KML in Google Earth won't increase past level 3

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Ashen

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Feb 11, 2020, 12:23:28 AM2/11/20
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I'm really excited about the possibilities possible with plus codes and the OLC technology in general. While I was researching its use for my projects in Google Earth Pro v7.3.2.5776, my preferred tool for such things, the provided KML from the Plus Codes Grid Service will not display any level greater than 8 digits. I initially thought it might be related to my high DPI configuration, but I still encounter the same problem without scaling of any sort. My only other guess would be a configuration problem.

Is this reproducible for anyone else? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Andreas B

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Feb 11, 2020, 9:10:52 AM2/11/20
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This is reproducible for me, but only in the standalone Pro version of Google Earth. Importing the same KML file into the web version of Google Earth leads to 10- and even 11-digit grids being displayed, so the issue must be located elsewhere.

Barry Hunter

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Feb 11, 2020, 12:21:46 PM2/11/20
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Seems to be a mistake in the KML being generated by the grid service. It's outputting a <Description> tag in folder

  <Folder>
   <name>Grid (level 2)</name>
   <Description></Description>

But its <description> in KML. KML is case sensitive. In general KML uses convention of using capital for tags that (may) contain other other KML tags, ones that contain only values, use lowercase. 

The placemarks have the correct case
  <Placemark>
    <name>846XPP00+</name>
    <description>&#xA;&lt;b&gt;&lt;...


I think the web version of Google Earth will silently ignore invalid KML. 

The Pro version can be configured (Tools > Options > General -> KML Error Handling) - so could ignore the error, and continue to use it. Dont know if the grid service ever actully tries to put a description. In my test the <Description> is blank anyway. 





The grid service page says to report bugs at
but seems to slightly in in limbo as the KML code isnt part of 
so dont know if the KML stuff is technically open source. 


Zongwei Li

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Feb 11, 2020, 12:47:10 PM2/11/20
to Barry Hunter, Plus Codes Community Forum
Hey all,

Thanks for reporting this! The KML is generated by a server that we're hosting (as Google), so it's not part of the open source project. We'll look into it.

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Public site: http://www.openlocationcode.com/
Github project: https://github.com/google/open-location-code
Demo site: http://plus.codes/
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