Couple of questions regarding Dive Sites

Andrew Goldby

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Jun 22, 2026, 9:42:50 AMJun 22

to 'Robert C. Helling' via Subsurface Divelog

Hi Guys

I tried to put a little more info into my divests last weekend with a couple of unforeseen issues.

I exported my dive list from subsurface (Mac) and then merged some notes from other sources into the XML file.

After this I re-imported the list back into Subsurface.

The import was successful and now showed the additional information in the notes field as expected. However I had hoped that it would automatically merge the dives into the old ones since they were identical other than the additional field and it showed them on the sport screen as the ‘closest site’ 0m away. It didn't ... but I thought that would be easy to overcome in the divesite manager. Since all the duplicates had the same GPS coordinates I was able to merge the two sets of sites together (a pair at a time) but that then resulted in all my old dives now being associated with no dive site. To be honest I cant remember whether I merged the new site into the old one or visa versa but the names were the same and I assumed a merge would maintain the link between dive site and dive. Would it make a difference which way round it went?

Has anyone else experienced this and how can I prevent it happening in future?

(As it happened I had my log on the android device and was able to disable data in order to see the full (local) history dive list then manually allocated the relevant divests to each dive on the Mac (cloud based version) but there must be an easier way - I now take regular backups)

As an aside though … having added all this data to the Divesite notes field I then found that there was no way to view this on the android App - which is why I was putting the data in since people tend to ask have you dives X and it would be nice to not only say yes but to give some info about the site (not necessarily just what you saw). Am I missing something? Is there a way to view the dive site info (coordinates, description, notes) on the android App?

Many thanks in advance

Best Regards

Andy Goldby

Mac

Android 6.0.5576

Claude Hähni

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Jun 25, 2026, 1:18:46 PMJun 25

to Subsurface Divelog

I can't really follow what exactly you did and how you merged. However, Subsurface uses UUIDs for distinguishing dive sites and not names (which makes sense since there must be hundreds of dive sites called "Coral Garden").
Anyway, technically you should be able to export your Subsurface Log as XML, edit the the XML by adding a <notes> tag to the sites and import that file again. Notes should then be assigned to the original sites without creating duplicates.

I assume you used some script? Because if you did it manually just adding the notes in Subsurface would be much easier.

Andrew Goldby

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Jun 25, 2026, 1:38:36 PMJun 25

to subsurfac...@googlegroups.com

Yes it was a script and I had assumed that because it used UUIDs and the new sites would have the same UUID as the old ones they would just merge when re-imported … but they didn’t ☹️

Best Regards

Andy Goldby

Mob: 07740 583409

Email: andy....@gmail.com

From: subsurfac...@googlegroups.com <subsurfac...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Claude Hähni <claude...@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, 25 June 2026 at 18:18
To: Subsurface Divelog <subsurfac...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Couple of questions regarding Dive Sites

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Claude Hähni

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Jun 25, 2026, 3:43:32 PMJun 25

to Subsurface Divelog

I don't understand how you can have "old" and "new" sites.
Did you add more dive sites with additional information but the same IDs of existing sites to the XML?
You should do an export of all your data, then you manipulate that file and import it back into Subsurface. You should then have dive sites with the exact same UUIDs (and dives associated to them) as before but now with whatever info you have added.

Andrew Goldby

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Jun 25, 2026, 3:46:02 PMJun 25

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That is exactly what I thought … but it didn't work that way :-(

I merged them manually in pairs using the small distance between pairs (as they had the same GPS coordinates)

Best Regards

Andy Goldby

From: subsurfac...@googlegroups.com <subsurfac...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Claude Hähni <claude...@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, 25 June 2026 at 20:43
To: Subsurface Divelog <subsurfac...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Couple of questions regarding Dive Sites

I don't understand how you can have "old" and "new" sites.
Did you add more dive sites with additional information but the same IDs of existing sites to the XML?
You should do an export of all your data, then you manipulate that file and import it back into Subsurface. You should then have dive sites with the exact same UUIDs (and dives associated to them) as before but now with whatever info you have added.

Andrew Goldby schrieb am Donnerstag, 25. Juni 2026 um 19:38:36 UTC+2:

Yes it was a script and I had assumed that because it used UUIDs and the new sites would have the same UUID as the old ones they would just merge when re-imported … but they didn’t ☹️

Best Regards

Andy Goldby

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/subsurface-divelog/3d78a6dd-1df7-4450-acf7-4e47b6094c33n%40googlegroups.com.

Claude Hähni

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Jun 25, 2026, 3:50:05 PMJun 25

to Subsurface Divelog

I assume then you imported back into your existing log book instead of a new one?

Andrew Goldby

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Jun 25, 2026, 3:52:44 PMJun 25

to subsurfac...@googlegroups.com

Yes

Best Regards

Andy Goldby

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/subsurface-divelog/450041aa-df88-4681-8f33-c7fa737280bfn%40googlegroups.com.

Claude Hähni

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Jun 25, 2026, 5:16:43 PMJun 25

to Subsurface Divelog

What is the intention to import into the existing data? I don't think Subsurface will or should merge data in that case. If you import to a fresh log it should work as expected. You can then sync that to the cloud if needed.

Andrew Goldby

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Jun 25, 2026, 5:33:57 PMJun 25

to subsurfac...@googlegroups.com

I just wanted to add some additional data to the dive sites... in most cases data from ukho eg wreck id number, length, tonnage etc.

Not added to the dive but to the site.

I was hoping to be able to see this data in the android app for future reference but it isn't visible anyway.

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Sent: Thursday, 25 June 2026 22:16:43

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Claude Hähni

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Jun 26, 2026, 5:38:01 AMJun 26

to Subsurface Divelog

Like I explained, you should be able to do that by not trying to merge but re-import into a clean log book.

The app so far has no dive site management.