Release Notes (Website: Profile & Dashboard) - December 11, 2017

[+Geocaching HQ 68]

Release Notes (Website: Profile & Dashboard) - December 11, 2017

We’re excited to announce that you can now customize the cover image on your Profile and Dashboard on Geocaching.com. 

To customize your image, visit your Profile Settings and upload a photo in the “Cover Photo” section. The new photo will only appear on the new version of the Profile and Dashboard on web. 

Dave W. (HiddenGnome) from HQ’s Web Team is watching this thread to answer questions whenever possible.
 

Any posts in this thread should relate to features in this release. Unrelated comments may be removed. Please direct unrelated comments to other appropriate threads. Thanks! 
 

[+thomfre 41]

I had written a lot in my About-section. After uploading a cover photo, it disappeared

[+Vatvedt 0]

Me too! I've had A LOT of manually typed info there, and now it's all gone! :'(

Hope there's a way to restore the About section. This was not worth the loss, even though I like the change. This was not tested thoroughly, it seems. I'm really saddened by losing all that info.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Vatvedt

[+thebruce0 607]

I just noticed that too!!  Whaaaaaaat

[+alan666notb 0]

Oh great .. me too!

All profile info gone!

[+thomfre 41]

Any way you can get our about-content back? I had written text, not just statistics or banners...

On a more positive side, I really enjoy being able to customize the cover photo. I just wish it would cover the entire top, not just a tiny part

[+baer2006 135]

Same here.

Let me be blunt: This must the worst blunder in a long series of botched initial releases of new features . I mean, how the ---- could testing overlook this?!?

[+thebruce0 607]

At best, maybe it was there before saving the profile edit with the upload and now it's gone...

 

IF YOU TRY THIS UPLOAD EDIT - DON'T HIT SAVE UNTIL YOU CHECK THE ABOUT BOX.

If it's got your custom text, copy it out to note pad or somewhere, then try uploading a cover photo, because YOU MAY LOSE THAT CONTENT if the save is buggy.

And if that's the cause, now what for those of us that just lost all our custom About text?! 

[+The A-Team 480]

Sounds like this needs to be rolled back ASAP unless it looks like it can be fixed within a few minutes. Data loss isn't a good thing.

[+barefootjeff 547]

I also had my detailed profile About information disappear when I uploaded the photo. Not happy.

[HiddenGnome 33]

We are rolling back the site now and will investigate the cause and how to restore the missing content.

[+Vatvedt 0]

7 minutes ago, HiddenGnome said:

We are rolling back the site now and will investigate the cause and how to restore the missing content.

Great, x-ing fingers!
I really like the cover photo feature, but I do hope you get the About-info restored and the bug patched. 

[+thebruce0 607]

*phew* hope the content can be restored!

[+niraD 728]

I tried to get my old "about" text back from the archive.org, but it didn't have my profile page. And now that it has my profile page, it shows only "Sorry, you must first log in to view this profile." So that wouldn't have worked anyway.

Sigh... Feel free to revert my profile settings.

[HiddenGnome 33]

The website has been rolled back and we have identified the issue that resulted in the content going missing. We are working to restore the content for all accounts that were affected.

[+thebruce0 607]

niraD, I tried the exact same thing and every snapshot (of the few there) are hidden from non-logged in viewing. Tis unfortunate

[+thomfre 41]

I would love it if you could make the cover photo cover the page, like in the attached example.

[+Vatvedt 0]

11 minutes ago, thomfre said:

I would love it if you could make the cover photo cover the page, like in the attached example.

That looks so much better! I do hope they consider the change to expand the image all the way. 

[+thebruce0 607]

As a side note, after I'd uploaded my image, my profile didn't reflect the cover photo at all. Tried refreshing and hard-refreshing a few times.

Then I checked back in the forum and learned my about content had been lost =P

[+The A-Team 480]

20 minutes ago, thomfre said:

I would love it if you could make the cover photo cover the page, like in the attached example.

For those of us who didn't try it, what did it actually look like? Was the image clipped on the left and right so it only filled the same width as the "About" to "Statistics" tabs?

[+thomfre 41]

6 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

For those of us who didn't try it, what did it actually look like? Was the image clipped on the left and right so it only filled the same width as the "About" to "Statistics" tabs?

 

[+barefootjeff 547]

7 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

For those of us who didn't try it, what did it actually look like? Was the image clipped on the left and right so it only filled the same width as the "About" to "Statistics" tabs?

Yep, pretty much, and in the photo I chose I was standing on the left of frame so I ended up mostly hidden behind my avatar.

[+thebruce0 607]

As of this second: looks like the cover photo is back, or at least my profile is now showing the image, but the edit form doesn't have the upload option and About content still missing. (just fyi :))

[+thomfre 41]

Just noticed another bug. If I hover on the cover photo on someone else's profile, I still get the "Edit" button.

[+thomfre 41]

I found my profile! It's still there on the staging site

[+thomfre 41]

6 minutes ago, thomfre said:

I found my profile! It's still there on the staging site

And Groundspeak also restored it on the live site. Thanks!

[+thebruce0 607]

yes yes yes! Also good catch on the staging site. Forgot about that one.

[HiddenGnome 33]

Hi again! Everyone's profile bios should now be restored. I am very sorry for the inconvenience that this release caused and thank you for your patience.

Here is what we know:

• The Profile page was not rolled back so anyone that uploaded an image will still see it on the website.
• The "Edit" button is showing up on the Profile page for all users, but will take you to your own account settings page. This will be fixed soon so it only shows on your own profile page.
• The Account settings page was rolled back to stop additional people from updating their profile and losing their bio.
• Everyone's profiles have now been restored using a back-up from last night.
• The issue was caused when the mapping to the database got mixed up between reading the profile bio and then saving it back to the database.
• The database mapping is being fixed in preparation for re-releasing the account settings page with the cover image upload.

[+niraD 728]

One thing I noticed was that the bug did not truncate my current profile text. Instead, it replaced my current profile text with a much older version.

[HiddenGnome 33]

27 minutes ago, niraD said:

One thing I noticed was that the bug did not truncate my current profile text. Instead, it replaced my current profile text with a much older version.

First, is your profile text correct now?

Second, yes this was caused because the update was reading from a database field that had been deprecated long ago, but was writing to the current database field. For most people the result was an empty profile (because they had no content in the old database field), but for anyone who had previously entered text before we migrated to the new database field their old profile text was resurrected. And in a few cases where the profile text was the same in both the old and new fields there was no perceivable impact.

[+niraD 728]

10 minutes ago, HiddenGnome said:

First, is your profile text correct now?

Yes, to the best of my knowledge/memory, my profile text is correct now.

[HiddenGnome 33]

The bug that caused the profile text to disappear when a cover photo was uploaded has been fixed. The cover photo setting is available once again for anyone who would like to add/update their photo. As a bonus you will get to keep your profile text as well. Please let us know if you come across any issues.

We have completed the fix to hide the "edit photo" link when viewing someone else's profile and will deploy that change first thing tomorrow morning.

Thanks!

[+thebruce0 607]

Excellent, thanks for being so quick on the ball.

[+hzoi 468]

14 hours ago, HiddenGnome said:

As a bonus you will get to keep your profile text as well.

 

Thanks for the fix.  I hadn't done our cover photo yet, looking forward to trying it out.

[+brilang 0]

I uploaded a photo from my camera, and it loaded upside down as my the background image. Surely there's a way to test for "up" in modern computer software....?

I had to edit the photo, rotate left, then back right, save the file and re-upload it for it to display properly.

[+monsterbox 14]

First thoughts:

1. Main part is way too big now. I roughly always need to scroll down now. And it is shown in every tab, not just the about tab as in the old version. For me that's waste of space plus the need to always scroll now.

2. Where are the links now? I'm missing the email and message center links and "you" might miss the "Give a gift membership" link. I guess your sales team doesn't like you that for

I'll stay with the old version, works better for my needs.

[HiddenGnome 33]

1 hour ago, monsterbox said:

First thoughts:

1. Main part is way too big now. I roughly always need to scroll down now. And it is shown in every tab, not just the about tab as in the old version. For me that's waste of space plus the need to always scroll now.

2. Where are the links now? I'm missing the email and message center links and "you" might miss the "Give a gift membership" link. I guess your sales team doesn't like you that for

I'll stay with the old version, works better for my needs.

Thank you for your feedback. 

Unlike the old version, the new profile page only shows the links that are relevant. For instance, if you are looking at your own page it does not make sense to display the email and message center links. If you look at the profile page for another player who is not premium you will see all of the links that you are missing.

[+thomfre 41]

20 minutes ago, HiddenGnome said:

...if you are looking at your own page it does not make sense to display the email and message center links. If you look at the profile page for another player who is not premium you will see all of the links that you are missing.

I guess we have to go somewhere else now if we want to talk to ourselves...

[+monsterbox 14]

5 hours ago, HiddenGnome said:

Thank you for your feedback. 

Unlike the old version, the new profile page only shows the links that are relevant. For instance, if you are looking at your own page it does not make sense to display the email and message center links. If you look at the profile page for another player who is not premium you will see all of the links that you are missing.

Ok, makes sense! But I'm sorry, the "header" still is way too prominent in my eyes. If I'm looking into one's profil I usually don't care too much about that info but more about their statistics. And even on my pretty big (28" UHD) display only less than half the height is used for that part now. And as I wrote: I now will be shown on top of EVERY tab. Not an improvement but a backdraw.

Seen from a pure technical view I wonder why you changed that at all. Up to now I don't see any new feature, just a higher waste of space (again). Ok, the new backgrund picture might be nice for some people, but is THIS really worth the change?

Sorry that for, just my personal view!

[+monsterbox 14]

5 hours ago, thomfre said:

I guess we have to go somewhere else now if we want to talk to ourselves...

Technically you're right It simply was way easier for me to compare MY personal profile as I know how it should look like So I have been comparing the new and old version on my 2 screens and just wondered what has been changed.

My main complaint anyways is the huge waste of space for the least important part of the profile info. In the old view all my geocache info can be seen on my screen. In the new version that doesn't exactly work. Ok, it jumps down and doesn't show the background and profile picture any more if I chose anything other than the About tab. But it that case I again need to scroll up to be able to change to some other page later as this also hides the main menu.

 

I wouldn't mind if there would be NO background picture and just a small profile picture again (if at all ). That way the remaining block isn't too prominent any more. But again: Just MY personal opinion...

[+terratin 31]

Eek! I never really looked at the new profile! My profile photo is oddly stretched and blurry, and even on a big screen more than half of the content is menu, whitespace and my profile photo. Quite honestly: what's the point?

 

[+kunarion 420]

2 hours ago, terratin said:

Eek! I never really looked at the new profile! My profile photo is oddly stretched and blurry, and even on a big screen more than half of the content is menu, whitespace and my profile photo. Quite honestly: what's the point?

 

 

The avatar must be a square photo, best at about 350x350 pixels.  Yet even a rectangular avatar photo seems cropped OK in some places on the site, not the Profile photo.  I had to overhaul my avatar for the new system.

I cropped and re-sized yours, so now at least it's not stretched.  Upload this one, and it should work site-wide:

 

Edited December 14, 2017 by kunarion

[+terratin 31]

Cheers mate! I'll crop a new one from the original once I get the time. My head did look really odd, which I didn't really notice on the small image

[pingurus 18]

Hi,

It would be nice if one could rotate the uploaded picture.

[+steiger5 0]

I have still lost all my banners when I uploaded my dashboard photo. How can I retrieve them?

 

[+Zero Montana 1]

On 12/12/2017 at 11:17 AM, brilang said:

I uploaded a photo from my camera, and it loaded upside down as my the background image. Surely there's a way to test for "up" in modern computer software....?

I had to edit the photo, rotate left, then back right, save the file and re-upload it for it to display properly.

Yes. The ability to do this on the page itself would be quite welcome.

[Keystone 742]

If anyone is having difficulty with their profile settings, do not report this to the volunteer forum moderators - volunteers can do nothing to help in your specific situation.  Either post here in this thread, or write to Geocaching HQ via the Help Center.

[+Ambrosia 33]

On 12/11/2017 at 0:47 PM, thomfre said:

 

I would love it if you could make the cover photo cover the page, like in the attached example.

 

It was a nice surprise to see your picture from one of my caches used as your cover photo, thomfre!

Thanks for the update, Groundspeak. More pictures, the merrier! I enjoyed looking through my geocaching photos to find a cover for my profile page. I'll probable update it often.