Recent change on how Drafts are handled?

[+RCH65]

On 4/8/2024 at 8:13 PM, worrellsquirrel said:

 

We apologize for any frustration related to this drafts bug. As our engineering team continues to troubleshoot, we would greatly appreciate:

• Screenshot(s) of the issue
• Detailed steps to reproduce the issue

 

Okay... here we go!

 

PS: Logging on STAGING was throwing an error. This is why is I reproduced the issue on LIVE with an archived cache of an inactive owner

STEP 1 - There are no drafts

STEP 2 - Upload drafts
Let's assume that I have a brand new (Garmin) GPSr and I have found one single cache. The geocache_visits.txt file looks like this:
 

GC3GKH8,2024-04-03T11:43Z,Found it,"Draft 1"

 

 

STEP 3 - Log the cache

 

 

-> Result: Cache has a smiley on all maps/lists and the draft entry is gone -> No problems so far 👍

STEP 4 - One day later - we found another cache

Now, the geocache_visits.txt file looks like this:
 

GC3GKH8,2024-04-03T11:43Z,Found it,"Draft 1"
GC3GFWJ,2024-04-04T10:24Z,Found it,"Draft 2"

-> Yes, the (Garmin) TXT file contains *all* found caches (up to 1000)

PROBLEM 1: After uploading the TXT file, the Drafts section unfortunately contains both (all) caches. This is a real pain because the list is getting longer and longer every day. Until June 2023, the upload process ignored already uploaded drafts.

 

 

STEP 5 - Deleting the duplicates

All I can do now is to delete the duplicate entries one by one and then log the remaining (new) ones.
 

This leads to PROBLEM 2: After deleting the duplicate draft, the smiley is replaced by an exclamation mark (forever):

 

Hope this helps...

Edited April 9, 2024 by RCH65

[+van der Decken]

3 hours ago, RCH65 said:

This leads to PROBLEM 2: After deleting the duplicate draft, the smiley is replaced by an exclamation mark (forever):

 

I've found that if you edit the original log on the cache showing the exclamation mark (even if you do nothing to thg log other than open it for editing and saving it), the extraneous exclamation mark goes away.

[+Rustynails]

Before uploading, there once was a date displayed of the last uploaded date explaining and only new logs would be added. 

[+RCH65]

13 hours ago, Rustynails said:

Before uploading, there once was a date displayed of the last uploaded date explaining and only new logs would be added. 

Oh, yes! 

 

That's what it once looked like (taken from a bug report in 2019):

-> These date/time values were automatically set after uploading a geocaching_visis.txt file - based on the most recent (last) timestamp in the file.

[+careygang]

So this issue is still with us.
I'm having this occur with my Garmin Dakota20, I've used it for years without problem, but strangely I only noticed this failure to ignore past Draft upload in the last few months.
I concur with the comments above about the Ignore Logs Before... message that was always there:


It worked fine until someone broke it. Why is it so difficult to fix???
 

[+RCH65]

On 1/27/2024 at 11:34 PM, Keystone said:

 

I'm repeating one of the two updates from Geocaching HQ in response to the false claim that there are no updates.

 

ELEVEN MONTHS...
...and no updates since April!
 

It's obvious you can't speak frankly - otherwise you would have sent us updates, no doubt.
We all see that a lot of other things are *much* more important... like "Sending postcards from adventures" or the "GeoGuessr Challenge"... and whatever else the marketing department comes up with.

I *really love* geocaching since 2007... but currently this company behaves like an arrogant monopolist.

Edited June 13, 2024 by RCH65

[+HHL]

Quote

Am einfachsten ist es, die Datei geocache_visits.txt nach jedem Upload zu Groundspeak zu löschen. Das Garmingerät legt automatisch eine neue Datei an, die dann auch nur die letzten Funde, Nicht-Funde enthält. Nach dem erneuten Hochladen wird die Datei auf dem Garmin dann wieder gelöscht. (GSAK macht das übrigens automatisch )

 

[+Rustynails]

Thank You HQ for your procrastination of this issue. I just lost my drafts when trying to filter ones already logged. How much longer before you fix what once worked? Many have been waiting a long time.  Oh, and I rarely use those silly post cards.

[+RCH65]

[+Rustynails]

On 7/19/2024 at 11:28 AM, RCH65 said:

😞 One year and counting. 😞 

[+carianne.vh]

Since this forum does not allow the attachement of .txt files here are two links:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v7m4d6r0p7ma4z5jid3wd/geocache_visits-A.txt?rlkey=bm81hb70qvb04ykdygpu8vo9l&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rkly0vkj4w5if4l7f3su0/geocache_visits-B.txt?rlkey=a4zl5raronlh1fkpd3zimc4jz&dl=0

 

 

[+The A-Team]

It's interesting that this still hasn't been fixed. The issue is actually fairly simple: the site used to make a note of a timestamp (of the most recently-uploaded draft) so any drafts older than that would be ignored, and no longer does that. The code to either record that timestamp, or to retrieve that timestamp so older drafts can be discarded, can't be that complicated. It's just a database transaction for a single value. The issue is also very simple to reproduce, as shown earlier in this topic.

 

Since this issue affects a large number of Garmin-using members, it would be a quick-win to finally get this sorted out and make a bunch of members happy.

[+RCH65]

You never gonna fix this.
Correct?

 

I'll pay the double annual fee if you

... do some *minimal* work on GPX enhancements, so *I* can do whatever you can't do / won't do  (without sending everything to project-gc)

... stop placing this redicolous ads on the web page for  paid members

... fix THIS!

 

No time? No money? You should probably stop putting all the available money into the LAB channel, which makes the whole game more and more trivial. 

Edited September 11, 2024 by RCH65

[+Rustynails]

On 8/12/2024 at 10:50 PM, The A-Team said:

It's interesting that this still hasn't been fixed. The issue is actually fairly simple: the site used to make a note of a timestamp (of the most recently-uploaded draft) so any drafts older than that would be ignored, and no longer does that. The code to either record that timestamp, or to retrieve that timestamp so older drafts can be discarded, can't be that complicated. It's just a database transaction for a single value. The issue is also very simple to reproduce, as shown earlier in this topic.

 

Since this issue affects a large number of Garmin-using members, it would be a quick-win to finally get this sorted out and make a bunch of members happy.

Not just interesting but very frustrating.  Does anyone at HQ care about this issue?

[+heichem]

Now it's october and this annoying "feature" is still alive. Today I had 121 drafts after upload - 120 were old . Is the develop team on vacations - or why is there no progress?

[+Rustynails]

I just returned from a mini vacation and can't upload any visits! What's going on?

[+Rustynails]

[+RCH65]

22 hours ago, Rustynails said:

I just returned from a mini vacation and can't upload any visits! What's going on?

 

Probably more than 1000 records in geocache_visits.txt ?

[+Rustynails]

8 hours ago, RCH65 said:

 

Probably more than 1000 records in geocache_visits.txt ?

No, less than 75.

[+baer2006]

On 10/21/2024 at 10:55 PM, Rustynails said:

I have seen that problem once, some years ago, when there was a single "corrupted" entry in the geocache_visits.txt file I tried to upload. Probably caused by some temporary glitch in my GPSR at that time.

[+CarstenJ]

I am currently having problems uploading my draft TXT file here as well. For testing purposes, I used a very small file that contained only one single log in the usual format, created by my geocaching app as always. That's why I suspect that there's nothing wrong with the file or its format, but that there's something wrong on the geocaching.com server side. It returns the attached error message. I would be grateful if this could be resolved quickly, because there are some 100 drafts more waiting to be uploaded, and it will be a real pain to manually enter all of them one by one. And after all, functionality of the web site is one of the things we could expect as paying members. I would also appreciate any hints on what that error message is all about and if I may need to modify my TXT files. Thank you!

[+xcure]

I get this error message when trying to upload geocache_visits.txt from my Garmin Montana 610

"Failed to get caller activity. 'take' can not be greater than 50 is not in the correct format."

 

The file only contains 1 line. Not sure what "take" is and why it's greater than 50?

 

I was able to upload drafts as late as Oct 20th - 4 days ago. What has changed since and when will it be fixed?

 

Thanks!

 

xcure

[+RCH65]

Yeah, now it's even *more* broken...

 

Tried a *geocache_visits.txt* file that worked before (took it out of the trash bin) and here we are:

 

Is this possibly the next step in their evil plan to move us from the GPSr to the app? 😮🤪🤡🤷

 

 

[SnowstormMK]

Those of you who got the error message: Can you please try again, we just released a potential fix.

[+xcure]

Just tried again, and now the draft file is uploaded. Brilliant, thanks! ;o)

 

xcure

[SnowstormMK]

Thank you for confirming. This fix should also have fixed the original issues of old drafts being uploaded, please let us know if that is not the case.

[+RCH65]

Yes, it's working again... AND... it didn't even upload drafts I've already logged as found! 😮
Did you really fix the original issue of this thread? 🤩

[SnowstormMK]

Thank you for confirming that the original issue was also fixed.