Newly published geocaches only visible when zoomed in

[+pantadeusz]

Hi,

 

Two years ago I published a cache in Hunan province, China. There were no other caches in the area, so I was expecting it to be visible on the map when zoomed out in such a way that you can see all of China. Indeed, this is the case now, but in the period right after publishing, the cache was only visible when the map was zoomed in onto the area.

 

Now I am going to Belarus, and my girlfriend has created an event there, where there is on other geocache in the radius of 50-100km. Exactly the same issue happened.

 

It is not a problem or anything, I am just wondering why this is the case. Obviously this is not an issue with most caches, as most caches are in the neighbourhood of other caches.

[+wimseyguy]

The issue may be with your device settings and not the website. I found your cache through your profile, and it's still visible to me zoomed out to 500 km and even 1000km on the geocaching.com tile map.

 

Here's a screen shot of what I saw. Very cool that there are some caches in these areas for the few caching travelers who pass through.

 

[+pantadeusz]

Yes, I know. I said this in my post. That's why it says "newly published caches"... And this is nothing to do with the device, it's the case on any (nonmobile) device.

 

If you want evidence, just have a look at GC6N9QC

Edited July 14, 2016 by pantadeusz

[+Viajero Perdido]

I believe that's normal. The zoomed-out view is a generic one for everybody, rather than the cutomized-for-you version when you zoom in. (Customized to show smileys for the ones you've found.) And it appears they generate the zoomed-out view only so every often, maybe once a day but that's a guess.

 

For a while there was a bug that isolated caches, PMOs I think, sometimes would never show up in the zoomed-out view. But I think they've fixed that.

 

Interestingly, on that screen shot above, around Hong Kong you can see "a few" caches. A few years ago I zoomed right in on that to see what was there, my eyes got really big, and I bought a plane ticket. And a year later, I did it again.

[+pantadeusz]

To continue with the offtopic, I fully agree that Hong Kong geocaches are fantastic. I wish I can come back one day to do more.

 

I think with the Chinese one it took a few weeks for it to appear on the big map. But I could be wrong, it was two years ago. But with the event it's more problematic, because it's in just over two weeks and if it doesn't appear soon, it's possible that some people who would otherwise come won't know about it.

[+pppingme]

Once zoomed out to a certain levels (where the caches appear as little dots), the data isn't "real time", the map tiles at that level are only generated occasionally, and everyone see's the same data (they don't take finds, etc. into account). I don't know the schedule, but seems like I saw twice a day at some point?

[+Lil Devil]

I talked to a lackey about this a while ago. Basically, it's a resource thing. The farther-out zoom levels take a while to render, so they're updated infrequently. I don't know the exact thresholds, but it's something like the farthest out is only updated once a month. The next level in is updated every other week. The next, weekly. The next, twice a week. Then daily, hourly and the furthest few levels in are updated on the spot.

[+m0bean]

I have also noticed this same behavior of zoomed out levels displaying old data. You will sometimes see power trails that have already been archived at certain distances.

 

everyone see's the same data (they don't take finds, etc. into account).

 

It's true, they also don't take PMO into account. Before I was a PM, I would use the zoomed out map images to locate caches that I didn't have access to. Kind of an extra little challenge. Worked for finding a cache at least once

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I talked to a lackey about this a while ago. Basically, it's a resource thing. The farther-out zoom levels take a while to render, so they're updated infrequently. I don't know the exact thresholds, but it's something like the farthest out is only updated once a month. The next level in is updated every other week. The next, weekly. The next, twice a week. Then daily, hourly and the furthest few levels in are updated on the spot.

 

There is also some clustering (or what appears to be clustering). If you count the "dots" near Beijing there only appears to be a handful of caches. When I first went there in 2009 there were less than 100 caches in the entire city. I was there last December and it's grown significantly. The Old and New Summer Palace and the Olympic Forest Parks are now wonderful places to geocache.