Release Notes (Website: New geocache and trackable logging flow) - November 2, 2023

[+Joe_L]

The picture size restriction is bad.  Yesterday, I came across a cache with a container problem.  I made a temporary fix.  I tried to message a before and after photo to the CO, but they were just over the limit.  
 

I was going to email them to them CO, but I used a quick work-around.  I use a Hotmail account so I emailed the photos to myself.  Right before it Sends, it asks what size the attachments should be (Actual, large, medium, and small).  I sent them medium then uploaded the smaller photos to my phone.  Then from there, I added them to a Message to the. CO. 

[+brendan714]

I always get this error the first time I try to log a cache on any particular day:

Once I refresh the page it works fine, but it does seem like a bug to me. 

[+Seeker Badger]

On 11/25/2023 at 10:05 AM, MartyBartfast said:

When you've pasted the image click the "Rotate 90 Right" and rotate it 4 times so it goes back to upright and then upload it, that seem to work.
It might also work to click the Flip Horizontal/Vertical twice (2 fewer clicks  )

THANK YOU, that works!  I flipped it on the horizontal twice and then it updated. Unfortunately it updated flipped, so I then had to edit it but at least I’ve now got it uploaded. What a performance!

[+The A-Team]

On 11/25/2023 at 2:05 AM, MartyBartfast said:

When you've pasted the image click the "Rotate 90 Right" and rotate it 4 times so it goes back to upright and then upload it, that seem to work.
It might also work to click the Flip Horizontal/Vertical twice (2 fewer clicks  )

See my post a few up. At least for me, the buttons don't act the way you'd expect.

[+janrei_]

When logging a specific trackable, I noticed that the small icon before the title does not load. On the listing page, however, the icon is loaded without any problems.

Instead of the icon, the logging page shows the alt text, which breaks the layout on my Firefox 120 and makes the other texts difficult to read. This does not seem to happen on other browsers. Also, the icons should be loaded via HTTPS to avoid mixed content warnings.

 

[+CCFwasG]

On 11/25/2023 at 10:46 AM, Joe_L said:

The picture size restriction is bad.  Yesterday, I came across a cache with a container problem.  I made a temporary fix.  I tried to message a before and after photo to the CO, but they were just over the limit.  
 

I was going to email them to them CO, but I used a quick work-around.  I use a Hotmail account so I emailed the photos to myself.  Right before it Sends, it asks what size the attachments should be (Actual, large, medium, and small).  I sent them medium then uploaded the smaller photos to my phone.  Then from there, I added them to a Message to the. CO. 

Honestly, we shouldn't have to do that. I'm no way going to spend extra time re-sizing photos when the website had/has the ability to do it. 

I might have missed a post but does anyone know if they intend to fix the trackables logging list? (Used to not include locked TBs and now it does, making my list both too long and having to uncheck TBs.)

[+CCFwasG]

On 11/18/2023 at 6:05 PM, arisoft said:

 

Have you ever compared images that are smaller or greater than 5 MB? Phone manufacturers just bloats the default image size to fill the memory faster. I have two camera apps to make things easy - dedicated camera app for geocaching. I started this practice years ago, because Message Center was not able to resize large images. Anyway, I am not against fixing this problem, because many smart phone users doesn't have tools or skill to adjust the image size at all.

I tested sizes today by changing the settings. My phone (fairly new FWIW) only let me do three different sizes: two were basically the same and the other was not quite 1MB smaller. So if it defaults to 5-9MB normally it's going to be rare I can even take one small enough for the website. Hence I am very sadly not going to be posting the photos I would. And it will make me even less likely to do ECs if they need one. And I will only report damage by text not photo (already encountered that). Virtuals requiring photos will go from being simple to a pain in the youknowwhat.

[+arisoft]

9 hours ago, CCFwasG said:

I tested sizes today by changing the settings. My phone (fairly new FWIW) only let me do three different sizes: two were basically the same and the other was not quite 1MB smaller. So if it defaults to 5-9MB normally it's going to be rare I can even take one small enough for the website. Hence I am very sadly not going to be posting the photos I would. And it will make me even less likely to do ECs if they need one. And I will only report damage by text not photo (already encountered that). Virtuals requiring photos will go from being simple to a pain in the youknowwhat.

 

I suggest you to give a try if your FWIW phone is compatible with this https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.opencamera&hl=en_US

The default app in my phone is making about 4.5 MB images (no way to adjust) but I am completely satisfied with about 0.5 MB images I take with this app.

The idea of making too large image files is just to keep you buying the next FWIW branded phone.

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by arisoft

[+ChriBli]

7 hours ago, arisoft said:

 

I suggest you to give a try if your FWIW phone is compatible with this https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.opencamera&hl=en_US

The default app in my phone is making about 4.5 MB images (no way to adjust) but I am completely satisfied with about 0.5 MB images I take with this app.

The idea of making too large image files is just to keep you buying the next FWIW branded phone.

 

The next phone will take even larger images! I doubt anyone buys a new phone just because the memory got full. I think it is entirely possible that some people want to utilize the resolution that was stated in the spec sheet when they bought their phone.

[+CCFwasG]

26 minutes ago, ChriBli said:

The next phone will take even larger images! I doubt anyone buys a new phone just because the memory got full. I think it is entirely possible that some people want to utilize the resolution that was stated in the spec sheet when they bought their phone.

This is kinda sorta my problem. My phone is currently my only camera (despite having studied photography and for many years had very good cameras, I just can't afford one right now). So I bought the most affordable phone with the best camera I could get. And here is the geocaching conundrum: I want to be taking higher resolution photos MOST of the time. The ONLY time I want to get smaller size photos is when I snap cache logs or other caching pics. Now I feel like I am being forced to carry two devices. There is just no way - even if I could - that I want to go back & forth constantly changing resolution sizes. The way GC used to work was great because it just automatically re-sized. Was that too costly? I don't know but it's a nightmare for someone who really loved putting photos on her cache logs. 

[+thebruce0]

It seems odd because HQ seems to like focusing on mobile first design, yet this 5MB size cap seems geared towards desktop users who would generally have a bit of an easier time adjusting image sizes if necessary.  This change seems to affect mobile-only users to a much greater degree because yeah 5MB for a standard phone photo is almost unheard of these days. Lots of extra legwork to be able to upload photos if primarily or exclusively using a smartphone to log... =/

[+CCFwasG]

3 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

It seems odd because HQ seems to like focusing on mobile first design, yet this 5MB size cap seems geared towards desktop users who would generally have a bit of an easier time adjusting image sizes if necessary.  This change seems to affect mobile-only users to a much greater degree because yeah 5MB for a standard phone photo is almost unheard of these days. Lots of extra legwork to be able to upload photos if primarily or exclusively using a smartphone to log... =/

I'm a desktop user myself, FWIW. I almost never log from my phone - so rarely post photos from the field - but logging from a desktop any photo uploads require me to leave the GC site and futz around with the photos and re-size etc and then go back and log/load photos. Not going to happen unless absolutely necessary, sadly. 

[+brendan714]

Honestly, I'm very disappointed that the 5MB photo restriction has not been acknowledged and/or fixed by now. 

 

I consider myself reasonably tech-savvy, and I cannot figure out how to even make my smartphone take photos in a lower resolution (IF I wanted to, which I don't). Since I don't even know how to take photos with a lower resolution (if that's even possible?), I'm left with the option of editing/compressing my photos - another thing I don't know how to do without dedicated software. 

 

Long story short, this restriction for a service that encourages writing detailed logs with photos is extremely disappointing and frustrating. Please, this must be fixed. 

 

As another poster mentioned, the game has continually been made more user-friendly for mobile (smartphone) users, yet this restriction takes that 2 steps backwards. Please realize that this will lead to people simply not uploading any photos to their logs, which I'm sure is not an intended side-effect. 

 

For something that was never an issue in the past, it's frustrating that it is now a problem. 

[Oceansazul]

Thanks for all of your ongoing feedback. We have been working in the background to address bugs you have raised in this thread - thank you for the detailed repro steps when you have them, those are so helpful in isolating the issues. We are working to increase the photo limit to 10 MiB, from 5. We hope to have that fix out by the end of this week. 

[SnowstormMK]

19 hours ago, janrei_ said:

When logging a specific trackable, I noticed that the small icon before the title does not load. On the listing page, however, the icon is loaded without any problems.

Instead of the icon, the logging page shows the alt text, which breaks the layout on my Firefox 120 and makes the other texts difficult to read. This does not seem to happen on other browsers. Also, the icons should be loaded via HTTPS to avoid mixed content warnings.

 

This issue seems to be related to this particular TB. I am able to repro this, but am not able to repro this for other TBs.

[+glorieme]

42 minutes ago, Oceansazul said:

Thanks for all of your ongoing feedback. We have been working in the background to address bugs you have raised in this thread - thank you for the detailed repro steps when you have them, those are so helpful in isolating the issues. We are working to increase the photo limit to 10 MiB, from 5. We hope to have that fix out by the end of this week. 

 

OMG - thank you SO MUCH. I have a list of ECs and other caches in my Drafts to do from a September/October trip to 11 National Parks. The thought of resizing a bunch of photos was making me so frustrated. Because the laptop I use to log caches is my work computer, I can't download any resizing programs. So now I'll wait to the end of the week to do my logs. Geocaching is like my diary - and including the photos - writing personalized logs with photos to document my adventures makes the game more fun to me.

[+ChriBli]

1 hour ago, Oceansazul said:

We are working to increase the photo limit to 10 MiB, from 5. We hope to have that fix out by the end of this week. 

Yay! Great news!

[+brendan714]

1 hour ago, Oceansazul said:

Thanks for all of your ongoing feedback. We have been working in the background to address bugs you have raised in this thread - thank you for the detailed repro steps when you have them, those are so helpful in isolating the issues. We are working to increase the photo limit to 10 MiB, from 5. We hope to have that fix out by the end of this week. 

Thank you, that will be a great improvement! 

[+2Abendsegler]

46 minutes ago, SnowstormMK said:

This issue seems to be related to this particular TB. I am able to repro this, but am not able to repro this for other TBs.

 

Maybe it is the whole series "Busy Beavers GWXVIII". Some more examples of this series:

https://www.geocaching.com/live/trackable/TBAB3EH/log
https://www.geocaching.com/live/trackable/TBAB3GC/log
https://www.geocaching.com/live/trackable/TBAB3GQ/log
https://www.geocaching.com/live/trackable/TBAB3M0/log

 

The src in the img tag in the log seems to be not available and it is http and not https:

http://www.geocaching.com/images/wpttypes/a143fac6-51c1-4be5-b0fb-683afbaf6bba.gif

 

The src in the img tag in the TB listing is available:

https://img.geocaching.com/largeicon/a143fac6-51c1-4be5-b0fb-683afbaf6bba.gif

 

[SnowstormMK]

48 minutes ago, 2Abendsegler said:

 

Maybe it is the whole series "Busy Beavers GWXVIII". Some more examples of this series:

https://www.geocaching.com/live/trackable/TBAB3EH/log
https://www.geocaching.com/live/trackable/TBAB3GC/log
https://www.geocaching.com/live/trackable/TBAB3GQ/log
https://www.geocaching.com/live/trackable/TBAB3M0/log

 

The src in the img tag in the log seems to be not available and it is http and not https:

http://www.geocaching.com/images/wpttypes/a143fac6-51c1-4be5-b0fb-683afbaf6bba.gif

 

The src in the img tag in the TB listing is available:

https://img.geocaching.com/largeicon/a143fac6-51c1-4be5-b0fb-683afbaf6bba.gif

 

Thank you for the additional info, this is really helpful.

[+Optimist on the run]

I've just been unable to upload a photo that is 4.9MB, and it's asking me to use a photo that's less than 5MB. Er - it is!

[+The A-Team]

7 hours ago, Optimist on the run said:

I've just been unable to upload a photo that is 4.9MB, and it's asking me to use a photo that's less than 5MB. Er - it is!

 

The limit right now is actually 5 million bytes (MB), which is roughly 4.77 megabytes. We've been told that the limit will be increased to 10 MiB (mebibyte), which is the unit typically shown by phones and computers as MB, so it should make more sense to users in addition to giving more wiggle room.

[+thebruce0]

Yeah there's always a bit of confusion around that 'conversion'. When someone references "5MB" are they meaning 5 million bytes, or 5 Megabytes (5 * 1,024 * 1,024) by definition? (or as A-Team mentioned, MebiByte which is a relatively new term to reduce some confusion).

I fear this "computer" term isn't necessarily taught or grasped as much these days unless you're in technology. Even more confusing when you view the properties of a file to see the byte count, but also see the short short notation.

 

4.77MB = 5,001,707 bytes

Edited November 30, 2023 by thebruce0

[+kamla]

Since today it's no longer possible to load the log form of a PMO cache as basic user  This has always been possible!

Server returns error 500

Edited November 30, 2023 by kamla

[+kunarion]

33 minutes ago, kamla said:

Since today it's no longer possible to load the log form of a PMO cache as basic user  This has always been possible!

Server returns error 500

 

https://www.geocachingadmin.com/ uses the same form, so that workaround also returns Error 500 now.

[MZCacheHunter]

On 11/26/2023 at 4:23 AM, brendan714 said:

I always get this error the first time I try to log a cache on any particular day:

Once I refresh the page it works fine, but it does seem like a bug to me. 

Same here … this new logging page is so buggy. :-(

[Oceansazul]

On 11/28/2023 at 1:16 PM, Oceansazul said:

We are working to increase the photo limit to 10 MiB, from 5. We hope to have that fix out by the end of this week. 

Unfortunately we ran into an issue while working on the photo size increase and will not have this fix out until early next week. Thanks for your patience. 

[+2Abendsegler]

It's just a strange little thing, actually completely unimportant. But sometimes you think about things like that. I'm still wondering what's up with the cryptic name between the first photo and the photo buttons on the log view page.

It seems to be the cache or TB log identification.
 
Does anyone have any idea why this information is displayed with the photos, as if it has something to do with the photos? Or does it have something to do with the photos? And why isn't it displayed if there are no photos, which is the case with most logs?

 

If this information is so important that it is not enough to show it in the URL, then it should be shown in every log. And if it's not so important, you can leave it out.

 

[+HHL]

GL1B4WQQX is the ReferenceCode of your log.

http://coord.info/GL1B4WQQX or https://www.geocaching.com/live/log/GL1B4WQQX

Seems to be obsolet within the log itself. Specifically as it is used by the log share button.

 

Hans

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by HHL

[+janrei_]

In this case, it's the name of the big image shown above. If no name has been specified, it will show the log ID instead.

[+HHL]

5 minutes ago, janrei_ said:

In this case, it's the name of the big image shown above. If no name has been specified, it will show the log ID instead.

It might be more useful to give [No image name given] instead of the log's reference code (which apparently nearly no one will understand its meaning at all).

[+capsai]

On the new log viewing page, the distance from the cache to my home coordinates is shown with a three digit decimal place.

 

I am not sure if this precision is really necessary and i have to be honest that this confused me ("Oh, why is this cache thousands of kilometers away..?" when it is just 4,123 km away) so i think this should be changed to a two digit decimal place.

 

In bookmark lists, the distances are shown with one digit decimal place and results from the search are shown with two digit decimal place.

 

A bit of consistency would be great here.

Edited December 2, 2023 by capsai

[+SawaSawa]

Image uploads seem, for me at least to have a number of problems some new and some old:

1) In the past when preparing a cache description for a new hide, it was possible to upload multiple images one after the other from the same image upload page.

Now after an image has loaded, you are taken back to the cache 'home' page to start a new edit. This is really frustrating.

2) I have found it impossible to upload images using certain browsers (eg. Firefox and Chrome) getting an error message despite repeated attempts after being advised to try later.

3) A longstanding problem is that after carefully preparing a cache description, including test font and size and image size and positioning, every time the page is exited (eg. for Save & Review) on reloading the page, all this work is undone with all the text and image editing gone. Again really frustrating and time-consuming.

 

I do hope these issues can be addressed as it has made the experience of hiding caches (especially preparing the cache description) and manipulating images, a greatly downgraded one.

[+CCFwasG]

On 12/1/2023 at 1:16 PM, Oceansazul said:

Unfortunately we ran into an issue while working on the photo size increase and will not have this fix out until early next week. Thanks for your patience. 

It's appreciated - or will be.

 

ANY chance of fixing the bug that TBs that are locked show up on the list below the log, whereas they didn't used to??? (Because as it is now I can't just tell it to visit all TBs... though yes I guess it might not post to a locked TB, but I'm not taking my chances AND it is messing with me checking the list!) It used to work fine, hope it can be corrected to how it was previous to the new log page.

[+Gill & Tony]

Having read this thread, I am really happy that I do all my logging through GSAK.

[+brendan714]

11 hours ago, SawaSawa said:

Image uploads seem, for me at least to have a number of problems some new and some old:

1) In the past when preparing a cache description for a new hide, it was possible to upload multiple images one after the other from the same image upload page.

Now after an image has loaded, you are taken back to the cache 'home' page to start a new edit. This is really frustrating.

I do agree with this point as being a frustrating change from what it used to be.  While writing up a new cache page this morning, the process of adding photos took several additional clicks.  It would be nice to be able to upload a photo and stay on the photo upload page rather than get re-directed back to the cache page.  Or even better, if a bulk image upload option were available (similar to cache logs where you can upload several images at once), that would be ideal!

[+brendan714]

Also, when I try to upload images to my cache page, I randomly get this error:

It's not related to image size - my image is less than 5 MB.  If I refresh the page, the image uploads properly. 

[+The A-Team]

6 hours ago, brendan714 said:

Also, when I try to upload images to my cache page, I randomly get this error:

It's not related to image size - my image is less than 5 MB.  If I refresh the page, the image uploads properly. 

 

Interesting. I just did more testing to see if anything had changed from my earlier attempts, and I can't get any images to upload to the cache listing. I even tried refreshing like you suggested, but it still gives that error.

 

Then I considered what SawaSawa said above about different browsers. All of my testing has been in Firefox, and it simply doesn't work. I then tried Chrome, and got different results. On the first attempt in Chrome, the same image uploaded successfully on the first try. I then tried uploading another of my test images and got the error. After refreshing the upload page and trying that same image again, it worked.

 

So, the upload page is buggy but sometimes works in Chrome, and doesn't seem to work at all in Firefox. Hopefully this helps the devs to narrow in on the cause.

 

Edit to add: I'm using the latest version of each browser: FF 120.0.1 and Chrome 119.0.6045.200

Edited December 4, 2023 by The A-Team

[+brendan714]

16 hours ago, The A-Team said:

So, the upload page is buggy but sometimes works in Chrome, and doesn't seem to work at all in Firefox. Hopefully this helps the devs to narrow in on the cause.

For the record I was using Chrome, so that does line up with my experience. 

[+skliblatik]

Maybe I'm a bit off, but does it mean, that the old logging page is definitely lost? Because I really miss the switch-back link. The point is, that for my typical logging (just short story, images rarely), the new page brings no improvement, but its loading is considerably slow (and annoying), especially on weaker networks. 

[+MrDosinger]

I very much prefer the new way of logging, thanks a lot for the work that went into it!

 

On Markdown, there appears to be inconsistent implementation between the logging/log editing side and the display on the cache page: when I wrote my last Owner Maintenance log on the weekend, I made sure to use the editing widget in creating an unnumbered list using asterisks (*). The preview showed it properly as <li> items, but after having been posted, the log simply showed asterisks on the cache listing, without any indentation etc. Same after replacing the asterisks with "-": the preview shows <ul>/<li> lists, the live cache listing simply shows "- first item" and so forth.

 

[+taxoft]

The image upload works worse and worse :-(

See this topic.

[+Pontiac_CZ]

I'm doing clean up on my caches. I need to delete a log but I'd like the affected cacher to not only get the log deletion reason in the message, but a link to the deleted log as well. Has it already been fixed? We don't get feedback about fixed things from HQ here.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Pontiac_CZ

[+baer2006]

9 minutes ago, Pontiac_CZ said:

I'm doing clean up on my caches. I need to delete a log but I'd like the affected cacher to not only get the log deletion reason in the message, but a link to the deleted log as well. Has it already been fixed? We don't get feedbach about fixed things from HQ here.

I don't know, if this has been fixed (but I'd like to know ). But you could try this workaround:

 

Before deleting the log, click on the "Share log" button (top right) and copy the link (https://coord.info/GLxxxxxxx). Then paste this link manually into the message, where you explain to the cacher why you delete their log.

 

This should work, if the cacher can still access their own deleted log with the direct link.

[+arisoft]

32 minutes ago, Pontiac_CZ said:

I'm doing clean up on my caches. I need to delete a log but I'd like the affected cacher to not only get the log deletion reason in the message, but a link to the deleted log as well. Has it already been fixed? We don't get feedbach about fixed things from HQ here.

 

As a CO you may include the link to the deleted log within your message.

[+Optimist on the run]

I'm sure others have already raised this, but could Log Type be made pinable as well as the date? It's very frustrating to type in a long log and scroll past a long list of TBs only to to find I haven't set it to Found It, and have to scroll all the way up and down again.

 

[+Hynz]

On 12/8/2023 at 11:04 AM, Pontiac_CZ said:

I'm doing clean up on my caches. I need to delete a log but I'd like the affected cacher to not only get the log deletion reason in the message, but a link to the deleted log as well. Has it already been fixed? We don't get feedback about fixed things from HQ here.

No 

 

[SnowstormMK]

We released a fix that increases the allowed size for images to 10MiB. This fix also addresses the issue players had with uploading images.

[+The A-Team]

11 hours ago, SnowstormMK said:

We released a fix that increases the allowed size for images to 10MiB. This fix also addresses the issue players had with uploading images.

 

That's great! I just tested and confirmed I could upload images to a cache listing which had been failing earlier. The increased limit is also appreciated. I'm looking forward to seeing the other outstanding issues resolved.

[MZCacheHunter]

On 11/30/2023 at 5:29 PM, kamla said:

Since today it's no longer possible to load the log form of a PMO cache as basic user  This has always been possible!

Server returns error 500

I found out via try-and-error that this bug has now also been solved. Now, "premium member only" caches can be logged again by all geocachers (including basic).

I felt this to be quite pressing, as I found two PMO caches and dropped trackables in each of them. Unfortunately I was unable to log this online for two weeks, thus helping the trackables on their missions.

I am glad that this bug has now been fixed. Many thanks to the development team!

On the other hand I also have to say that I find the communication about the bugs, the status of the fixes and the informative value of release notes to be very poor.
There are other geocaching-related projects that are miles ahead in terms of communication, responsiveness and transparency. Here‘s really some room for improvement. Thanks.