Pocket Query How Long

[+john_underwood@charter.net]

How long should it take to get the email

[+timberlane74 & pumpkin]

It depends? when did you schedule it to run?

Edited May 7, 2004 by timberlane74 & pumpkin

[+The Leprechauns]

Pocket query delivery times can range from "immediately" for new previously unscheduled queries that you set to run on the same day, to "never", based on a number of factors.

 

1. Queries set to run on multiple days have a lower priority. If you and your buddy both set up basically the same pocket query, except that yours is set to run every day and your buddy's is set to run just on Wednesdays, then on Wednesday he is very likely to receive his query before he wakes up for breakfast, while yours may arrive at noon.

 

2. Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest days for pocket queries. Expect more delays on those days. Sometimes, if your query is set to run on multiple days (thus giving it a lower priority), your Friday query may NEVER make it to the top of the queue before the schedule rolls over to Saturday.

 

3. Sometimes the PQ server is having a bad day and needs to be rebooted, reset, or whatever they do to get the files spit out efficiently again.

 

I run a maximum of two queries per day and I get my main "home area" query delivered on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesday nights, I browse the query results in Watcher to see what people were up to over the prior weekend, and to see what new caches were hidden over the weekend. I use the Thursday results to plan my hunts for the upcoming weekend. I rarely have a problem receiving my queries on this schedule.

[+Cherokeecacher]

My PQ’s usually take 10-15 minute to arrive at my “in box”. Last night/2:00am CST I ran one that just came in at 1:30pm CST. Hopefully this will be fixed in a timely manner, but event the 11.5 hour Waite was faster and easier than downloading each result page 10 or so at a time for 300+ caches.

[+sbell111]

It also depends on your email provider. Some companies deliver email quicker than others. That being said, I had a PQ run at 1:44a and have yet to recieve it.

 

Hopefully, the issue will be resolved quickly.

 

Perhaps this thread should be moved to the GC.com forums. This may cause TPTB to take notice of the issue.

[+Markwell]

That being said, I had a PQ run at 1:44a and have yet to recieve it.

Yep - mine ran 6 hours ago according to the PQ page. Never received it.

[+SnoWake]

Ditto. I've had a couple of PQs run today, that have never arrived. Checked all my mail logs, spam filters, etc - I'm receiving OTHER gc.com emails - just not the output of PQs. I even created a couple fresh ones, scheduled for today - they ran almost immediately, as expected - but hours later, still no email.

 

Sounds like one the machines could use a kick - as I doubt all our ISPs (or, in my case, my own mail server) are all bogging down and sitting on these "store and forward" messages.

 

Too funny - I'm ALWAYS the one preaching to folks at work about SMTP and "store-and-foreward" - folks get way to used to sub-minute response time receiving an email from their kids in college across the country, that when queues back up and things take 10 minutes, they freak out.

 

Well, I waited a few hours, and did all the research I could, before paying it much mind. Once I saw that others were experiencing troubles as well, I was at least relieved to see it wasn't just a "personal problem".

 

Much thanks to the GC team for their tireless support of keeping these services up and running, under what must be darn near exponential growth.

 

Here's wishing everyone a great weekend!

Billy

(aka SnoWake)

[+IV_Warrior]

For the record, THURSDAY seems to be the worst day of the week, to try and get a PQ. The "weekly cache e-mails" are the only thing I can think of that causes the problem. Any other day of the week during the evening hours, if I set a PQ to run, it generally runs and is in my inbox within a few mintues, and hour, tops. Thursday evenings, forget it, set it to run, go to bed and check the e-mail in the morning. Last night I was up for a couple hours after I set one to run, and it still hadn't run when I went to bed, but was in my inbox this morning..... (It last ran sometime back in April, so "frequency" on that one shouldn't be an issue in how long it took to run) I do have one PQ set to run every Thursday, and it's generally in my inbox when I get up in the morning, but trying to run one on a Thursday evening is when I always have troubles.

 

EDIT: OK, I just noticed that I still haven't gotten my "runs every Friday" PQ, that last week ran at like 4 AM.....so, NORMALLY, Thursday evening is the only time I have problems with PQ's.....

Edited May 8, 2004 by IV_Warrior

[+oldfriends]

I get 5 PQs every week and they always arrive before I wake up.

One day last week I didn't get the PQ until after 1:00 PM. Maybe the server was loaded down.

[CoyoteRed]

My friday run usually gets here sometime in the very early morning. Today, almost 9:30 pm!

[+john_underwood@charter.net]

Thanks for the input. Ran a couple about 1:00 PM EDT and as of 11:30 they are not here. As it turns out my weekend trip was scrapped at the last minute due to problems with my well at home. Maybe it will show up in time for next weekend.

[+SnoWake]

Quick Follow-up:

 

The first of my Friday PQs have started to arrive - specifically, the new one I created today. It was run at 14:40 (PST) and was delivered at 17:48.

 

That's actually not much of a delay - perhaps more than we're used to - but certainly acceptable (in my case). So, my comments shouldn't be considered a "complaint" of any sort - merely additional data points.

 

Thanks again,

Billy

(aka SnoWake)

[+beejay&esskay]

I have a daily PQ that last ran 5/6/2004 1:55:08 PM .

 

It hasn't run yet today. I think I'm going to make a duplicate PQ for "Friday only", since that seems to be when this one runs VERY late.

[+Team DEMP]

There's a thread in the Geocaching.com forum about this too - http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=70722

 

My PQ for Friday was very delayed but ran about 9pm Fri night. As of 7am, it still hasn't made it to me. Others have posted it's taking 12 hours to get to them, with the delay internal to the geocaching.com mail servers.

 

I actually created a PQ just now where I didn't check off any date to run it, and then did a preview. It shows the new caches in the last 7 days in my area. I then went to each one I thought I might want to consider this weekend, saved the cache specific GPX file locally, and then dropped it into GASK.

 

Hopefully the mail problem will clear up. I don't think re-running or creating new PQs is the way to go right now since it might just further clog up the mail server issues that seem to be the cause of the delivery delays.

[+beejay&esskay]

There's a thread in the Geocaching.com forum about this too - http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=70722

 

Hopefully the mail problem will clear up. I don't think re-running or creating new PQs is the way to go right now since it might just further clog up the mail server issues that seem to be the cause of the delivery delays.

Jeremy has made changes so PQ mail bypasses the clogged mail server.

 

I don't think what I'm planning to do will cause congestion. I have a PQ that runs daily. Because of that, it tends to run late (since priority depends on the last time it ran, as well as other things.)

 

On Friday, the last 2 weeks, "late" has been evening.

 

So I plan to make an additional PQ, with exactly the same selection. It will run on Friday only (and my original one will no longer run on Friday.)

 

So I'm running exactly the same number of queries...just using the rules to see if I can get my Friday one sooner than Friday evening.

[+SnowLeopard]

Mine is set for Friday, and I just got mine late Saturday night. I think sometimes there are severe lags on either the geocaching systems, or various other email systems.

[+IV_Warrior]

Ok, since we're doing updates, I finally got my Friday PQ, on Saturday. The PQ generated late friday, then sat for a while before being mailed out. It was mid-afternoon on Saturday (Eastern Time) when it finally showed up in my inbox,

[+Cherokeecacher]

I ran a ‘one timer” this morning and it was sent with in minutes. Maybe they fixed the delay problem.