Favourites not being awarded

[+WingedWrench]

Hey everyone,

 

So I am a premium member,  I was awarded 3 fav points for my first 30 finds but since then I haven't been awarded the other two for getting to 50.  Wondering if anyone else has seen this and what the fix could be.  I have one cache that is so very deserving of a point but I don't have the 2 points I should have to hand out.

[Moun10Bike]

Favorites are not awarded for finding Adventures. 

[+WingedWrench]

Hi Moun10bike,  I thought of this, and did 11 traditional caches yesterday as a test and was still not awarded a fav point.

[Moun10Bike]

2 hours ago, WingedWrench said:

Hi Moun10bike,  I thought of this, and did 11 traditional caches yesterday as a test and was still not awarded a fav point.

 

You have 54 finds of which 19 are Adventure labs, so that makes 35 "qualifying" finds. You should have 1 FP from becoming premium and then 1 for every 10 qualifying finds, or 1 + 3. I show you as having 4 Favorite points total with one left to give, so it seems that you have been awarded the correct amount.

[+WingedWrench]

Ok. I thought I only had 12 of the adventure labs.  My account isn't showing the 1 still left, it shows the 11 I did yesterday.  I've tried logging out and back in, both on PC and the app.

[Moun10Bike]

That "0 Favorite points" that you show in your screenshot of your profile refers to FPs you've received on your hides.

[+CAVinoGal]

On your Dashboard page, scroll down to the "Lists" and you'll see Watchlist, and Favorites.  That will show you how many favoritie points you have available to give.  If you click the ? it will show you your total points "earned" and how many caches you need to find till your next one is earned.

  

 

 

[+WingedWrench]

Moun10Bike, oh.  Iam sorry.  Still learning how everything works and where to find information.  Thank you very much for the info.

CAVInoGal found it!  Have the point. now just need to figure out how to award it for one I've already been too.

 

Thanks!

[+CAVinoGal]

34 minutes ago, WingedWrench said:

now just need to figure out how to award it for one I've already been too.

If you go to the cache page for the cache you want to award the point to, you'll find the number of favorites the cache already has, and an arrow.  Click the arrow, and you'll be able to add a favorite point.  If you haven't yet logged a Find you can't add a favorite point.  And if you already have awarded it a point, you can remove it.

 

[Moun10Bike]

On 5/5/2022 at 3:43 PM, WingedWrench said:

Moun10Bike, oh.  Iam sorry.  Still learning how everything works and where to find information.  Thank you very much for the info.

CAVInoGal found it!  Have the point. now just need to figure out how to award it for one I've already been too.

 

Thanks!

 

No worries! I'm glad we got everything sorted out!

[+EagleScout29]

Hi! I'm new to the forums, so please let me know if I'm doing anything wrong. This thread seems like the closest match to what I think is a bug that I ran into, so I thought I'd share that here. I'm going to make this as clear and simple as I can, but I apologize if it's confusing.

 

Last Saturday (5/7), I was at 189 finds. I found and logged a "Found It" on GC9TAGH, bringing my total find count up to 190. However, I wasn't awarded a favorite point when doing so.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Help Center page on Favorites (https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=7&pgid=287) says that Premium Members get 1 fav pt for becoming a member and 1 fav pt for every 10 finds, including finds as a Basic Member before the FIRST time that you get PM (but not when it's expired). My membership hasn't ever lapsed since the first time that I got it.

 

Using the info above, I should have 1 pt for becoming a PM and 19 more points for finds (since I have 190 finds), making a total of 20 favorite points. However, I only have 19 fav pts. If I look at the favorites page in the user dashboard, it says that I'm at 9/10 finds to next fav pt, with 1 more log to next pt, 0 pts remaining, and 19 total pts. As far as I remember, I've always gotten another fav pt on finds ending in -0. This was the case with finds all the way up to 170 and 180, but not 190 for some reason. I DO NOT have any Adventure Lab finds, as was the case above. My 180th find was on 4/7, if that helps any. And I DO remember getting a fav pt when I logged that find.

 

Here's some other technical details if needed:

-How to reproduce: I don't know. This is the first time I've seen this.

-Operating system: Windows 10

-Chrome version: Version 101.0.4951.64 (Official Build) (64-bit)

-I don't have any other browsers that I use, but when looking at the website with Safari on my iPhone, it shows the same thing as Chrome does on my computer.

-190th find logged on GC9TAGH.

 

I'd appreciate any help to see where I'm not understanding how fav pts work or if this is a bug. Thank you!!

 

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by EagleScout29
Adding more info.

[Moun10Bike]

It's hard to know exactly, but looking at your log history, I would guess that it's because you deleted two prior find logs on that last cache (the system has some checks that are often triggered by deleting and relogging). You should be able to write into the customer service department and get things squared away - just visit https://www.geocaching.com/help and look for the "Contact Us" section at the bottom.

[+EagleScout29]

I relogged that cache twice solely because I never got the favorite point I was expecting... so it seems like the bug occurred before the relogging happened.

 

I'll go ahead and contact Customer Service, anyways. Thank you for your help- I appreciate it!

[geoawareUSA9]

In the past, there was a bug where a cache find did not count towards a favorite point if you awarded a favorite point as you were logging the find. Perhaps you were affected by it.

 

It got me into the habit of awarding points after I logged my finds.

[+EagleScout29]

Maybe that's why. I'll consider doing that in the future!

 

I contacted Customer Service and they added a favorite point to my account. Thank you Moun10Bike and geoawareUSA9 for the help!

[+ChriBli]

18 hours ago, geoawareUSA9 said:

In the past, there was a bug where a cache find did not count towards a favorite point if you awarded a favorite point as you were logging the find. Perhaps you were affected by it.

It doesn't seem like EagleScout29 has been a member long enough to be hit by that bug. I was, however. Today I have 4,420 finds ex lab and adventure caches, but have only been awarded 432 FP. That means I'm missing ten FP (eleven if you get one extra when you go premium). I can't be bothered to do anything about it.

 

I have never understood why there is a need for a separate FP counter (that can become unsynced) instead of just using the greater of (non-lab finds divided by ten) and (FPs already spent).

[+Hügh]

42 minutes ago, ChriBli said:

I have never understood why there is a need for a separate FP counter

 

I believe that you do not earn 1/10 of a point for caches logged while you are a basic member (although that might have changed since I upgraded.)

 

So the system would actually have to compute (non-lab finds found while a membership was active) minus (points spent). A separate counter is easier. 

[+ChriBli]

17 minutes ago, Hügh said:

 

I believe that you do not earn 1/10 of a point for caches logged while you are a basic member (although that might have changed since I upgraded.)

No, that's not true. At least not for the first time you become a premium member. I had 1,000 finds when I did, and I got 100 FP to start with. Maybe if you go back to basic and then to premium again?

[+EagleScout29]

31 minutes ago, Hügh said:

I believe that you do not earn 1/10 of a point for caches logged while you are a basic member (although that might have changed since I upgraded.)

 

In the Help Center article I linked above (https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=7&pgid=287), it says the following:

 

"The fine print: If you found caches as a Basic member, you are prorated Favorite points the first time you become a Premium member. If your subscription lapses for any reason, you will not earn Favorite points until you renew your Premium membership, at which time the Favorite points will start accruing again at one Favorite point per 10 finds."

 

Maybe that's outdated info? I bought Premium in October of 2020, when I had 43 finds. When I upgraded from a Basic Member to Premium Member, I'm pretty sure I remember getting the equivalent amount of points (4) to the number of finds I had. And it adds up, 1 pt for becoming a member and 19 points (Customer Service added a favorite point to my account as I mentioned above) for 190 finds. I'm not 4 points short like I would be if my finds before becoming a PM didn't count. And my membership hasn't ever lapsed, ruling out the second part of that quote from the Help Center article.

 

Also, even though I got the favorite point added to my account, they didn't reset my "logs to next favorite point" count, so I'll get another point if I log another cache since it's still at 9/10. I told them that and asked if it could get reset to 0/10 like it should've been when I got the favorite point, but I haven't heard back from them. Perhaps I just need to stop caring about my count being off 1 log for whatever reason (probably due to a bug) as it's going to be off if I log any Adventure Lab caches.  

[Moun10Bike]

1 hour ago, ChriBli said:

I have never understood why there is a need for a separate FP counter (that can become unsynced) instead of just using the greater of (non-lab finds divided by ten) and (FPs already spent).

 

There are a couple of reasons off the top of my head. First, when FPs were initially introduced, events didn't count toward accruing points, so the figuring had to be done separately. The other, perhaps more significant reason is that the developers wanted to implement protections against gaming the system. I won't go into the details of that system for technical as well as other obvious reasons, but it necessitated a separate means of accounting.

[+Hügh]

44 minutes ago, EagleScout29 said:

Maybe that's outdated info?

 

56 minutes ago, ChriBli said:

No, that's not true. At least not for the first time you become a premium member.

 

It must have changed. When I upgraded to Premium, I remember deleting and re-logging a hundred or so finds so I could have the points. 

 

Either way, this bit:

 

46 minutes ago, EagleScout29 said:

If your subscription lapses for any reason, you will not earn Favorite points until you renew your Premium membership

 

would require a separate counter. 

[worrellsquirrel]

As it turns out, "attended" logs do not count toward your Favorite point progress.

 

Edit: This might not be the case - I had various results while testing this. Currently looking further into it.

Edited May 12, 2022 by worrellsquirrel

[+EagleScout29]

Oh that makes sense!  I'm glad to now be aware of that factor for the Favorite points! 

 

As I said in my email to Support, this might've already been considered after my exchange with them, but it would probably be nice to get the Premium member features article in the Help Center (https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=7&pgid=287) updated to include "event" caches listed under the second bullet point of the Earn favorite points section, along with Adventure Labs, etc... That is, if I didn't overlook it there. Just a thought.