7pm
Rampant and intermittent!
Been there - done that - Iâve had this message for a day or two now; also with some observations where the map was loading correctly - so suppose that the software folk are still busy with it.
As before, I just wait and see if itâs the same as the building of Rome.
Patel, Hotel Manager "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotelâ - works for me.
but now not working again
Looks like @Amadanâs gremlins have naturalised and are now breeding in the ISpot computerâŠmaybe theyâll die out when it gets cooler?
Intermittent. Comes and goes - now the aMaDiBug - aMadanIntermittentBug
09:12
Consolation? @miked Google maps are not working across the web in certain places.
but working in iSpot currently
Google changed their pricing model, it seems, so very many websites are having problems as google cut them off or limit the usage. I have noticed on other websites myself. Several years ago I predicted this would happen, at some stage in the future, but no one wanted to listen and refused to make sites robust and able to use multiple map sources.
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Maps are failing on iSpot again.
Why is it not as simple to fix as paying Google more money?
This is intermittent, so probably has nothing to do with Payment, unless itâs paid daily, hourly even.
I seem to be the only one putting a notice on the main site
(see comment) and will continue to do so even if admin put up the weak banner. As soon as it disappears from the Help Carousel I will renew it. Is that OK? @miked
Paid by whom? From what budget? OTOH it doesnât seem unreasonable for anyone providing a resource to expect some payment from - large - users. Free lunches come to mind.
In general terms it is a simple fix to pay Google more but it is rather a lot more since they have increased their prices by a huge amount, some people on web suggest it is a 15x increase in prices. Perhaps a bigger issue is that it is so difficult to contact the right people in Google to discuss all the issues and ensure that the pricing structure is appropriate, this may be why so many websites that use maps have vanished or not been able to function properly anymore. It is still affecting many of the websites I use and I suspect they may have to close down or loose a large part of their functionality.
I did look, and it seems that Bing Maps is the only alternative (with both maps and aerial views - otherwise you could mirror OpenStreetMap and do it in house.)
How many maps a month does iSpot require?
Edit: It looks like theyâve reduced the free credit roughly 30-fold. (I would have guestimated that iSpot was within the old free credit limits).
Edit: "Embedded Google Maps
If you do not require your Maps to be customised in any way and are happy with the way that the standard Google Maps works and looks, then you can simply find a location for your Map on Google Maps and embed it onto your page(s).
This way you will not be charged as embed requests have unlimited usage under the new Google Maps Pricing.
The only drawback from using an embedded Google Map is that it is not customisable apart from the size of the map on the page and the address the map points to." (https://www.bisongrid.uk/blog/how-to-reduce-google-maps-api-charges/)
Edit: But perhaps an embedded map is insufficient (for adding observations) as perhaps it doesnât allow you to get a location back from it. That isnât required for people who specify location by GR/lat+lon, and for people who specify locations by name an alternative location service could be used while still displaying Google maps. The old feature whereby iSpot remembered locations would have helped here.
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Useful response. Thanks
A little more investigation finds that the Google Embedded Maps API is now split into basic and advanced, with basic still being free. Basic includes Place mode and View mode. Place mode seems to what is needed to serve up a map for a view of an observation with a pinned location - but not one with a monad or hectad square.
EasyGPS went through a period of not displaying pins, so I went and had a look at how it implemented its maps, but it turns out that itâs currently using Microsoft Maps, and has 4 API calls to implement it - one to create the map and 3 to add the pin. I suppose the next thing for me to do is to look at how iSpot implements its maps.
Edit: the implementation of maps seems to be hidden behind includes. But when looking at the source to the map view of my observations I noticed HTML for a list of links (not displayed) to the observations from the main carousel. I donât suppose itâs significant, but it wonât help performance.
Thanks again.
As you know I am using the Map feature more extensively than most others, particularly in my Virtual Experiments https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/observations/list?filters=JTdCJTIydGFncyUyMiUzQSU1QiU3QiUyMklEJTIyJTNBNDYwOTglMkMlMjJuYW1lJTIyJTNBJTIydmlydHVhbDElMjIlMkMlMjJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiUyMiUzQW51bGwlMkMlMjIlMjQlMjRoYXNoS2V5JTIyJTNBJTIyb2JqZWN0JTNBMTYxOCUyMiU3RCU1RCU3RA%3D%3D (silly hyperlink)
Without the link to Satellite view iSpot would be much poorer but I could live without it and, of course, Street View too but which is terribly undervalued here.
Geograph links to Satellite view (and others), and it has a very powerful map system with positioning to 10m precision - I love it https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5569328
Sunday 14:20 Map issues
Iâve been getting âthis page canât load google mapsâ this evening. Is this general? or is it a browser problem? (Iâve being trying Mozilla Firefox in the hope it might be faster - it doesnât seem to be.)
As of 06:40 today Google maps still arenât loading (Windows 10, Firefox).
It is to do with googleâs daily limit on map usage which is a relativley new thing, they had monthly usage limit and before that no limit. Of course they want to maximise their income and ensure that we donât suddenly get a huge bill, just a large bill.
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