Sotamaps mapping error

Hi Andy,

Yes, fair comment, I’ve also been playing around with this new change, and found it to have advantages. We’re also considering removing the panorama option from the summit marker popup window, since this is also basically a StreetView object, and SV is proving to be really costly - in real cash terms!

Range page errors: working on it…

UPDATE: Errors in multiple pages - this is VERY strange… trying to pin this down…

OK - cracked this - I have a sneaking suspicion that something on the server has been updated very recently, with the effect that certain things would not run as before. So, certain dialogs were not being correctly initialized. All OK now :sweat_smile: :stuck_out_tongue: :upside_down_face:

Except: upload GPX track doesn’t appear to be working. I’ll look into this tomorrow morning…

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Thank you Rob.
Planning a trip to G/SB and GM/SS so very useful.
73,
Rod

@DM1CM Rob, I was trying to draw some routes on the map and download them and I got the following message.

<br />
<b>Notice</b>:  Use of undefined constant GMAPS_SERVER_KEY - assumed 'GMAPS_SERVER_KEY' in <b>/var/www/html/sotamaps-dev/sotamaps_tools_functions.php</b> on line <b>1762</b><br />
{"tempFilePath":"smp_tmp","tempFileName":"kml415ab","tempFormat":"kml","exportFormat":"kml"}

To reproduce:

  1. Don’t log in
  2. select tracks mapping page
  3. select association, region and summit
  4. click draw track, activate drawing mode
  5. enter a route
  6. click download
  7. fill in the dialog, doesn’t matter GPX or KML
  8. click download a few seconds later the error appears

If you could have a look at this when you get a moment. Thanks in advance.

Hi Andy, thanks for the message - yes, I forgot to rename a couple of constants while doing some updates, so mea culpa . Got that fixed now - try again.

And thanks also for the detailed run-down of the steps you took before the error occurred :+1: . I wish more people would supply such information when reporting errors…

As an aside, another thing I noted was that, once the download process had started, the background call (which is where I forgot recently to rename the constant) to the Google Maps Elevations API actually returned results, so each point in the downloaded track has an associated altitude, which hasn’t happened in a long time (we always got a “maximum number of calls exceeded” error). So that’s a definite plus: let’s see how long the new account with Google permits this before we begin to get the same error back from that particularly touchy API…

Magic Rob, all fixed and working now.

As for bug reports, well I scream and moan and kick when people give me rubbish bug reports at work, I’d better do what I moan about when I give bug reports to others. :blush:

Anyone else also having problems accessing sotamaps?

Yesterday it was only working on my mobile phone (mobile data) and not on my home pc.
Today it is not working at all. TSL Handshake with https://mapping.sota.org.uk/ taking for ever and then timing out.

Any idea what is wrong?

73 Joe

I’m so glad to see somebody else getting this problem - I thought I was the only one after updates to my system yesterday! (of course, “glad” is not exactly the right word to use in this context :worried:)

It does seem now to be a problem on the SMP server: it just happens that I sent a PM to Andrew @VK3ARR about this problem just a few minutes ago. I’m still waiting on a solution or suggestion from Andrew to alleviate this problem

I was just about to notify you. It’s working but oh so slowly for me. A case of wait till it looks like all the components have loaded and are drawn, then you can select assoc/region and it’s quite OK. I guess that’s the Javascript now running on my machine talking to Google mainly.

Yes, it sometimes works, but after a looonnnggg wait, or it just gives up the ghost and times out. Either way, this ain’t right and we need to adjust the server with a big wrench.

EDIT 1: I had also followed the advice given on Firefox slowing down because of "Performing TLS Handshake" | Firefox Support Forum | Mozilla Support … but to no avail.

EDIT 2: the same problem exists with the SMP development site which runs on the same server as the live SMP… :grimacing:

I’m on it. Give me a few minutes to work out what’s wrong and kick some tires.

…and kicked. I’ll keep an eye on it for a bit.

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Thanks. Initially it is working fine but for me switching to opentopo map layer makes it super low (compared to normal).

Yes, Opentopo is sometimes very slow in responding - it’s mostly down to the number of people accessing the OT map-tiles server.

Thanks for that explanation Rob; I often find it slow and wondered why.
73,
Rod

Working fine now… thanks Andrew.

I’d conspicuously missed the 4U maps option till a few days back!

Next question: Is it possible to disable the shading applied to OT and 4U maps when printing? It makes them look good on screen, but a colour printout is noisy with the shading.

I think not - the map tiles from OT, 4U and all other map-tile servers are simply .png files. There may, however, be other tile-types without shadowing we could pull from those servers. Maybe…

You might try playing with the contrast settings in the printer?

Ah so. I was wondering as I use Oruxmaps on my Android phone and tablet (*) I have a number of Mapforge styles which examining are XML things specifiying how the rendered data should look. I was hoping it was nought but a tweak of the styles to remove the shading.

I always feel naked walking without a paper map, just habit. I’m getting ready to have a thrash about in Southern France and whilst I have routes and markers for all the planned summits, it’s nice to have a bit of paper too. I think I’ll use the basic Google map to mark up the parking positions etc. even though the footpaths and trails wont show.

(*) I have an old Nexus 7 2012 edition tablet. It served me well for years till a Google update rendered it very slow and barely usable. Then there were no more updates coming from Google as it was now obsolete. Hrmph! I bought a W10 tablet with keyboard to replace it. But I was annoyed I had a perfectly serviceable piece of hardware with cruddy software. I did a lot of searching and found a “dodgy” Android image for it. After a bit of faffing about, I was able to install a cutdown Android 7.1.1 image. Wifi/BT/GPS/USB all work fine but I can’t run Google Play Store on it or Google Apps, they just don’t start. So you need to copy the APK to it over USB etc. and install. But the GPS is sensitive enough that it works for in-car navigation when sat on the passenger seat. Couple with the OSM data, it’s a potent tool for navigating about foreign roads for SOTA expeditions. What is impressive is how long the battery lasts when you don’t have a billion pieces of Google spyware running., probably lasts 4-8x longer than when it ran kosher Android.

If you have an old Android device with out of date software and no security support, updating to Android 7 or 8 is not that hard. It simply is a matter of downloading the correct images and following the instructions, assuming your device is supported. See https://lineageos.org/. And you get regular security updates too!

Well, I don’t personally use a tablet, but I’m sure your comments will prove useful to some of those who do.

OK on the KML/XML thing with Oruxmaps…

Rob, two things… Firstly double clicking a summit marker still takes you to Google satellite view of the area around the summit but the summit marker no longer appears. Probably the oompah-loompahs at Google have “improved” something.

Secondly I used the dipole designer for the 1st time. It works! My dipole was better than 1.1:1 on 17, 20 & 30m at home. OK I did trim a little but it got me to the right area without thinking. Not having to think is always good :slight_smile: