Difference between revisions of "Uploading logs"

Latest revision as of 18:50, 1 January 2019

This page contains information specific to Geocaching Australia.

Sometimes your logs on another site do not get mirrored on Geocaching Australia. If that is the case, use the Import Logs facility which is found near the bottom of your My page.

You will require a valid GPX file in order to use the tool. A few methods are documented below.

Create a GPX file from GSAK

You can create a complete GPX file for all of your cache logs from GSAK as one of the easiest methods.

Please note that the log import function will only accept files of 8MB or less. If your file exceeds 8MB, it will upload to the website, but the logs will not be loaded.

If your GPX file exceeds 8MB, then use GSAK to split your data into small blocks, each of which does not exceed 8MB. Using the User Flags option, create a list of approximately 2,000 logs per file.

• Start GSAK
• Create a filtered list containing only those caches that you wish to create a log for -Search | Filter (or Ctrl+F). It is not strictly necessary to do this, you can create a file for all of your logs. The updater should be clever enough to work out which ones need adding and ignore the others.
  • File | Export | GPX/LOC File
  • Ctrl+G does the same thing.
• File type to generate:
  • Tick GPX file
  • Ensure you use Ver 1.0 as GCA does not handle Ver 1.1 GPX file extensions
• Export options:
  • Ensure that "Output original, not corrected coordinates" is checked. This will ensure that any corrected coordinates you have saved in GSAK (for solved puzzles & the like) are not exported.
• Waypoint name
  •  %code (Do NOT create a GPX file with smart names)
• File name to create
  • Should be any valid file system and name
• Logs
  • Limit number of logs to export: Set this to 0
  • Always include my logs: Tick this box
• Click the Generate button.

You should now have a file containing only your logs for the filtered list you selected.

Use your My Finds GPX file from geocaching.com

If you're a paying member of geocaching.com and only need to import your finds from that site, there's a simple way to do this. Go to your "Build Pocket Queries" page and you'll see a "My Finds" option. Click the button and wait for your email to arrive. Once it has, take that GPX file and continue the process below. (This GPX file has all your finds, including caches now archived, and your log. It's not limited to 500 caches the way other PQs are.)

Use a plain GPX file from geocaching.com

If your log still appears as one of the latest 20 logs on the cache page at geocaching.com, click the button GPS eXchange file (*.gpx) and save it to your computer. Once it has, take that GPX file and continue the process below. You need to be a paying member of geocaching.com for this option to be available.

Load your GPX file to Geocaching Australia

You can now load your GPX file to Geocaching Australia by going to the following page: geocaching.com.au/my/import

• The importer reads all the caches and logs and updates the database as appropriate:
  • if it's a new cache or log, it adds it to the database
  • if it's a different cache or log, it checks the cache or log in the database and if the text or date is blank or the date is 1/1/1970, it corrects it with the information from the gpx file.
• Click on the Browse button to find the file that you just created.
• Click on the Import button to import your logs.

That's it. The page may take a while to load.

When complete you should receive a notification of how many logs/caches were imported with the name of the file just processed.

Log Date Issues

If you get messages of "Updating date of log ..." after importing, don't worry, this is a known issue with how Groundspeak handles log dates. A technical explanation of this issue is below.

In addition to the date of the log, the time of the log is also stored (but generally isn't displayed to the user). Inside a GPX file, the log date/time is stored in UTC format: <groundspeak:date>2018-01-25T05:22:00Z</groundspeak:date>

When the user creates the log, what is in the time field depends on what the user used to create the log:

• If the log is created through the website form, the log time is always set to 20:00:00 on whatever date the user selects on the webpage.
• c:geo uses the website form so logs created from it also have the time set to 20:00:00
• Phone apps that use Groundspeak's API to submit logs usually set the time to whatever the time was when user submitted the log. (in UTC)
• The exception to this is Geosphere which intentionally sets the time field to deal with the issues below.

When the user views a cache page on the website, the log dates are shown in Pacific Time Zone (UTC-08:00) (this is the timezone Groundspeak HQ is in)

• For logs that are submitted via the website, this isn't a problem since 20:00 - 08:00 still gives the same date.
• For logs that are submitted via the API, they may show as previous date depending on the user's timezone and what time of day they logged the cache.
• To deal with this problem, some API users intentionally submit logs with the wrong date so they show up correct on the Geocaching.com website.

On GCA, the log dates are shown in UTC

• This can cause some log dates to be different to what is shown on the Geocaching.com website.

GSAK handles it as follows:

• The SQL database stores the log date/time in UTC (same as the GPX file)
• GPX files that GSAK creates are also in UTC
• When the user views a cache in GSAK the log dates are shown in Pacific Time Zone so they match what is shown on the Geocaching.com website.

For example, this date/time <groundspeak:date>2018-01-25T05:22:00Z</groundspeak:date> would show up as:

• 24th on Geocaching.com
• 24th in GSAK
• 25th on GCA