Unknown error when uploading GMZ to Wherigo.com

[+LHCper]

When I want to upload a new GWZ file to Wherigo.com I get "An unknown error occurred".
So what do I do know?  Have uploaded cartridge before for another Wherigo.

 

GWZ has been built using Urwigo.
Tried both with and without UTF-8.

Size of GWZ file is 138kB.

Later the same day I uploaded another cartridge for another Geocache I have created. That one uploaded without any problems. So it is surely something with this cartridge.

 

Edited August 26, 2023 by LHCper
Added information about size.

[+arisoft]

Same happened to me. I found a long list of options what may cause this. It is a terrible system.

 

In my case the reason was some header text that was formatted different way as the upload required.

 

I found the reason by comparing a working cardridge with the failing cartridge. I changed the text line by line until it stopped uploading correctly.

[Keystone]

I moved this thread from the Geocaching.com Website Bug Reporting forum.

[+LHCper]

13 hours ago, arisoft said:

Same happened to me. I found a long list of options what may cause this. It is a terrible system.

 

In my case the reason was some header text that was formatted different way as the upload required.

 

I found the reason by comparing a working cardridge with the failing cartridge. I changed the text line by line until it stopped uploading correctly.

I am using Swedish characters, even in variable names, so maybe that can cause this? OK, I suppose I will have to try to change things and to see if I can find what is causing this.
It would have been nice to get a better error message, of course.

[+capoaira]

It may could also caused by the fact, that linebreaks are converted to html during upload, but html is not allowed. So you have do remove the <br> from the description manually. 

 

7 hours ago, LHCper said:

I am using Swedish characters, even in variable names, so maybe that can cause this? OK, I suppose I will have to try to change things and to see if I can find what is causing this.

It's generally a good idea to program in english with only "normal" letters. 

Sadly Wherigo doesn't support umlauts (or it's very difficult). So I don't use them in my texts (Like ä => ae, ö => oe, ü => ue, ß => ss). I recommend you to handle it always like that on Wherigos, also if that doesn't cause the error.

 

7 hours ago, LHCper said:

It would have been nice to get a better error message, of course

Yes, we all waiting for it😅

[+LHCper]

21 hours ago, capoaira said:

It's generally a good idea to program in english with only "normal" letters. 

Sadly Wherigo doesn't support umlauts (or it's very difficult). So I don't use them in my texts (Like ä => ae, ö => oe, ü => ue, ß => ss). I recommend you to handle it always like that on Wherigos, also if that doesn't cause the error.

Definitely for the actual code (as normally 7 bit ASCII is used) but for texts presented for the user I prefer to have it in the local language. (Although I have been known to make English only caches - e.g. an ALC). A majority of my caches usually have both Swedish and English. Of my two Wherigo, one was a translated German one to Swedish, and the other was Bilingual (English/Swedish) - see below.

 

Personally, in general, I have better experience to not add extra letters when doing the transformations; this makes it easier to read as the brain often just sees the first and last letter, and the length. (Try e.g. to swap to letters and see that it does little to affect readability.)

So å => a, ä => a, ö => o. I suppose ü => u might work nicely as well. ß => ss I do not know but maybe that is a common transformation so maybe readers are used to it?

 

I did make a bilingual Wherigo where all texts were duplicated. And then had an initial choice of languages, and an if-then statement for all texts. That was a bit of an extra work.
Making two cartridges and let user chose might be another way, but I do not know if it is supported to have multiple cartridges in a single geocache?

 

But if it is the Swedish characters I think it might be that I used it in zone names. This as I used current_zone.name in some Dialog messages.
Also in Variables, Characters, Items, ...
So it might be that the actual texts work fine, but internal things maybe not work as well.

But I will try to clean it up a bit to see if I can get it to work.
Maybe I can use a function to lookup the name of the zone in an if-else-then and use this value, instead of using current_zone.name?

Edited August 28, 2023 by LHCper
Small clarification about ASCII.

[+capoaira]

On 8/28/2023 at 1:46 PM, LHCper said:

I do not know but maybe that is a common transformation so maybe readers are used to it?

Yes in german it is a common transformation, like the other I wrote too. I know a cacher who use that allways. 

I don't know how it is in sweden. 

 

On 8/28/2023 at 1:46 PM, LHCper said:

Making two cartridges and let user chose might be another way, but I do not know if it is supported to have multiple cartridges in a single geocache?

Yes it not directly suppored, but possibly. In that case you have 2 cartridges on Wherigo.com an in you geocache description you have a link to both.

 

On 8/28/2023 at 1:46 PM, LHCper said:

But I will try to clean it up a bit to see if I can get it to work.
Maybe I can use a function to lookup the name of the zone in an if-else-then and use this value, instead of using current_zone.name?

current_zone.name should be just a variable with. The value shouldn't be a problem. But sometimes I'm surprised by what caused an error, so I'm sure it's worth a try.

Let us know if that solve the problem. 

[+LHCper]

I tried to remove national characters, and in some cases spaces, from Zone, Characters, Items, Variables. 
But it still does not upload.
Have tried gwz with both UTF-8 and without.
Tried the compilation (gwz -> gwc) and it does not report any problems.

I have a potential problem when playing the cartridge - I have more than 7 active zones, but I do not see that should cause this problem.

But suddenly it worked. I think it was the name of the cartridge that was the problem.
It was called:
  Lejonjakten i Linköping (English: Lion Hunt in Linköping)
When I renamed it to
  Lejonjakten
It managed to upload.