Technical difficulties?

Private User - because the Geni code uses Google to dynamically look up the possible locations matching what you are typing when editing the profiles. That is apparently what 'broke'; the "lookup once" which is done while adding a profile evidently uses a different Google API call (not the 'dynamic' lookup) and so it did not apparently change (and thus still works).

I *am* just guessing ... the "Add" panel behaves somewhat differently than the "Edit" panels (e.g.: browser does not remember previous field values on "Add" panel) -- both places are 'dynamic', but the interact differently with the browsers, and so I presume they use somewhat different interfaces with Google to do so.

then what about adding or editing marriage places? how is that different from birth- or death places?

It seems to me that the marriage profile tab acts the same as when editing the "basic" profile tab -- I would guess they use the same "mechanism" to get location information. (Remember that behind the scenes Geni is also getting GPS long./lat. when there is a "Google match" for the location.)

The only "panel" that (to me) behaves somewhat differently is the "Add a profile" panel.

Hi Dan - You're correct. When you're adding a new person by clicking a yellow arrow in the Flash tree, we're using a special Flash API for Google maps to do the location lookup. That is the only place we're using the Flash API, which seems to still be working just the same as it always was.

In other places on the site, we're using the standard Google Maps API, though we're using what we have now discovered is an outdated version of that API, so we're busily working away to use the newest version. We're hoping that it has some better information and that some of the bugs we had filed about certain place name errors have been fixed.

it's even worse today.
guess the 'Flash API' is also no longer working...

I still have the ongoing problem when I try to click on a link on the profile. All I get is the flash spinner which will not go away until I mouse away from the link. If I am fast enough, I can sometimes click the link before the spinner starts but usually not. This seems to be a problem on the profiles only and on rare occasions the flash box does pop up. It is not browser specific.
Mike Stangel tagging for possible comment.

Natalie MacLees Should have tagged you I guess.

re: Flash spinner

1) try the links at the bottom of the overview ... see if those DO work!

2) I've had that problem for months with Firefox on Mac ... but only on the links at the top of the profile, not those at the bottom below the Overview tab.

We were able to update our Google Maps code and the locations should one again be getting filled in automatically with as much information as we can.

Private User I'm not at all sure what you mean but 'It's even worse today'. Are you having trouble with locations? Or the tree?

Eldon Lester Clark and Dan Cornett Are you referring to the small boxes that should pop up when you hover your mouse over a name? We recently made a change to those so they should pop up faster. Is this giving you trouble?

Natalie MacLees Yes, that is what i was referring to, the boxes wouldn't pop up at all, just the spinner. As of 5 minutes ago, they were popping up just fine. Hope they stay that way but it seems every time you "improve" flash, it breaks something.
Any hopeful news on the time of HTML5 implementation? Flash is a PIA.

Natalie MacLees Well I spoke to soon. On a profile, It pops up on one link but not on another. Same at the bottom of the profile page.

Natalie - the improvement so the hover cards pop up faster is much appreciated.

SOMETIMES the hover card pop up doesn't happen, and you just get the "spinner". Trick to get away from that is to move the cursor away till it stops spinning - then go back - as Eldon said above.

Natalie MacLees the google API is working beautifully in "edit" and "add profile" mode - many thanks for the quick fix on that. But it didn't work for me just now in "edit document" view. As always could be just me so appreciate a test elsewhere.

The "spinning on profile-page popups" still remains a problem (as it has for months) with Firefox on Mac, but seems to not be a problem in any other places or with other browser/OS combinations now.

Dan Cornett My configuration is FF 14 (64 bit) and Win & home premium SP1

WOW, with this new update to the Google API, entering English places is awful. It's putting England in the state field.

Ah, Victor, you discovered it also, how glad to read that, for only Curatores are the people to convince Geni-staff to work in modern technical-ways and not with google-marketing-tools....

when you live in HOLLAND, Europe it is even worse to work in geni, for every province is to be a city and so forth.....

Hmmm. ... seems that the location lookup is now broken when Adding a profile. Natalie MacLees

Dan I just released a fix for that, maybe ten minutes ago. Can you refresh the tree and try again?

I also created a ticket so our JavaScript guru can take a look at the hovercards and see why they're giving trouble sometimes and only showing spinning circles or loading up in the wrong place.

As for the Google API, this is a temporary solution - we are intending to replace this with our own Places feature. While that's in the works, though, we can report any place name errors to Google for correcting on their side. And as we've covered before, if the Google info is giving you troubles, you can either correct the info yourself or not use the Google feature at all by clicking the 'Edit Location Details' link and correcting or entering your data there.

Everyone have the option to report errors on Google Map, - but please note that there is not an error for many places that City, County and State have the same name.

Mike Stangel ... Yes, the "Add" location lookup is back in operation. Thanks!

The following message has started appearing when not logged in to Geni.

"Google has disabled the use of the Maps API for this application. The provided key is not a valid Google API key, or it is not authorised for the use of Google Maps Javascript v3 on this site. If you are the owner of this application, you can learn about obtaining a valid key here <URL provided>.".

If you press OK the message disappears, but it is annoying.

I just received an update notice for Flash which I installed and now Geni is broken. When I try to look at a tree, I get the "Geni Requires Flash & Javascript!" page. Fortunately, I haven't updated my laptop yet so I can still work in the tree.

Just curious: From where did you get that notification?

just checking, Eldon Lester Clark ... I presume you restarted your browser, if not the whole system. I find it a good practice to restart browsers after Java updates, even it doesn't prompt to do so....

Reinstalling Flash seems to have solved the problem. I HATE flash Bring on the HTML 5 version of Geni. I will be glad to be a Beta tester
Natalie MacLees Mike Stangel

Dan Cornett I have never had a problem with Java, only Flash. Flash is supposed to update automatically but just sends an update notice then will not update until you close the browser. In this case, when I found Geni broken. I rebooted but still the same so I downloaded Flash and reinstalled it. As I have said before, Flash is a PIA.

Private User Ken, we're looking into the problem. Thanks.