Field Notes limit?

[+And Sister]

I did a lot of geocaching yesterday. We found 53 caches. I wrote field notes on all of them. I uploaded them tonight. But only 45 of the field notes uploaded, although when I look at the file, all of the notes are there. Is there a limit to the number of field notes that can be uploaded at a time?

 

Also,the Android version of the Groundspeak official app now handles field notes very poorly. It is hard to find the field note option in its new location. And at least one note that was supposed to be a field note wound up getting posted as a log instead. Fortunately, that note didn't include anything about the hide, although I usually do include that info in my field notes.

[+ecanderson]

If you have used the " character anywhere in any of your notes, this will cause all notes from that point and all after to be disregarded. gc.com uses the " character as a text delimiter in the geocache_visits.txt file, and if one gets into one of your notes, it thrashes the parsing algorithm that looks at your notes after they've been uploaded. It shouldn't, but that's how it is.

 

If you don't think you've done so, let us know. Meanwhile, grab a copy of your file and segregate it somewhere so that it doesn't get deleted or overwritten so it can be inspected.

[+And Sister]

That can't be the problem, not only because I didn't use a quote (I have enough trouble tapping on letters and numbers while logging in the field), but also because the missing notes were the first eight we did. The rest of them are all there. I don't delete my field notes regularly, so the file is still intact. (The file does show a few ", but they are all the result of an empty comment field, not something I inputted.)

 

If you have used the " character anywhere in any of your notes, this will cause all notes from that point and all after to be disregarded. gc.com uses the " character as a text delimiter in the geocache_visits.txt file, and if one gets into one of your notes, it thrashes the parsing algorithm that looks at your notes after they've been uploaded. It shouldn't, but that's how it is.

 

If you don't think you've done so, let us know. Meanwhile, grab a copy of your file and segregate it somewhere so that it doesn't get deleted or overwritten so it can be inspected.

[+knato]

[...] We found 53 caches. I wrote field notes on all of them. I uploaded them tonight. But only 45 of the field notes uploaded, although when I look at the file, all of the notes are there. [...]

 

Make sure that each entry has a UNIQUE timestamp. There was (and I guess still is) a bug, where entries with identical timestamps are counted only once. Maybe Groundspeak's "experts" use the timestamp as key for internal storage, maybe for sorting purposes. Bad idea, in particular considering that Groundspeak's timestamps do not use seconds or milliseconds...

[Moun10Bike]

[...] We found 53 caches. I wrote field notes on all of them. I uploaded them tonight. But only 45 of the field notes uploaded, although when I look at the file, all of the notes are there. [...]

 

Make sure that each entry has a UNIQUE timestamp. There was (and I guess still is) a bug, where entries with identical timestamps are counted only once. Maybe Groundspeak's "experts" use the timestamp as key for internal storage, maybe for sorting purposes. Bad idea, in particular considering that Groundspeak's timestamps do not use seconds or milliseconds...

 

That is not true - the field notes key off of the GC code, not the time stamp. The only issue you might encounter with identical time stamps is that the logs might be out of order.

 

The issue described in the OP sounds to me like a file containing codes not found in the database, or an issue with misplaced quote marks.

[+chillypenguin]

Double check the 46th cache in the field notes file, it will be corrupted somehow. As others have said most likely its missing a quotation mark, but it could also be the format a the start of the line. It only takes one thing missing or wrong.

[+And Sister]

But it's the first eight field notes that are missing. If it was an incorrect character corrupting things, nothing *after* that note would have shown up.

[Moun10Bike]

Can you post the contents of the field notes file here? It would be easier to determine the issue then rather than speculating.

[+ecanderson]

+1. As requested before ..

Meanwhile, grab a copy of your file and segregate it somewhere so that it doesn't get deleted or overwritten so it can be inspected.

Sounds like you have the file, so a copy and paste here would help. Be sure to grab a few logs from the 'previous session' in addition to the ones that are of interest so that we can see the flow from the last entries of the previous run as they flow to this latest one that was causing trouble.

 

Not to say we'll see anything for certain, since there are some embedded nulls and line terminators that can mess things up, too, but it's worth a look.

[+And Sister]

+1. As requested before ..

Meanwhile, grab a copy of your file and segregate it somewhere so that it doesn't get deleted or overwritten so it can be inspected.

Sounds like you have the file, so a copy and paste here would help. Be sure to grab a few logs from the 'previous session' in addition to the ones that are of interest so that we can see the flow from the last entries of the previous run as they flow to this latest one that was causing trouble.

 

Not to say we'll see anything for certain, since there are some embedded nulls and line terminators that can mess things up, too, but it's worth a look.

 

I started to post the field notes text file, but then I realized that it isn't really going to help. I thought that there were field notes in the file that didn't get uploaded to my account. But I now see that that's not the case. The field notes that uploaded are indeed all the field notes that are currently in the file on my Oregon. And that implies to me (though I suspect you will doubt me) that I made field notes that did not properly save to that file. It's conceivable that I forgot to mark one, or even possibly two, caches as found and/or to write a field note for them, but there's no possibility that I did it eight times in a row, as I am very much in the habit of marking caches as found and routinely make field notes on my finds. So the real question seems to be how those field notes got overwritten/did not record, not why they didn't upload. And I don't suppose cutting and pasting the current file can answer that question. I doubt it can even be answered, other than "You must be mistaken about whether or not you really marked them found/wrote notes," which I again assure you is not the case. If I'm wrong about what the text file can indicate, tell me, and I'll cut and paste it after all.

 

I'm afraid I've wasted your time, and I apologize for that. But your responses did make me aware of some possible issues with the way field notes are handled by the Garmin devices, and that may be helpful to me going forward. So I thank you for that and for the time you've spent trying to help me find an answer to my question.

Edited October 29, 2013 by And Sister

[+knato]

That is not true - the field notes key off of the GC code, not the time stamp. The only issue you might encounter with identical time stamps is that the logs might be out of order.

 

You're right. Sorry about that.

I encountered the problem some months ago, but it must have been fixed meanwhile (obviously).

[+larryc43230]

I started to post the field notes text file, but then I realized that it isn't really going to help. I thought that there were field notes in the file that didn't get uploaded to my account. But I now see that that's not the case.....

 

I'm afraid I've wasted your time, and I apologize for that. But your responses did make me aware of some possible issues with the way field notes are handled by the Garmin devices, and that may be helpful to me going forward. So I thank you for that and for the time you've spent trying to help me find an answer to my question.

An off-the-wall question, but it's based on an error I've caught myself making when logging a cache on my Oregon 550t: After typing in the Comment, I'll (correctly) press the check mark in the lower-right corner. At that point, I should press either the "Done" button or the "Find Next Closest" button. However, a few times, especially when I was in a hurry, I've accidentally pressed the back arrow in the lower-left corner. This effectively cancels my log and my comment, and the result won't appear in the field notes text file (geocache_visits.txt).

 

Are you absolutely sure you haven't made the same mistake I have?

 

--Larry

[+And Sister]

No, Larry, I'm not absolutely sure that I didn't make that same mistake. I know I have in fact done that myself before. I could very well have done it again. That I probably did it eight times in a row that day is an indication that I really did get up way too early that morning! I must have been half asleep to have done it so many times without realizing it. Thanks for providing a logical explanation to my mystery.

 

 

I started to post the field notes text file, but then I realized that it isn't really going to help. I thought that there were field notes in the file that didn't get uploaded to my account. But I now see that that's not the case.....

 

I'm afraid I've wasted your time, and I apologize for that. But your responses did make me aware of some possible issues with the way field notes are handled by the Garmin devices, and that may be helpful to me going forward. So I thank you for that and for the time you've spent trying to help me find an answer to my question.

An off-the-wall question, but it's based on an error I've caught myself making when logging a cache on my Oregon 550t: After typing in the Comment, I'll (correctly) press the check mark in the lower-right corner. At that point, I should press either the "Done" button or the "Find Next Closest" button. However, a few times, especially when I was in a hurry, I've accidentally pressed the back arrow in the lower-left corner. This effectively cancels my log and my comment, and the result won't appear in the field notes text file (geocache_visits.txt).

 

Are you absolutely sure you haven't made the same mistake I have?

 

--Larry

[+larryc43230]

No, Larry, I'm not absolutely sure that I didn't make that same mistake. I know I have in fact done that myself before. I could very well have done it again. That I probably did it eight times in a row that day is an indication that I really did get up way too early that morning! I must have been half asleep to have done it so many times without realizing it. Thanks for providing a logical explanation to my mystery.

I just noticed your forum title, "Premium Inept Cacher". I'm sure you're not actually inept, just caffeine-deprived. Do what I do, and start your day with at least two cups of coffee. Works every time.

 

--Larry

[+And Sister]