Updating tags (but not locations) for a way also bumps the versions of the nodes despite no changes to those nodes

Help and support
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1

Editing in JOSM I’ve noticed that whenever I update tags for a highway—e.g., adding cycleway=* tags to a street—the changeset includes “updates” for the nodes themselves even though I updated neither the tags nor locations for any of the ways’ nodes. The result is new versions in the histories for all the ways’ nodes despite no discernible changes to those nodes in their histories. For example, see changeset 154909121. Click the history for node ID 169603695, and you’ll see that my update to the tags on the ways created a version 12 for this node with all the same data as version 11. This seems unnecessary if not downright undesirable.

I haven’t tested other editors like iD, but this is how it works in JOSM.

Am I missing something here? Is this how it should work?

2

I wasn’t able to replicate on my machine.

If you are able to replicate, please file a ticket using Help → Report bug.

3

I really doubt that adding a tag to a way did set the modified flag for its child node, especially, as not all children got the flag.
Rather I suspect that you touched the node. I know at least two scenarios how this can happen:

  • add a tag to a node and delete the tag again
  • move a node very slightly
    • as JOSM internally uses more digits for the coordinates than the OSM server a slight move can result in identical coordinates on the server due to rounding
2 Likes
4

Might you have a plugin installed which is somehow causing that behavior?