Release Notes (Website: Search filtering) - August 26, 2021

[+Geocaching HQ]

Release Notes (Website: Search filtering) - August 26, 2021
 
With this release, filtering on Geocaching.com is faster, cleaner, and best of all, redesigned specifically to help you find the geocaches you want. The filters* on the Search and the Map are now a cohesive experience with a refreshed design for geocachers to quickly apply relevant filters and get out geocaching. 

 

Highlights of the release:

 

• The functionality of all filters has not changed, only the visual design.
• The filter panel now features collapsing sections which group related filters together.
• “Caches I have not found” and “Caches I do not own” filters are applied by default for Premium members.
• A filter to show geocaches that will fill your missing D/T grid has now been incorporated directly into the filter panel for Premium members.
• Geocachers can now search by geocache name in the main search bar, in addition to the "Geocache name contains" search box.
• The “Not found by” filter now supports up to 10 players (or 11 if you include yourself).
• Use the Search filter in the Location section to search by country, city, state, coordinates, or GC code. The default is a worldwide search. Also in the Location section, fill in the Distance from Location filter to confine your search to a radius from your chosen location.

 
Remember, you can display your search results display in list form or directly on the Geocaching.com map by adjusting your preferences in Settings.

 

*Advanced filtering is a benefit of Premium membership. 

 

Pooja (onepooja), Product Manager, is watching this thread to answer questions whenever possible.

 

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

[+Max and 99]

42 minutes ago, Geocaching HQ said:

The “Not found by” filter now supports up to 10 players (or 11 if you include yourself).

The filters are still not abiding by the Not Found by parameter.

[+Max and 99]

43 minutes ago, Geocaching HQ said:

“Caches I have not found” and “Caches I do not own” filters are applied by default for Premium members

I logged out of the website and back in and these filters are not applied by default for me.

[+Birdie.NL]

How does this apply:

“Caches I have not found” and “Caches I do not own” filters are applied by default for Premium members.

 

When clicking the Search-link  I still see all possible near-by caches, not only the one I have not found yet (even after logging out and logging in again)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by Birdie.NL

[+Isonzo Karst]

Windows, Firefox current version

 

Search seems to be working as described, however mapping search results, usernames are lost.  The URL of search

https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?g=-1&ot=4&nfb[0]=Isonzo+Karst&nfb[1]=FloridaPanther&f=2&o=2&e=1

the URL of map

https://www.geocaching.com/play/map?lat=28.5189&lng=-82.2210&zoom=10&asc=true&sort=distance&hf=1&ho=1&st=N+28°+31.213'+W+82°+12.727'&ot=coords&sd=0&nfb=undefined&nfb=undefined

 

turning all usernames into undefined.   (A very cool username, in use unfortunately).

Edited August 26, 2021 by Isonzo Karst

[+kunarion]

33 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

I logged out of the website and back in and these filters are not applied by default for me.

 

It worked for me in Brave just now.  So I tried IE and Chrome, and the filters are not set by default, they don't work.  Then I went back to Brave and it also didn't work -- it was back to no filters set.  So I logged out of all 3, logged back in, and the only one with automatically applied “Caches I have not found” and “Caches I do not own” filters is Brave.  Guess I need to wait a while longer.

 

EDIT:  It broke for me in Brave again.  Not only are there not the found/owned default filters, but now the "10 miles" distance is grayed-out and I can't select a distance, it's listing the whole world.  Yeah, gonna wait til they finish working on this.

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by kunarion

[+gsbarnes]

The old functionality that allowed you to only include results in a certain geographic entity (e.g., the US State of Oregon, or the country of Belgium) no longer appears in the filters.

In addition, if I choose my home location, a distance, and a few other filters, invariably it drops the location and distance and gives me results in the entire world.

[+barefootjeff]

I go to Play - Search, then in the opening page I click in the City, state, coordinates, GC code... box and select Home Location - 16km radius option:

 

 

That then brings up all the caches within that radius, including ones I've found and ones I own:

 

 

If I click on Filters and do anything, for example select Not found by me and Caches I don't own, it then throws away my search location and radius and instead does a worldwide search:

 

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by barefootjeff

[+kunarion]

17 minutes ago, gsbarnes said:

if I choose my home location, a distance, and a few other filters, invariably it drops the location and distance and gives me results in the entire world.

 

Give it some more time.  This afternoon, I was getting that a lot, and at the moment, it's consistently populating the "location" and filtering out owned/found caches (the new default).  So I've bookmarked that as my Geocaching start page.  But that was using Brave.  I didn't test IE and Chrome again, because I hardly ever use them to browse Geocaching.

[+barefootjeff]

Here's another quirk. If I set a region for my search, say New South Wales, the Filters box shows this for the location:

 

 

Whatever "Distance from New South Wales, Australia" is meant to do, it doesn't appear to do anything, as I get the same results whether I set the distance to 0 or 1000km. Perhaps the Distance field needs to be greyed out when doing regional searches.

[+Team Canary]

Caches I Own and Cache I've Found are not defaulting correctly.

 

I still do not have the option for filter by NOTE, which used to be there. 

 

I do know the work around of adding "&note=2" works, so its still functional and you can rectify this.

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Team Canary
Typo

[+gsbarnes]

2 hours ago, gsbarnes said:

The old functionality that allowed you to only include results in a certain geographic entity (e.g., the US State of Oregon, or the country of Belgium) no longer appears in the filters.

To clarify, I see that the Region choice is now combined with the Starting Location, but that reduces the functionality of Search.  I used to be able, for example, to search for all Earthcaches in Washington State within 75 miles of Bellingham, but this is no longer possible.  Either I specify Washington State, and get all the Earthcaches in the state, sorted by proximity to my house, or I choose Bellingham and get a bunch of caches across the border in British Columbia. 

 

The two location choices need to be separated to maintain the old functionality. 

[+MartyBartfast]

"Not found by me" and "Caches I don't own" are NOT automatically selected for me (a PM).

 

I logged out and back in again and still no joy.

[+MartyBartfast]

When clicking to map a search selection the map STILL displays the whole world view if the search results straddle the Greenwich Meridian:


 

[+MartyBartfast]

Having performed a search for location "United Kingdom" which returns ~200,000 caches, if I then click to show the map then the filter automatically applies the "within 16km" limit, and so only maps the caches within 16km of the centre of the country:

 

[+Birdie.NL]

A typical case of Murphy's Law:

 

Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong".

[+MartyBartfast]

13 hours ago, Geocaching HQ said:

A filter to show geocaches that will fill your missing D/T grid has now been incorporated directly into the filter panel for Premium members.

 

This is good and much better than the old sliders , but would be better if it was a 9x9 selection for each individual D/T combination.

 

E.G. As it is, if I need a 2/3 and a 1/5 I have to select D1 & 2 and T3 & 5 so it searches for 1/3 1/5 2/3 & 2/5, whereas the ability to just choose the specific combinations would be better.

[+MartyBartfast]

2 hours ago, MartyBartfast said:

"Not found by me" and "Caches I don't own" are NOT automatically selected for me (a PM).

 

I logged out and back in again and still no joy.

 

Correction:

If I do a search and enter nothing into the searchbar in the first screen, then click Filters it DOES apply the "Not found by me" and "Caches I don't own"  filters

If I do a search and enter something into the searchbar in the first screen then it does NOT apply those filters.

[+MartyBartfast]

The way the tick boxes work is counter intuitive. By default none of these boxes are ticked and intuitively I would expect this search to return no results (because I haven't selected any cache type or D/T or size)  but the search behaves as if ALL were ticked :-

 

[+Lynx Humble]

Not impressed at all by this update that create more bugs into the system once again.

 

Should have spent their time in the already existing bugs and issues instead.

[+ZSteve]

So....How to do I find an archived cache?  Pretty important feature, so I must be missing something basic.

 

We used to be able to input the GC# and have the option to select that one cache.  I don't see anything in the search settings that lets me select that as an option.  I guess one can edit the URL to go to a specific archived cache, but that seems like a pretty inefficient way to get there.

Edited August 27, 2021 by ZSteve

[+Isonzo Karst]

Quote

Remember, you can display your search results display in list form or directly on the Geocaching.com map by adjusting your preferences in Settings.

I did not know that option existed. Set results to go maps. Broken in the following ways:

 

 Brooksville  typed into search I'm given   options:

GC87J28 Brookville Spur (Good Neighbor Trail)

GC72W2D Murals of Brooksville

Brooksville FL

Brooksville GA

and more.

It makes no difference which I select, the default of Not Found, Not Owned is Not Respected. 

 

From the map output above, selecting Brooksville FL,  I can use filters, expand to 16 miles,   ask for Not Found, Not Owned and Not Found by USERNAME 1 and USERNAME 2 - I get caches that i haven't found and don't own. However,  map  shows geoart that  both Username 1 and Username 2 have found.

 

From Search, output to a list, if I ask  for caches regional, Brooksville FL 16 miles,  not owned, not Found by me, not Found by USERNAME 1 and USERNAME 2  I get a probabaly correct list of 3 caches.

If I map those results, I'm shown 258 caches, correct for Not Found by me.  It's wrong for the other usernames.

 

Offering more NOT Found by Usernames and then breaking the mapping function for that is not an improvement. 

 

 

Lost is the ability to see an archived cache by GC Code, or any other way that I've tried. Including my own.

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Isonzo Karst

[+Isonzo Karst]

Curious about the new, " filter to show geocaches that will fill your missing D/T grid", I tried it.

It came back with 10,826 results.  I decided to add the regional filter of Florida,;-)  which gave me 146 results, roadside powertrails with bogus D/T ratings (grid candy).

So I removed the regional filter, and added placed date prior to Aug 2011.

Now it's listing caches I've found....

 

Not Found needs to be conserved.

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Isonzo Karst

[+onepooja]

Hello,

 

We really appreciate your feedback and specially getting into the details with screenshots and repro steps.We are in the process of gathering, reviewing and prioritizing the feedback\bugs.As this was one of the big complex launch impacting both the search and map page, we appreciate your patience as our team is working on it.

Edited August 27, 2021 by onepooja

[+Glen Falcon Terrors]

Archived caches feature in many of the Master of Mystery Puzzles.

 

Unless the MOM CO added a link to an archived cache (which obviously wasn't wasn't archived when the MoM was set), it now appears that you cannot progress any further with the MoM, as you cannot access archived caches.

 

For example, GC13AXK, which is puzzle 5 in MoM #5 Montreal - there are many others.

 

Could this be reviewed please?

 

 

[+barefootjeff]

1 hour ago, Glen Falcon Terrors said:

Archived caches feature in many of the Master of Mystery Puzzles.

 

Unless the MOM CO added a link to an archived cache (which obviously wasn't wasn't archived when the MoM was set), it now appears that you cannot progress any further with the MoM, as you cannot access archived caches.

 

For example, GC13AXK, which is puzzle 5 in MoM #5 Montreal - there are many others.

 

Could this be reviewed please?

 

 

 

You can still access archived caches by going through coord.info, for example coord.info/GC13AXK .

[+Clan-Wallace]

Mapping is broken:
Example: Malta Regional Search gives

 

Which is correct for the listing but when "Map These

Geocaches" is pressed we get:

 

Just 4500 plus miles out.

[+Glen Falcon Terrors]

10 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

You can still access archived caches by going through coord.info, for example coord.info/GC13AXK .

Thanks jeff - that link does work and is a great alternative workaround.

*Showing my ignorance here* - do I need to create a new link each time amending the GC code, or where is that facility on Geocaching.com?

If I try to access via the usual search function on Geocaching front page, this is what now happens - see pic.

[+barefootjeff]

6 minutes ago, Glen Falcon Terrors said:

*Showing my ignorance here* - do I need to create a new link each time amending the GC code, or where is that facility on Geocaching.com?

 

Just type coord.info/GCwhatever into your browser and it will go straight to the cache page.

[+Glen Falcon Terrors]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Just type coord.info/GCwhatever into your browser and it will go straight to the cache page.

OK that's good. Thanks

(I thought maybe there was something in Geocaching.com)

[+me N u]

On 8/26/2021 at 11:03 PM, barefootjeff said:

I go to Play - Search, then in the opening page I click in the City, state, coordinates, GC code... box and select Home Location - 16km radius option:

 

 

That then brings up all the caches within that radius, including ones I've found and ones I own:

 

 

If I click on Filters and do anything, for example select Not found by me and Caches I don't own, it then throws away my search location and radius and instead does a worldwide search:

 

 

 

On 8/27/2021 at 10:33 AM, MartyBartfast said:

The way the tick boxes work is counter intuitive. By default none of these boxes are ticked and intuitively I would expect this search to return no results (because I haven't selected any cache type or D/T or size)  but the search behaves as if ALL were ticked :-

 

 

Just have to speak up on this one.

 

Nearly gave up searching because of these 2 glitches intentional features, I'm not the most tech savvy person in the world but at least I could use the previous search to provide meaningful results.

 

Mr me N u

[+ZSteve]

I'm finding this to be a very frustrating tool to use so far - hoping that some updates can be made soon.  Here are some thoughts based on what I've seen so far:

 

1) The defaults should be set to the most logical search parameters - All Cache Types, Sizes, and DT Ratings should be set on.  Why would the defaults be set to a combination that yields no caches?

  - If I input coords into the search field on the main page, I get everything within 10 miles (which is what I would expect). But, if go to the filters to make my search, I have to the turn on all the settings for Cache Types, Sizes, D and T Ratings.

  - When one resets the filter parameters, all of the above settings are removed rather than everything reset back on.  

 

2) The integration between a quick search from the main screen (where one inputs coords or GC#, etc and gets a 10 mile radius return) and the filter does not appear to work.

  - If I input coords into the box on the main page, I get everything within 10 miles (which is what I would expect).  But, if I then go to the filters to adjust something (usually the distance), even if I turn on all the settings for Cache Types, Sizes, D and T Ratings, the filter crashes and I get all 3+ million caches centered around my home coordinates.

  - It's only when I do all of the above AND delete and then reenter the coords in Location Search field that I get a good filter of caches.  

  - In fact, it appears that every time I want to adjust the filters on my search, I have to delete and then reinput my search coordinates even though the filter already shows my old search coordinates in that field.

 

3) There is no memory to the filters.

 - If I go straight to the filter to do my search and input coords, set the distance, and turn on all of the parameters, I get the results that reflect the parameters that I input.  But if I then go back into the filter to change something, some of the settings have been changed (for example, Cache Type and Size settings have been cleared).  The filter should remember the parameters being used until one hits reset. (Also see note in (2) above about having to repeatedly reinput search coordinates)

 - Anytime the filter crashes and results in a response of all 3+ million caches centered around my home coordinates, the filter clears any parameters that I set.  The old filter would return zero caches, but remember the settings so that one could go make changes as needed to get what I'm looking for.  The penalty for making a mistake or changing your mind as to what you're looking for shouldn't be starting over.

 

4) The Search routine no longer allows one to search archived caches.  There are lots of reasons to search for an archived cache and one doesn't always know if a cache has been archived when they start the search.   I don't understand why this functionality would be removed.  And while there are work-arounds, expecting the general caching community to use those work-arounds will discourage people (in my opinion).

 

5)  When I do a search by coordinates, those coordinates are then "frozen" as a selection in the filter - which makes them un-editable.  When I do a search by coordinates, I usually want to edit them most (90%?) of the time.  Being able to retain the ability to edit the location/search input would be very helpful whether it be coordinates, names, GC codes, etc.  Having to redo work is never fun.  (Of course as noted in #2 above, one currently has to completely reinput them every time, so this comment really applies once that issue has been fixed.)

 

 

[+KanoeBillder]

When searching for caches within a 35 mile radius of my home location the search engine returns over 3 Million results.

 

When I sort by Last Found, the first page returns results thousands of miles away.

 

Also the ability to limit results to a specific US State has disappeared.

 

Major changes to the geocache search engine must be tested before rolling them out to the users. Groundspeak needs to roll this back to the previous search engine that worked well.  The bugs and loss of ability to filter by US State is not an improvement.

 

Please don't roll out updates like this without testing them first.

Attached files:

Bug1 - Search within 35 miles of my location

Bug2Result - Results of that 35 mile radius search

Bug3LastFound - Results of the 35 mile radius search sorted by Last Found

 

Please fix this.

[+Isonzo Karst]

19 hours ago, HHL said:

Two things I really appreciate with this update:

1. "Regional search" is now on top of the list.

 

Windows, current Firefox

 

I see "Regional Search" on top of the offering when I start typing into the Search box only intermittently.  That said, Search returning Region first seems  better today than it was the first time I tried it, when I got a list of cache names with Brooksville and quite far down, Brooksville + State Names,

 

I assume that's what KanoeBillder experienced.   Typed StateName into Search, and got a long list of cache titles with StateName.

 

I think the attempt to have Search return cache names as well as interpret place names is not *quite* ready.  If the option to turn it  off existed, I'd do it. I'd rather have  Search box accept Codes, Coords, and place names, ie locations  - and use Keyword for words.

 

Enter coords into the Search box, it starts by returning Cache Names with W or N (and I assume in other parts of the world E or S).

 

 

[+Isonzo Karst]

This morning I'm finding alteration of the original search distance of 10 miles  returns all caches  3,337,399  ranked by distance from my location.   The original Search location parameter is lost as well.

 

Also, if you type a set of coords into the Search box and hit "enter",  search returns the first cache listed.  Some cache with N or W in the title. See my image in my post above and below.

Previously, type in a set of coords, hit enter, get caches around those coords. 

 

This is a change, that you MUST select from the list.  It's okay, in the sense that a person will get used to it. But it's a change, and I wonder if staff was aware? it's mostly not going to return the results that people are used to seeing.

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Isonzo Karst

[+Isonzo Karst]

7 hours ago, HHL said:

Type in the correct format:

Ah, Hans, thanks. 

So the Search box behavior hasn't changed, what's changed is that in the past if I typed in N30 22.886 W081 13.000 the box could only interpret that as coords and gave me back N30° 22.886' W081° 13.000'  - sending me there. Now it's trying for text as well.

 

Now I can type in N30° 22.886' W081° 13.000'   hit enter,  get zero results (just a hair too far offshore), expand search zone to 15 miles, which should give me the coastal caches of Jacksonville FL, (100 per Pocket Query results)  and instead get 3,337,399  ranked by distance from my home location  ;-) 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Isonzo Karst

[+Birdie.NL]

Very strange things are happening with the Search:

 

I use my home town of Haarlem, North Holland, Netherlands
and what is the result: Buenos Aires, Argentina.

 

Please roll back this entire release since it definitely is not sound and tested.

 

I

[+barefootjeff]

The location filter on the search map is also not working for me (Firefox 91.0.2 on Windows 10). If I set the location in the filter to the city of Tamworth in New South Wales (Australia) with the default 16km radius:

 

 

what I get is the first 1000 caches sorted by distance around my home in Umina Beach (some 270km from Tamworth):

 

[+Team Canary]

On 8/27/2021 at 6:00 AM, Geocaching HQ said:

Pooja (onepooja), Product Manager, is watching this thread to answer questions whenever possible.

 

Is anyone going to answer our concerns?

[Keystone]

1 hour ago, Team Canary said:

 

Is anyone going to answer our concerns?

 

Did you read onepooja's post to this thread from Friday?  It's been the weekend since then.  If work did not continue over the weekend, I am sure it will resume on Monday morning.

[+barefootjeff]

9 minutes ago, Keystone said:

 

Did you read onepooja's post to this thread from Friday?  It's been the weekend since then.  If work did not continue over the weekend, I am sure it will resume on Monday morning.

 

Perhaps it's not a good idea to release a "big complex launch impacting both the search and map page" just before the weekend.

[Keystone]

The release occurred mid-day Thursday, Seattle time.  Anyways, that was not the question asked.

[+Viajero Perdido]

Search on the map:

 

Sometimes, when you type your search text, it swallows the first character. Annoying!  Backspace backspace backspace... 

 

(Sorry if this isn't new behavior; I have no idea because I don't use the feature except when HQ says, try it now.)

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Viajero Perdido

[+Team Canary]

3 hours ago, Keystone said:

 

Did you read onepooja's post to this thread from Friday?  It's been the weekend since then.  If work did not continue over the weekend, I am sure it will resume on Monday morning.

No. I missed it. Apologies. 

But it still had no answers. 
 

I have to agree Thursday left us with a lot of time to find faults without answers. 

[+Mausebiber]

Works as expected without any problems

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Mausebiber

[+Mausebiber]

Really strange, non of the problems above occure here:

 

 

 

 

[+Lynx Humble]

6 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Perhaps it's not a good idea to release a "big complex launch impacting both the search and map page" just before the weekend.

Well it would have been an even better idea to test their "big complex launch" before releasing it to the public.

 

How the heck they missed some issues like entering a coordinates gives you unexpected results far away...

[+Isonzo Karst]

Mausebiber, try a second alteration of the search parameters. I used your coords, selected the third item from the pulldown, which was those coords with a default search radius of 10 miles. 

Then I tried filters, extended the search radius to 50 miles, AND selected Letterbox Hybrid.  Return was all the LBH in the world, ranked by distance from my home coords.   Lost was the search center,  and the radius.  Oddly the URL  retains radius of 50 miles,  but the out put does not. 

geocaching.com/play/search?radius=50mi&types=5&sort=Distance&asc=False

 

The Not Owned, Not Found defaults seem to be gone this morning. 

 

 

I expect this was working okay for the relatively small beta group.   Release has revealed problems. Fixes may take some time. 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Isonzo Karst

[+brendan714]

I am confused why the default search includes no cache types, no cache sizes, no difficulties and no terrains?

I would expect the exact opposite: include everything by default and let me decide what to remove. 

I am more likely to want to search everything than nothing.

[+brendan714]

Major bug: Say I do a search for caches within 100 km of home.  Any time I go back into the filters and change anything, it automatically resets the location to worldwide (even though when I run the search, it still says 100 km from home in the location / distance from location boxes).  The search/filters need to remember that I set it to within 100 km of home.

 

It also seems to sometimes reset found status back to "not found by me" and owner status to "caches I don't own" in a similar way after I selected other options.