Zero total scores

[IanW15]

We have encountered an odd problem during our last two events. Both type V score events with fairly normal setup.
Competitors finish and their result shows the number of controls visited but the total Gross score is 0. this happened to 6 competitors last week and over a dozen today, over 10% of the total. Many are seasoned MapRunners and are not aware of doing anything different.
If I go to the admin console and look at the Individual/Edit result. I see the visited controls listed but again with a zero score.
If I go into admin/HITMO I see a valid track with all the boxes ticked and a valid total at the top. If I then press Update/Save etc. everything is corrected - so it isn't a disaster. However, the competitors are left a bit bemused.
As the original error appears at the app level it would seem to be an app problem. I don't have any definite proof but both these events took place after the 7.4 update and i can't recall seeing this before, certainly not in these sort of numbers.
Anybody seen anything similar?

[Peter Effeney]

Ian,

It appears that there is an issue with MapRun 7.4.0 on Android (and not iPhone).

This occurs when a user starts the MapRun App and then does "Go to Start" using the event that was loaded when they previously opened MapRun. (That is, relying on MapRun to remember the details of the last event selected). In this scenario, MapRun on Android is "forgetting" that the course is a Score course. For those with a keen eye, they will see that when they "Go to Start" there is NO time remaining timer (showing the full time of the event), before they visit the start. At the end of the run, a score will be displayed, but this score is not recorded in the result that is uploaded.

The workaround for this is, to do what is the most common sequence anyway:
- Start MapRun
- Select the course
- Then Go to Start. (you should see both timers: count up and count-down indicating a Score event)

For results that have been recoreded a zero score, the MapRun Admin will need to go into the MapRun Console and manually enter the correct score.

We are working on a fix. There have been no MapRun 7 code changes in this function between 7.3 and 7.4, but some of the underlying software libraries have been updated and appear to have resulted in an issue.

My apologies for the inconvenience.

If your situation is any different to the one described above, or you have something else to add please post here

Peter

[IanW15]

Peter, many thanks for the quick response. Now we know the nature of the issue, we can work around it.
Ian

[bengreen]

Hi, here at Thames Valley we are seeing some kind of variant of this, with people doing legitimate runs then coming back with score zero. I have established that in every case where this has occurred, both of the following are true:

(1) The runner is using Android and MapRun 7.4.0
(2) They have pressed `exit my run' once before heading out to the start, because they were not ready yet

So far, this is covered by the discussion here.

However, in all these cases the runner was also not prompted for a PIN, despite the event being password-protected.

We have at least one runner who was not prompted for a PIN last week (an event called Didcot24 TVOC TVSS xx.....) but was this week (OxfordJericho24 TVOC TVSS .....) using the same equipment.

Any thoughts?

[IanW15]

Hi Ben,
Yes, it seems like you are hitting the zero score bug exactly as Peter has described and we have encountered. I'm afraid we don't use PINs for the current series of events so haven't come across any issues related to their use.
Ian

[Peter Effeney]

Ben,

Thanks for the extra information.

When an event is "Selected" the settings for that event are saved to "disk" (non-volatile memory).

It seems that for some reason v7.4.0 on Android is not retaining all of the settings (although some are being reliably retained, such as the name of the event).

Thanks for mention of prompting for a PIN as this may be another "setting" that is getting lost.

We are actively reviewing the situation and hope to have a fix soon.

Regards

Peter

[MichaelRaz]

Big ask but I'm hoping someone with an Android phone can do a test for me.  In a week we assist with an adventure race that uses MapRun - the possibility that someone might be able to bypass the PIN is a moderate concern.  A workaround I'm thinking would be to suggest the race Admin set the controls to not show on the map until punched (since runners should/will be using a paper map anyway) but am wondering if this specific configuration item is saved or one of the ones that might not get saved properly anyway.  Can't test myself as I have an iPhone.

Thanks

[WithaMap]

Michael

I can certainly help you with that.   Just let me know what you need.

Bruce

[MichaelRaz]

Thanks Bruce - I sent you and email with an event QR code for testing.  I'll report back here once we have results.

[Peter Effeney]

Michael, There is a version 7.4.1 for Android that fixes the issue. It's been in beta test mode for a few days and is now going through Google Review on the way to general availability.
Peter

[MichaelRaz]

Thanks Peter.  I know it can be a bit of a guess but do you have a feeling for how long the approval takes?

[Peter Effeney]

Michael,

v7.4.1 has just now been released to the Play Store - sometimes it can take an hour(?) to full propagate to all countries.

Peter

[MichaelRaz]

Thanks very much!!

[IanW15]

Great, thanks for your prompt action.

[DaveU]

Peter,
We had 2 people who had updated to 7.4.1/Android yesterday (Ditchling) and for at least one, probably both of them the course still started without requiring the PIN and gave a zero score. One of them we could reload. For the other we couldn't access the course from the local list to reload it due to a very weak phone signal.  The "Select Event" list wouldn't populate. Knowing about the issue did mean we avoided it for the majority though.
Dave

[Peter Effeney]

Dave,
Thanks for the report... That's disappointing.
Would you mind emailing further details to [e-mail] please (eg runners names).
That will allow me to investigate further.
Regards
Peter

[IanW15]

At our event this week we tried to ensure that all Android users had updated to 7.4.1 and almost all did. We had 33 runners using 7.4.1 on an Android phone. Of those 3 ended up with zero scores as before. This is a significantly lower proportion than we were seeing with 7.4.0 but we don't have comparable data on when the course was loaded and whether the app was closed and reopened.
Peter, I will send you the details in a separate email. I tried to get the 3 runners to send me their log but only one has responded. I don't know if it is useful but I will attach that. I have corrected the results in HITMO so the zero scores no longer appear.

[MichaelRaz]

May or may not be significant but we had our adventure race this weekend with about 150 teams.  Not counting the teams that completely ignored the detailed instruction provided weeks in advance on setting up MapRun until 10 minutes before the start, those that had other phone issues due to the poor data and wifi, and the unfortunate team that tipped their canoe and lost their phone, I did not see any '0' scores.  I don't know the percentage that were on android but everyone was checked prior to make sure they had upgraded.

[Peter Effeney]

Michael,

Thanks for the report... very useful.

As far as we can establish, MapRun 7.4.1 DOES fix the zero-score issue.

The cases reported above (at least those we have checked), arise from using v7.4.0 to "Select" the Event and then upgrading to v7.4.1 (and not re-Selecting the event). As the root cause was a failure in v7.4.0 to reliably save settings, such a scenario is simply a carry-over of the 7.4.0 bug.

Selecting the event in v7.4.1 should now reliably save the settings for the event.

Peter