Release notes (Website: Upload image to cache & trackable description; hosted images going forward) - September 15, 2020

[+ecanderson]

Using a gc logo on a gc page isn't likely to be an issue, I shouldn't think.  What's seen above is targeted to use outside of their purview.

 

[+barefootjeff]

21 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Am I just imagining it, or is adding an image via the admin tools a new thing? 

 

I'm pretty sure that's always been there, or at least as long as I can remember.

[+Max and 99]

13 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

I'm pretty sure that's always been there, or at least as long as I can remember.

I was hoping you wouldn't say that. This is what happens when I browse the forums when I should be asleep. ?

I see the confusion for me now. It's only available under admin tools after publication. Before publication you have to use the edit function to add photos. 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Max and 99

[+fizzymagic]

Is anybody monitoring this thread?

 

Will png files uploaded to the Groundspeak servers continue to be converted to jpg format? 

 

If so, why?

If not, when will the change occur?

 

Please, pretty please give us some idea of what is going on!

[Keystone]

Yes, Release Notes threads are monitored both by Lackeys and by Volunteer Moderators.

[+barefootjeff]

1 hour ago, fizzymagic said:

Is anybody monitoring this thread?

 

Will png files uploaded to the Groundspeak servers continue to be converted to jpg format? 

 

If so, why?

If not, when will the change occur?

 

Please, pretty please give us some idea of what is going on!

 

The deathly silence on this issue makes me wonder whether there's something underhanded behind the transcoding. Maybe, my evil twin whispers, maybe it's adding a secret watermark that's used by third party data miners in return for brown envelopes stuffed with unmarked currency and if so, maybe that's the real reason third-party image hosting is now blocked. Nature abhors a vacuum so all we can do is speculate and my speculative imagination does have a tendency to run off in all sorts of wild directions.

 

I'm sure there's an innocent explanation, but if so, what is it? And why do uploaded PNG files still have the .png extension even though their content has changed to a jpg? This in itself is inherently wrong and causes some image processing applications like Photoshop to reject the file as invalid, which is not what you want to happen when trying to unravel a devious puzzle.

 

If the transcoding really is a necessary evil, can you please be upfront about it so puzzle-creators will be aware that it's happening, and correct the file extension and Content-Type headers to make sure the result is at least a valid image file? Is that too much to ask?

[+fizzymagic]

On 10/19/2020 at 2:58 PM, Keystone said:

Yes, Release Notes threads are monitored both by Lackeys and by Volunteer Moderators.

 

That's unfortunate.  I was assuming that the lack of an answer to my questions about this topic over the last few months was some kind of oversight.  Apparently, the non-answer is the intended response.

 

Going to continue to ask until I receive a response of some kind.  Sorry about that.

Edited October 21, 2020 by fizzymagic

[+OwenfromKC]

On 9/16/2020 at 5:29 AM, on4bam said:

 

 

If GS is really serious about taking away all possibilities of tracking and protecting privacy then a good start would be to remove trackers (google analytics/ads) from their sites.

 

 

 I read through these 4 pages and this is about the only thing that made sense!  Without becoming a web developer, only allowing Google to host is a real slimy decision.  For someone not in CE or IT, this change makes it very frustrating to even create an interesting cache page.

 

I just learned of this change while trying to correct a typo on an old published listing and not being able to save it because it has an animated gif. It won't let me save the page again.

So is this the end of animated gifs for new cache pages?  I haven't seen that answered without a bunch of felgercarb mumbo jumbo java mocha latte.

 

Upload with the user-friendly editor?  NOT.  Nothing is labeled "user-friendly editor".  All the icons on that section are greyed out.  The only thing I can click on "Source"  says "Content you have added in HTML may look different in the user-friendly editor as unsupported code is removed. Better save it somewhere else."  Really? Thanks for the warning at least. So everything I have typed in is going to change so I can't read it or make sense of it with the spacing I added.

 

Like others, this is very upsetting.  I have geo art cache pages in development I have been working on all year and I can't edit some of them now because they currently have animated gifs.  The animated gif was the puzzle on some of them!

 

I consider myself computer savvy in the general sense but now awaiting the HQ video (ETA 2026?) showing me how to add an animated gif to a cache page makes me feel dumb very frustrated.  Will geocaching.com host animated gifs?  That would fix it.

 

But seriously, how do I simply add an animated gif to my cache page? or edit the old ones?

 

 

 

 

[+arisoft]

10 hours ago, OwenfromKC said:

But seriously, how do I simply add an animated gif to my cache page? or edit the old ones?

 

Store your gif to any approved site and then use HTML IMG-tag to link your image to the cache description.

Example:

<img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/1edsigndbe78l7x/rain.gif?dl=1">

 

[+OwenfromKC]

3 hours ago, arisoft said:

 

Store your gif to any approved site and then use HTML IMG-tag to link your image to the cache description.

Example:

<img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/1edsigndbe78l7x/rain.gif?dl=1">

 

 

I have been trying to do this for over an hour and finally figured out how to get the link.  You can't just open it and copy the address bar.  It is a preview version.  

Need to click share and then choose Create link instead.  Very small print at the bottom of the pop up. Then click Copy link.  

 

Then after pasting it on the website, you then still need to manually edit the dl=1  at the end of the string to raw=1

 

Now it works.  If there is an easier way, please let me know.  

Thanks arisoft for putting me on the right path. It seems simple now albeit convoluted.  Now to start moving about 100 animated gifs over and editing all the pages.

[+MatrixPatrix]

On 10/25/2020 at 11:49 PM, OwenfromKC said:

 

I have been trying to do this for over an hour and finally figured out how to get the link.  You can't just open it and copy the address bar.  It is a preview version.  

Need to click share and then choose Create link instead.  Very small print at the bottom of the pop up. Then click Copy link.  

 

Then after pasting it on the website, you then still need to manually edit the dl=1  at the end of the string to raw=1

 

Now it works.  If there is an easier way, please let me know.  

Thanks arisoft for putting me on the right path. It seems simple now albeit convoluted.  Now to start moving about 100 animated gifs over and editing all the pages.

Thanks man, you're a life saver. Tried everything for days, nothing worked for my GIFs. This solution works (for now), but seriously, is this kind of sorcery the only way to put an animated GIF in your listing?? I really hope that we'll get a response regarding this issue (and many more) soon...

[+IceColdUK]

I include a small dynamically-generated graphic (hosted on my own domain) on each of my cache pages.  This is still displaying correctly on my non-mystery caches (Trads, Multis, LBHs and Events), but it's no longer working on the Mysteries.

 

On the Trads, etc. the image url is still going through the geocaching proxy, e.g.:

 

https://coord.info/GC2QMP7

src="https://imgproxy.geocaching.com/835be751c6990ae03971b99496810995460db2b7?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.icecoldinalex.co.uk%2Fmisc%2Fgeocaching%2FIceColdUK-hidecount.php%3Ftext%3D6"

 

On the Mysteries, the proxy has been taken back out, e.g.:

 

https://coord.info/GC29YJM

src="http://www.icecoldinalex.co.uk/misc/geocaching/IceColdUK-hidecount.php?text=2"

 

Very disappointed, but I'm guessing this is the death knell for my little cache counter.  And I really don't understand the inconsistency.

[+mustakorppi]

 

1 hour ago, IceColdUK said:

Very disappointed, but I'm guessing this is the death knell for my little cache counter. 

You're running into the same issue as StratOman a few pages ago. The image shows in other browsers. You need to make your server support https.

[+IceColdUK]

21 hours ago, mustakorppi said:

 

You're running into the same issue as StratOman a few pages ago. The image shows in other browsers. You need to make your server support https.

 

Thanks mustakorppi.  The irony... I replied to StratOman's post, to say I could see all of his 'missing' images in Chrome.  Now I can't see my own!  Checked with Safari on my phone and Firefox on another computer, and the images are still showing properly.  I'll look into https support.

 

Unfortunately, I can't see how I'll be able to use my little php counter on any new caches.  And I still have no idea why Mystery caches are being treated differently from other cache types.

[+sloth96]

On 10/28/2020 at 6:03 AM, IceColdUK said:

 

Thanks mustakorppi.  The irony... I replied to StratOman's post, to say I could see all of his 'missing' images in Chrome.  Now I can't see my own!  Checked with Safari on my phone and Firefox on another computer, and the images are still showing properly.  I'll look into https support.

 

Unfortunately, I can't see how I'll be able to use my little php counter on any new caches.  And I still have no idea why Mystery caches are being treated differently from other cache types.

It could be that some mystery caches require looking at the image at different times and assembling another image to make things work.

 

[+sernikk]

• One month ago there was a post, that within two weeks there will be a list of domains which got approved to be used as image hosting services for cache listings. Something new about that? Is the reviewing still going on? When can we expect an answer?

 

• I didn't see any response to the idea / suggestion from other users, to not convert all images to .jpeg, and just let us upload .gif and .png too. Is there a reason for it?

 

 

[+Max and 99]

1 hour ago, sernikk said:

One month ago there was a post, that within two weeks there will be a list of domains which got approved to be used as image hosting services for cache listings. Something new about that? Is the reviewing still going on? When can we expect an answer?

The new list was posted in the Help Center about two weeks ago.

[+sernikk]

1 hour ago, Max and 99 said:

The new list was posted in the Help Center about two weeks ago.

You are right. I was expecting a post in this topic and couldn't find it. Thanks

[+Birdie.NL]

Is there finally a solution to upload an unaltered png or gif image? Because it is silly that animated gifs or png images are stripped  - and thus a lot of mysteries or even banners are impossible to be used.

[+fbingha]

I've been dealing with the processing of uploaded images for 20 years.

 

Forcing all uploaded images through a JPEG conversion is either:

 

1. Programmer laziness
2. Lack of understanding of how to process GIF and PNG
3. Lack of library ability (highly unlikely in 2020)
4.  Product said make those files as small as possible.

 

I would suggest either #1 or #4

 

It shouldn't be done because it breaks animated Gif and eats background transparency, besides the obvious loss of clarity.

Edited November 17, 2020 by fbingha

[+sernikk]

48 minutes ago, fbingha said:

I've been dealing with the processing of uploaded images for 20 years.

 

Forcing all uploaded images through a JPEG conversion is either:

 

1. Programmer laziness
2. Lack of understanding of how to process GIF and PNG
3. Lack of library ability (highly unlikely in 2020)
4.  Product said make those files as small as possible.

 

I would suggest either #1 or #4

 

It shouldn't be done because it breaks animated Gif and eats background transparency, besides the obvious loss of clarity.

 

I think it is #4, but as we are in 2020 and not 2005, It's time for a change.

[+barefootjeff]

5 hours ago, fbingha said:

Forcing all uploaded images through a JPEG conversion is either:

 

1. Programmer laziness
2. Lack of understanding of how to process GIF and PNG
3. Lack of library ability (highly unlikely in 2020)
4.  Product said make those files as small as possible.

 

I would suggest either #1 or #4

 

In none of those scenarios is there any reason to conceal the fact that it's being done by not documenting it anywhere and leaving the file's suffix and ContentType as PNG or GIF even though the actual content is changed to JPEG. As much as I dislike conspiracy theories, the continuing silence on this issue is starting to point to something like:

 

   5. The transcoding is adding a secret watermark that's used by data mining companies in return for an undisclosed payback to HQ.

[+fbingha]

2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

In none of those scenarios is there any reason to conceal the fact that it's being done by not documenting it anywhere and leaving the file's suffix and ContentType as PNG or GIF even though the actual content is changed to JPEG. As much as I dislike conspiracy theories, the continuing silence on this issue is starting to point to something like:

 

   5. The transcoding is adding a secret watermark that's used by data mining companies in return for an undisclosed payback to HQ.

 

If the contents are changed to JPG but the filename is left as .png and .gif, then that's why the Content-Type is what it is, it matches the suffix. I think it's just bad code, no an grand conspiracy.

[+barefootjeff]

49 minutes ago, fbingha said:

If the contents are changed to JPG but the filename is left as .png and .gif, then that's why the Content-Type is what it is, it matches the suffix. I think it's just bad code, no an grand conspiracy.

 

So why the cone of silence about it? This has been happening for well over a year now and repeatedly reported, but not only has there been no response at all to those reports, there is still nothing documented about the transcoding that would help puzzle-setters who rely on images remaining in PNG or GIF format to be aware that anything untoward was happening, or at the very least correcting the error in the file suffix and Content-Type so that it actually matches the file's contents. If I try to open any .png image in Photoshop that's been uploaded to the website, it reports Invalid File Format and I have to manually change the file suffix to .jpg in order to open it. Other image viewers still display the images simply because they're not doing any sanity checking. Relying on other people's sloppy code is not a good way to design a website.

Edited November 18, 2020 by barefootjeff

[+fbingha]

I agree with you. In really think they take the view that the the forums are just the place to avoid and ignore.

[+Roi Danton]

On 10/2/2020 at 10:40 PM, nykkole said:

We are currently reviewing all the domains that have been brought to us since the release two weeks ago. I'll post an update here once the allowed list has been updated.

 

Hi,

 

is there any update about the review of whitelisted domains? I also brought up my counter here in the thread and users tell me that they cannot use it anymore.

 

Here's the link directly to the counter and how to use it: https://www.sebald.com/en/geocaching/cachercounter/

 

Bottom line is that the image always is https://www.sebald.com/cachercounter/?gc=GCXXXXX plus maybe some options behind like https://www.sebald.com/cachercounter/?gc=GCXXXXX&created=en .

 

Regards,

Martin

[nykkole]

On 11/18/2020 at 11:49 PM, Roi Danton said:

is there any update about the review of whitelisted domains?

 

We have updated the Help Center with all approved domains in mid-October:

On 10/16/2020 at 12:56 PM, nykkole said:

Today, we have updated the approved list with some of the domains that have been brought to our attention since the initial release. The added domains are a mix of API partners that provide images (banners or flags), geocheckers, and other domains that are frequently used for hosting images.

 

You can find the udpated list in our Help Center.

 

[nykkole]

We are closing this forum thread since there don’t seem to be any more questions pertaining to this release.

The conversion of images has not been changed or updated with this release. But if you're interested, you can find some information that may answer some of the questions in this thread.