Map of Challenge Checkers hanging in some cases when requesting all of United States

Question

Hi, I travel lots and have for a number of years kept track of essentially all challenges in the U.S.  Every 6 months or so would use the Map of Challenge Checkers to download GPX files of 1) caches without checkers, 2) caches with checkers where we fulfill the requirements, 3) caches with checkers where we do NOT fulfill the requirements, and 4) caches with checkers where the map is not sure one way or another (exclude is checked for both fulfilled and not fulfilled).  Today, I have been able to run 1) and 4), but whenever I try to run 2) or 3), the server just hangs with a blank screen.  I have attempted this on Windows, MacOS, and Android devices, with various browsers.  Once I received a 500 error from the server, but every other time, the screen just hangs.  

Does this reflect a issue with the server, and if so, where is the best way to report what could be a real time server issue?  Or, possibly, does this reflect a new capacity limitation on the number of challenges that can be mapped?  In the past, I have done exactly what I am trying today, and there is no error message, so it seems more likely to be some server issue?  Any info would be appreciated

Answer 1

It's hard to say, but I did some tests myself. Now my tests aren't identical to yours because a) I didn't understand the search 100%, b) we don't have the same login and haven't logged or fulfilled the same challenges. It does however sound more like the map is getting to heavy for your clients to handle.

I managed all the searched I did, but one of them was really slow and I could see the web  browser hardly being able to handle it.

If the same searches but divided on the 51 (ask HQ about that) states works, then I would be fairly certain that the client is too slow (or that the code isn't optimized enough depending on how one wants to see it).

Comments

@magma1447 thanks for looking at this and responding.  It seems counterintuitive, however, that this might be a client/browser side issue.  I had assumed that the selection of which caches to display would be done on the server side, not in the client.  And to try to test this, I have tried to run this map request on both a very current era MacOS machine, and a very current era Windows machine, and both hang about the same amount of time as the older model Windows machine that I use for most of my caching.  And, depending on the machine and browser, some of the time I get an HTTP 500 error, which is a generic server error message.  

FWIW, my map search setting are very simple:
1. Country is set to United States (with no smaller divisions selected)
2. "Exclude" is set to only "Archive" and "Not Fulfilled"
3. "Show" is set to "Has checker"

This fails, as does the similar search with "Fulfilled" excluded.  A search with both "Fulfilled" and "Not Fulfilled" works, which suggest to me that the server is reaching an unstated capacity limit and not failing elegantly (which Project-GC does do elegantly in some other map tools).

Anyway, thanks for looking at this.

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Thanks, now when I know your search more precisely I am also getting a 500. It's an out of memory.

So the search is too wide, or the code isn't memory optimized enough, depending on the view on the problem. At least when I run it on my account.

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We have made some memory optimizations in the dev environment now. It's very close to work with my account, but it depends on many factors. Regardless, another 10% challenges published in the US and it will most likely become a problem again.

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@magma1447 - first, the dedication and responsiveness of the folks running this site are amazing.  Thanks for thinking about this issue.  

I think you are right that the number of challenges in the US has a whole is growing and will keep out-growing the server capacity.  Can I suggest three possible feature-enhancements which could help (but which I realized would not be quick fixes):

1. Add a new "Exclude" option of "Unsure", which would mean than I could directly get, for examples, JUST the "Fulfilled" category rather the getting both the fulfilled plus unsure caches.  I like to download and separately review the "fulfilled", the "not fulfilled", and the in between of "not sure" caches.  So if I could exclude the unsures, the number of hits goes down by thousands.  And then I would not have to do a fulfilled+unsure map, and add them to the virtual gps, and then subtract the unsures from the virtual gps.  Eventually, the number of US challenge caches would probably exceed capacity again, but if you can exclude unsures, then you would probably delay the server issue for a few years.

2.  Activate the multi-state selection capability on the map page, to allow me to click on more than one state at a time.  If I am traveling to New England (with about 10 states) it is lots easier to get a US wide map and select only the geographic area I want, rather than doing 10 separate maps for each state and adding them all to my virtual gps.  But with the server issues, I now have to do 51 state maps just to get the entirety of the US.  If I can create multistate maps, I can knock out the US in two searches, both well under server capacity.

3.  In the county drop down list, perhaps create a (somewhat arbitrary) country of "United States (Western States)" and "United States (Eastern States)" to essentially divide the US into two pieces.  Ideally one could have the US, the US-W, and the US-E as options.

Anyway, thanks for thinking about this.  John

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Just wanted to "+1" the suggestion to add the multi-select option in Challenge-maps. It would be very useful for many people and for most countries. The "US west" and "US east" approach solves this specific issue but don't improve things very much for me in Sweden. :)

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@Pleu Agree that the multi-select (approach #2 above) is probably the most broadly useful.  I also would love to get #1.  Really, approach #3 is a fallback if #2 is very hard but #3 is easy.