Does the portal submission system need improving? Am I the only one?

CesparCespar ✭✭✭

This tends to be my usual submission story when travelling and exploring


I find a nice portal candidate somewhere where there are basically no portals or very few.

I take the time to take the 2 nice photos and start the submission process.

However I'm at 2bars 4g signal. What follows is a fight to send my submission. I can wait 5 minutes before receiving an error and trying again. This may repeat 5 or 6 times before submission passes or the app gets "stuck" in a submission attempt state.

Now if I restart the app I lose the photos and submission. I cannot save the submission for later without taking the photos separately and if I do that finding the area on the submission map is also not convenient.


Meanwhile for the scout controller scans we can upload them in the background and continue playing without worrying.


During portal submission my game is essentially locked up until submission is completed meaning I cannot explore further or risk missing other submissions or existing portals. Once again portal scans can be done and let upload in the background while i continue to play.


Does this frustrate anyone else? Is there any chance the process can be smoothed out?

Comments

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    I recently took several minutes to upload a submition and wasted 10 minutes to finally fail it.

    Also recently, took a nice chance to submit a POI I've been looking to sub for some time now, got everything right but as I left the place, connectivity began to lose power, but I could not stop and go back. Shortly after, submition failed. Now I don't even want to retry.

    Same issue goes with pictures. Is not that portal sub needs an improvement, the whole pack does!

  • ArtilectZedArtilectZed ✭✭✭✭✭

    Did you run a speed test to check your upload? I was getting time out errors when trying to submit portals yesterday. I had 2-3 bars of LTE, but both Google's web based speed test, and Ookla's Speedtest.net app were showing I was getting maybe .1 - .2 Mbps upstream, so uploading multiple 5+ MB images was never going to happen. I ended up just taking pictures and submitting everything when I got home, on wifi. I missed one surrounding area shot, so I couldn't submit one thing, which sucked, but I can submit it later.

    That said, it would be nice if the submission process used the same kind of "upload later" system that portal scanning does, instead of waiting for the timeout error (which can take a while).

  • CesparCespar ✭✭✭

    Oh I'm sure connection plays a big part - but even redacted was a smoother process. At the very least we should really be able to save for submission later. (And not simply save photos to submit remotely)


    Recently I've been off exploring small mountain villages or just amazing spots in the countryside which are empty. I travel with my wife and while she is understanding of my ingress play she doesnt wish to stand around for 10-20minutes while I fight to submit new portals. Frankly I am missing some submissions because its so off putting to submit one that I dont want to fight the system again to send another :(

  • ArtilectZedArtilectZed ✭✭✭✭✭

    I hit that point yesterday, myself. The stuff I was trying to submit was just on the edge of being able to remotely submit it from home, so I'm glad that worked.

  • CesparCespar ✭✭✭
    edited September 2020

    Managed to get all my submissions done (9 of them already approved within 4 days - 1 rejection which I don't understand and was surprised at)

    The next issue is the nomination limit. (Also blew my pogo load - finding that pogo submissions are also faster to process and feels smoother too! Downside- no agent name will be on the portals once accepted)

    Very sad that I spent 2 hours hiking a mountain only to not be able to submit a portal up there! (Schoolboy error right? lol)

  • CliffMCliffM ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yesterday, I was in an Aquatic Garden near DC. I attempted to nominate 2 portals. Both failed. I tried one of them 2 times, and another 5 times. I eventually just gave up.

    Meanwhile, on the same outing I scanned 5 portals. They all went through. I would really like to see the queuing system used for scans extended to Nominations.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    One tip to help is to reduce the picture quality in your camera settings, so a 2MP will likely succeed as opposed to a 5 - 10MP photo.


    The loss in quality from the reduction isn't too bad, and should not be rejected by wayfarer reviewers for "Low Quality"

  • yesterday I went on a small hike in the surrounding forests and I wanted to add some portals, but I could not send the nomination, even though the 4G signal was very good and the internet worked without problems .. I have the same problem with remote nomination .. can anyone advise me what is wrong? i_v. 2.61.3

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I've personally never struggled with uploads when I know I have great signal.

    To me, it looks like some of y'all are expecting to upload 10+ mb of data out in the woods and wondering why it's not working...

    I would agree that a status bar showing upload progress would be helpful, for nominations and for portal scans. Knowing portal scans can be uploaded once you reach wifi, I'm surprised they haven't added that feature for poi yet....

  • MirthmakerMirthmaker ✭✭✭✭

    Tech limitations like this is why I have submitted exactly one new portal request in two years.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I don't go out of my way to submit new poi like I used to, that's for sure. Especially when perfectly good POI continually get rejected for seemingly silly reasons. Granted, I've been to a given location and reviewers haven't, so that's how it goes. I'm certainly not going to bring my 360 camera with me to upload photospheres for poi I might never visit again.

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    I was out uniquing earlier today and noticed when you are prompted to take a picture, if you select take picture the app usually just crashes. doh! You can take the images then submit the portals, which I did, but never received the emails for them, lol. These are the reasons why I just play the game and don't bother to submit, review, or scan anything. It's really not worth the wasted time of these actions. I'd rather make triangles or such...something that actually gains AP...

  • edited December 2020

    The old method, from 1.0, was that the photos taken would be stored on the device, and then Google Sync used to upload them later. This had a lot of issues when iOS was added, because obviously, an Android method didn't work.

    Something that was pointed out to me during the Prime Beta was that the images were no longer saved, and thus when you submitted, if it didn't get written it wasn't still available. This is because the image is stored in memory instead of being written to the storage. At Prime's release, that made sense because they could avoid asking for storage permissions. However, now that they've got that permission, for portal scanning, it makes zero sense not to go to a write then upload format again. And Unity has methods of doing this that work for both iOS and Android, which I think is part of what they're using for Portal Scans.

    The same method used by Portal Scans should be completely 100% usable by Portal Submissions, and I do remember @NianticBrian mentioning that he thought the same and would see if they could look into it.

    The bigger issue than simple failures and locking up the client however is actually zero-cell submissions. Unless you can get signal within 25kms of the portal, you cannot submit a portal. This makes the more "epic" of Ingress portals inadmissible. Which frankly, makes the Niantic portal network lesser for it.

  • CesparCespar ✭✭✭

    I'd forgotten about this thread ^_^

    I definitely think things would be improved if the images were saved locally (maybe even the entire submission) so you could at least try and submit again when you're at wifi/better reception. Currently if I have not so great reception I am having to remember to take the pictures before starting submission attempt, just in case it fails so that I don't lose the pictures and can try again later.

  • You do have this option, actually. You just need to be within 25km of the location to submit.

  • This used to be the practice, but then something was bad on iOS and Google Sync doesn't work there. So they changed Prime to work the same on both methods.

    However, there should be a method like portal scanning that's now possible using the same tech, to allow you to submit and then upload later.

    That assumes that you can get cell signal within 25kms of the portal. Hike up a mountain and that's unlikely. And no-one wants to submit two uncompressed portal images on satellite data.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Ah, I keep on wondering what you meant by Google Sync but I remembered that's how the submissions were sent. An e-mail is sent to them with the title as the subject, photo of the portal, description, and then logged coordinates.

    The photo upload method was so easy as you had it as a share function within Android. The scanner would automatically place the coordinates from the photo's EXIF data. I was annoyed when they re-enabled the nominations that they broke the share function and you had to manually adjust the pin for the location. I think that's one thing I wish back in Prime's upload so if you're within that 25 km range you don't have to manually adjust the pin.

  • I keep on wondering what you meant by Google Sync

    After the Emails, the Android-only submit method used Sync to push files to the server.

  • CesparCespar ✭✭✭

    Yes, but you have to manually take the photos and save them to your phone for later, it's not automatic in-app (as in, you can't "save submission until later" - which would be awesome :D)

    Suffice to say, room for improvement on the process!

  • PangarbanPangarban ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2021

    A "save for later" button (as suggested above) seems to be a straightforward solution. Especially given the time it takes to fill in all the fields, etc.

  • KarM3LKarM3L ✭✭✭✭

    Get in the habit of taking low resolution photos out of app, has 2fold effect of saving bandwidth.....

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    There is not much incentive for Niantic to cache a nomination for upload later. Ingress is the only game

    I too would like to have the option to cache a nomination, then travel 30+ km until in good cell range to upload, 25km is pretty short.


    If there is a hint of cell service, then what @KarM3L suggests is a good alternative.

    Take low res photos (obviously not low quality). This can be done through your camera app. Ingress just uses the same settings as what is set in the camera app

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2021

    Though if Niantic enabled supporting the HEIF (High Efficiency Image Format) , that can drop the file size even further, even by half that of JPG, with minimal degradation in image quality.

    Though it isn't fully compatible on Android devices.

    My Sammy S21 Ultra, does support HEIF.

  • CesparCespar ✭✭✭

    True, but it still doesn't address the fact that the game is essentially "locked up" while handling portal submissions ( as opposed portal scans which can be done in the background allowing you to continue to play)

  • No reason to let PoGo cache their submissions, just Ingress.

    We have the portal scan data storage methods already.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Agree 100% with the OP.

    Often I am in zero signal areas, with good portal candidates and the app fails to submit even one due to lockup hang on submission or having to force restart.

    They should be cached for later submission.

    And before people complain about no signal portals, mobile networks are always expanding and there are ways to capture in no signal (BGAN etc).

Sign In or Register to comment.