Closed Labs

[+htomc42]

It has long been the behavior of labs that if you are in a group, and happen to be way out in the boonies where some people have faint reception but others have no reception at all, a phone that successfully logs an AL will "remember" the geo-fencing.  Once that question pops up, geo-fencing is satisfied, and that question will display for answering no matter where the phone happens to be.  And it will do so regardless of who is logged in, so those players with no reception can use another player's phone to log the AL later.

It's my understanding and experience that many people at GW-XXI were having reception issues on their phones, even if they used the local wi-fi.  It was just so many people that the system was overwhelmed.

The four labs at GW, plus the "Shadows of Appalachia" lab at Midnight Madness, are no longer available for people to do that delayed logging.  If you didn't log it right then and there, you're SOL, even if you were legitimately present.  These labs aren't even on the app's map- and if you are able to get to the Lab (I used lab2gpx to download them to GSAK, so I had a direct link) they are all read-only and can't be logged at all.  Not only read-only, but it won't let you view the locations or journals, no "Resume" button but it does show "Completed", and thats all, the button does nothing.

Even if these labs are "locked-down" so they can't be logged, shouldn't people who might have logged some of them, be able to see which ones they did or didn't....especially since AL finds are not shown on the Dashboard, or shown in a "My Finds" PQ, or visible at all on the webpage, even though they are included in the total finds?
 

[+Mausebiber]

If one has reception and the other don't, just share the connection using mobile Hotspot.

 

This way, everyone has internet access.

Edited June 1 by Mausebiber

[+htomc42]

7 hours ago, Mausebiber said:

If one has reception and the other don't, just share the connection using mobile Hotspot.

 

This way, everyone has internet access.

 

Useful in certain circumstances, but not others.  Going up and down hilly country roads, can one predict with precision whose coverage will drop-out and whose won't?  Will those with a connection be strong enough to serve as a hotspot?  Will there be time to set up a stable hotspot as the car passes by an AL location where there isn't a usable shoulder to pull off the road?  I've seen all those scenarios.  That's why the delayed logging on a phone that remembers the geo-fence for a lab, is such a handy thing, and I think that is by design.

Now, if you're sitting in a parking lot and someone is having trouble, and you have ample opportunity to play around with it and get everything connected right- sure.  But things like that are hard to do on-the-fly when you don't know what you might encounter at the next location.

[+htomc42]

13 hours ago, htomc42 said:

Even if these labs are "locked-down" so they can't be logged, shouldn't people who might have logged some of them, be able to see which ones they did or didn't....especially since AL finds are not shown on the Dashboard, or shown in a "My Finds" PQ, or visible at all on the webpage, even though they are included in the total finds?

 

Ok, I did find a log of sorts at:  https://labs.geocaching.com/logs

 

This is helpful; you still don't see the write-up nor the journals for each location (which could contain bonus clues...) but at least you do see the specific locations completed.