I’m currently running Vespucci 21.2.0.0. Today I tried recording a gpx track for the first time. I pressed “start gpx track” after making sure my phone was properly connected to gps. Everything looked fine and I could see the trace of where I was. But then, the first weird thing appeared when I wanted to stop recording: I couldn’t find any button to stop it, instead there only was “pause gpx tracking”, so I pressed this instead and everything still looked fine.
So here is the first question: What is the proper way to stop gpx recording?
I then switched the app and turned off the gps from my phone. When I later switched back to Vespucci, the track wasn’t showing anymore. The gpx recording layer is still displayed, it’s just empty. I tried exporting the track, but the file size was 0B.
So how can I make the track not disappearing? Do I have to immediately save it?
Is there a place where the most recent tracks are saved automatically?
Pausing is the correct way to stop recording. The current recording should stay around and could potentially be resumed until you explicitly delete it.
Did you try exporting the track and checking if there is really no data (that would be an issue you should report)?
I exported the track via the context menu of the gpx recording layer in the view control window. I now tried to open the file in another app and it tells me “document is empty”.
Interestingly, I found a file named mrutags.xml that was written only a few minutes before I exported the track in the same Downloads/Vespucci folder. However, adding it as a layer to Vespucci doesn’t show anything. Trying to open it in another app tells me “track was empty or invalid”.
I want to note that this other app is saving its own tracks as xml trace files, not actual gpx files. I have no other app that is using gpx that I could use to test.
So I assume I will have to report an issue. I would try to do that tomorrow.
I noticed that I missed out a piece of information: When I went back to Vespucci, the system asked me again if I wanted to grant location access (I have set it to ask any time an app requests access and normally Vespucci didn’t ask for it when I had location services off). I selected no as I could not see any need to grant access to something that shouldn’t be available anyways. Then the behavior from above appeared.
As I ran out of battery, now after a fresh start, I was asked to grant location access again and I selected yes (“only this time”). After that, my recorded track was available again, however the last 3-5 minutes are missing.
I am now frequently asked about the permission when coming back to Vespucci, in particular after having the screen off, which is pretty annoying. Depending on the selection, the track is either shown or not but the end is still missing. It’s pretty weird that apparently location access is needed to display something that has already been recorded.
Also, if I allow location access, now there is suddenly a location icon shown at the left edge in the vertical center of the screen. It doesn’t seem to have any function. I would like to remove it as it’s taking up precious screen space for editing, is there a way?
And lastly, I just noticed that Vespucci now seems to think that my gps is available even though it’s off, and it offers me all features in the location tab. However, current position info gives an error, “no usable location”.
The simple bit is that the service that manages location data requires the permission to access location without that it won’t start and as it manages the recorded data too, there’s your reason for the behaviour.
There’s no reason not to give the app location permission access while it is running it doesn’t transmit it anywhere without you explicitly wanting that.
The button on the left hand side re-centers the display on the current position if you are already there well …
Ah, so it turns out the FAQ is slightly wrong That page could be updated with a mention that location must be enabled in order to manage GPX traces recorded on the phone.
That page could be updated with a mention that location must be enabled in order to manage GPX traces recorded on the phone.