custom markers stopped working

[Lori G]

--- I posted this to the KML group and they suggested I post to this
group since the problem seems to be with the Google map and it's
scripts. ---

We have a google map that has been working since June. Early this week
it stopped displaying *most* of the custom map markers, replacing them
with Google's default blue paddle. All browsers and platforms appear
to be affected, though some testers saw more custom markers than
others. All other map functionality and map filter functionality is
working properly.

See the map with the crazy mix of custom markers and default blue
paddles here:

http://climatehotmap.org/

The map links to 17 kmls in the head of the html page (kmls correspond
to the filter subcategories below the map). At the top of each kml
file there's a link to one of 5 different custom markers. See files
here:

http://climatehotmap.org/kml/food.kml
http://climatehotmap.org/pixif/marker-people.png

So far, I confirmed that the custom marker pngs and the kmls are in
their proper location and can be read by the kmls. I did this by
opening several kmls in Google Earth and entering a kml's url in the
search field of Google maps. In both cases, the custom markers display
properly. I also checked with the server administrator to see if
anything was changed on the server (nothing was). Two new markers were
recently added to the food kml, but that data resolved and the map was
working normally for a week after the update.

Any insight/help would be greatly appreciated!

Lori

[geoco...@gmail.com]

On Oct 27, 3:35 pm, Lori G <lok...@gmail.com> wrote:
> --- I posted this to the KML group and they suggested I post to this
> group since the problem seems to be with the Google map and it's
> scripts. ---
>
> We have a google map that has been working since June. Early this week
> it stopped displaying *most* of the custom map markers, replacing them
> with Google's default blue paddle. All browsers and platforms appear
> to be affected, though some testers saw more custom markers than
> others. All other map functionality and map filter functionality is
> working properly.
>
> See the map with the crazy mix of custom markers and default blue
> paddles here:
>
> http://climatehotmap.org/

Looks OK to me (no default blue markers, in Firefox on Linux).

-- Larry

[Rossko]

> http://climatehotmap.org/

I can confirm I'm looking at this right now in the UK with mostly blue
default markers.

Google use distributed servers, your view may vary around the world.

KmlLayer caches imagery at Google's servers for a time, a 'broken'
view may appear/disappear after a few hours. This gets important if
you edit KML and introduce errors, they may not immediately go away
when 'fixed' at source.

In fact I'm trying the same url in both IE and FF browsers on the same
PC, and get more blue markers with less custom icons in FF.... that
ought to rule out cache issues??

[Fred Weaver]

I can also confirm the appearance of the blue markers. I'm using FF
7.0.1, Max OS.

On Oct 27, 4:15 pm, "geocode...@gmail.com" <geocode...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Lori G]

> I can confirm I'm looking at this right now in the UK with mostly blue
> default markers.

Thanks to everyone for testing... it's helpful to get global feedback!

> Google use distributed servers, your view may vary around the world.
> KmlLayer caches imagery at Google's servers for a time, a 'broken'
> view may appear/disappear after a few hours.  This gets important if
> you edit KML and introduce errors, they may not immediately go away
> when 'fixed' at source.

Yes, we discovered this early on and it makes testing difficult--
particularly when we made minor changes to our scripts. We started
hiding text edits in our kmls so we could distinguish btwn the old/new
kmls!

> In fact I'm trying the same url in both IE and FF browsers on the same
> PC, and get more blue markers with less custom icons in FF.... that
> ought to rule out cache issues??

Exactly. That's had us scratching our heads (and why now... and why
only some markers@#!?) I'm now testing the map/kmls/pngs on a
different server. I want to rule out server-side issues--specifically
what looks like a canonical redirect from http://climate* to http://www.climate*.
We use full urls to the custom marker pngs -- currently http://climate*.
That doesn't seem to trip up html => kml access, but it might trip up
kml => png access. (but again... why wouldn't that affect all 5 custom
markers?)

I plan to remove some kmls too. See if we've reached some threshold
for the number of kmls-to-map, or custom markers-to-map.

Thanks again everyone. Any new thoughts welcome.

[Rossko]

There's a bit of insight into how KML tile-based display works here:
http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-js-api-v3/browse_thread/thread/d7a3e542c09200aa/51ae45bfed902d36
we might guess that different browsers on differently loaded PCs could
construct different URLs for the same tile image, the IDs could
possibly be in a different order depending on the order in which the
API completes multiple almost-simultaneous KmlLayer setups?

More guessing, Google's server may render new tiles for different URL
requests even if the logical content should be the same. Really,
Google _should_ construct new tiles to honour the layer ordering.

It has been noted before that KML rendering is ruthlessly picky about
response times when fetching images and KML files. Maybe your own
server or network load went up a few weeks back, maybe Google
tightened the timeouts. It may well be your redirect is adding lag.

[Radina]

To confirm the appearance CHM Markers: IE 8, Safari 5. , FF 7.
Nice map!

[az az]

On Oct 28, 2:40 pm, Lori G <lok...@gmail.com> wrote:
, we discovered this early on and it makes testing difficult--
> particularly when we made minor changes to our scripts. We started
> hiding text edits in our kmls so we could distinguish btwn the old/new
> kmls!

Lori, no need to do that. Yous can get the kml to work in realtime
like this:
+(new Date()).valueOf() i.e. append this after a '?' in the
definition.

var healthLayer = new google.maps.KmlLayer('http://climatehotmap.org/
kml/health.km?l'+(new Date()).valueOf(),
{map:map,preserveViewport:true,suppressInfoWindows: true});?'

[Enoch Lau (Google Employee)]

What's the expected behavior? Should there be no blue markers at all, or should there be a mix of CHM and default blue markers?

Enoch

[geoco...@gmail.com]

On Nov 1, 7:51 pm, "Enoch Lau (Google Employee)" <enoch...@google.com>
wrote:

> What's the expected behavior? Should there be no blue markers at all, or
> should there be a mix of CHM and default blue markers?

When I first looked at it, it was all custom markers. Now I see a mix
of custom and blue markers. So I believe there should be no blue
markers at all.

-- Larry

>
> Enoch

[Lori G]

wow. thanks for that tip & snippet. We'll use that next time we update
kmls!

[Lori G]

Enoch -- the expected behavior is custom 'CHM' markers only--in 5
different colors. No default blue paddles.

I believe we have discovered the problem (or at least one piece of the
puzzle).

The Map's root directory has an htaccess file with a site-wide
redirect from non-www => www. The links to the kmls and the links to
the custom-marker pngs in the head of each kml, did not include the www.
When we tested the site **without** the htaccess file, the custom
markers reappeared. We are currently testing the site with/without/
with a modified htaccess file.

I will update this thread when the testing is complete.

Unfortunately, this doesn't explain why the map was functioning
properly from June through ~October 24th, then suddenly broke...

Thanks to everyone for your time/suggestions.

-- Lori

[oz_mapper]

I seem to be having Lori G's problem with a test page:

http://www.polydesmida.info/millipedesofaustralia/maps/atrophotergum_map1.html

The page is not yet at the stage where the user can toggle layers on and off. I've just put the 6 KmlLayers in the initialise() function to see how they all display. I know that all 6 .kml files can display with the correct custom icons, because I checked them in Google Earth.

What I'm seeing in Firefox 3.5.16 is that 2 layers are showing the correct custom icons, and 4 layers are showing the default blue teardrop.

I've tried commenting out various combinations of the 6 layers (and changing the file name so that I get around Google's server caching). I can't seem to get more than 2 layers properly 'icon-ed' - usually it's just 1 layer.

Suggestions or explanations would be very welcome. If I can't get around this problem I'm not keen to press on with layer toggling!

Many thanks in advance for any ideas!

[Rossko]

> http://www.polydesmida.info/millipedesofaustralia/maps/atrophotergum_...

From the UK I see five different colour little square icons, which
seems to be all.
Note that your atrosoda.kml file shows blue boxes, not pink as the key/
checkbox suggests

[oz_mapper]

Many thanks for checking, Rossko. I've just tried it here in Australia and I now get all 6 layers with blue teardrops.

It looks to be an issue at Google's end, not in the browser and not an issue with v3 itself. I'd hoped to use Google Maps for this simple species mapper, but if users aren't going to reliably see my icons, I'm out of luck.

[Chris Broadfoot]

Thanks Lori,

Some marker seem to load, some don't. I've notified the KML team, I'll let you know what they say.

FWIW it's easy to reproduce:

http://maps.google.com/?q=http://climatehotmap.org/kml/land.kml

Chris

--

G+: http://chrisbroadfoot.id.au/+

Twitter: http://twitter.com/broady

Lori

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[Daniel Bendel]

Hi Lori and others. :)

I can confirm this behaviour on climatehotmap.org and I have the same problem with an own implementation for corn dieases in Germany:
http://www.maiskomitee.de/web/intranetDiabrotika.aspx

Or, directly on G-Maps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http:%2F%2Fwww.maiskomitee.de%2Fdiabrotika%2FDiabrotikaService.asmx%2FGetKml%3Fyears%3D2009&hl=de&ll=48.305121,10.645752&spn=4.845036,11.173096&sll=48.799627,10.634766&sspn=4.797967,11.173096&vpsrc=6&t=m&z=7

I have been testing this since Friday, when everything was okay. We use 5 different color-coded circles which all showed up at their correct locations and all.

Since this morning, it does not work anymore. First a few markers were replaced by blue paddles. Now there are almost none left. :-)
I did not change anything in the kml since friday, apart from the server url which serves the images. It happened with the old server too, though.
Anyway, the new server should be faster, if there's a difference at all.

Regards,
Daniel