link to comment
+The A-Team Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Here are some I found in my Home query <snip> All but one of those are by the same cacher. Have you tried contacting them? As mentioned earlier, posting your list here won't get anything done. You need to contact the owners of the caches, and if that doesn't work, contact a reviewer. Quote Link to comment
+Eastpak1984 Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 I did, but up to now no reaction. (Many Users answer, but they don't know how to fix the problem. It would be great to have a guide which all users can understand...) Quote Link to comment
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