agent profile link broken (or useless at best)
GorillaSapiens
✭✭✭✭✭
Ingress 2.92
Android 12
Pixel 6 Pro
I go to my profile.
Click the new "chain link" icon next to the upload / copy stats button
Select "Copy". it's a long link that starts with https(colon)(slash)(slash)link.ingress.com/?link=
== two different scenarios from here ==
==scenario 1==
paste that link into chrome on android.
expected: i should see my profile
actual: it takes me to the google play store, for ingress prime, with a button to "install on more devices"
==scenario 2==
paste that link into a chrome on a windows 10 laptop
expected: i should see my profile
actual: redirects to https(colon)(slash)(slash)intel.ingress.com/agent/GorillaSapiens which says "NOT FOUND" and "The requested URL /agent/GorillaSapiens was not found on this server."
====
I don't understand this. either this is broken, or it is working as intended and does nothing useful that anyone would ever actually want to do.
Comments
At the moment, the agent link is supposed to be opened on your phone with Ingress already installed. If you do that, Ingress will open and send you directly to the agent profile. Brian mentioned that it is currently not possible and intended to see an agents profile outside of Ingress.
Scenario 1 is intended (aside from Chrome not opening Ingress, but I believe that's a Chrome issue) to sent people to the respective App Store of their phone to install Ingress. Once installed, they can reopen the link and see the profile.
Scenario 2 is supposed to open ingress.com to teach people about Ingress, but for some reason, the link is broken.
Is the whole thing useful? Eh, I like it, I can check agent profiles without pinging them first. But if you never do that, then no, it's probably not a useful feature for you.
Scenario 1 does not work as intended then. i have Ingress on my phone. opening the link sent me to the play store, not to ingress.
Huh, works for me no problem. Can you check if in "Links to open in this app" in the app setting of Android, link.ingress.com is checked? I believe starting with Android 12, it has to be manually checked, but it might be unchecked for other reasons as well.
Assuming you're on Android, at least.
i'm no expert here. what i see is below. if it is as you say "something that needs to be enabled manually in android 12+", it seems confusing to the end user. that said, here's what mine looks like. i don't recall enabling anything manually. and yes, i'm on android 12.
Scenario1 worked for me first time,
Forums won't allow video, posting the same link to desktop mode, yelded the same unexpected result you got with agent/<usernMe> that's difrent, previous it just went to ingress.com
After multiple attempts in and out of desktop mode I got to......
So looks like some sort of glitch with phone browser not, ingres
Just a technical point here. Posting a link into a browser address bar will not redirect to a new app ever on Android. The link has to be clicked.
e.g. Post it into your Saved Messages in Telegram, then click on the link.
The act of clicking a link can open a new application, but the browser address bar will always open the deep link itself.
https://link.ingress.com/?link=https%3A%2F%2Fintel.ingress.com%2Fagent%2FGorillaSapiens&apn=com.nianticproject.ingress&isi=576505181&ibi=com.google.ingress&ifl=https%3A%2F%2Fapps.apple.com%2Fapp%2Fingress%2Fid576505181&ofl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ingress.com%2F
Scenario 1: If you click on this link on an Android phone with Ingress installed, it'll take you to your profile.
Scenario 2: If you click on a Windows PC, it does seem to be broken for me too.
this almost explains what i saw in scenario 1 then. i psated it into chrome, shouldn't it have taken me to the same dead page as on the desktop? why did it take me to google play?
this all seems less useful than it could be even if it worked properly. if one were a sort of "hermit", going to someone's profile just to get a link to paste into some other app (like telegram) (and maybe remember where it was you put the link) so you can click it later is just extra steps. i wouldn't bother, i'd just ping them in comms then, or find them in the scoreboard or on a portal they own or whatever.
I'll admit some utility in sharing the link with others, but even then others might see it say on telegram on their desktop, where it becomes useless. altogether this looks like a solution in search of a problem, and a "solution" that doesn't really work as well as intended.
altogether this does not seem like a good solution to the "see anyone's profile in game without pinging them in coms" problem.
(and honestly, i'd rather see other bugs fixed before this had ever been implemented the way it is)
shouldn't it have taken me to the same dead page as on the desktop? why did it take me to google play?
On an Android phone it takes you to the Google Play store. On an iPhone it takes you to the iOS App Store. On a PC it takes you to the Ingress website. The https://link.ingress.com redirects based on the APN/ISI/IBI/IFL values, and on PC to the OFL value, and your browser submits what type of browser it is (mobile/desktop and OS).
Redirecting to the Play Store/App Store is for "Oh you clicked this link but don't have Ingress installed, here's where to install it" option. PC's can't install Ingress.
altogether this does not seem like a good solution to the "see anyone's profile in game without pinging them in coms" problem.
The thing that's really missing, is the link button on other Agent's profiles. We can easily manipulate it manually, but if you want to say "Hey does anyone know this person", then the link button would be far easier.
you say <<Redirecting to the Play Store/App Store is for "Oh you clicked this link but don't have Ingress installed, here's where to install it" option.>>
but I do have ingress installed. i'm doing this on the same phone i play on. in the play store, the button says "install on more devices" not the standard two "open" and "uninstall" buttons.
i didn't even notice that the link button is missing from other profiles. if the ONLY profile i can get a link for is my own, and can only use it on android devices, then this feature is COMPLETELY useless. why would i ever jump through hoops like that when i can just open my profile in the ingress app the old way?
but I do have ingress installed. i'm doing this on the same phone i play on. in the play store, the button says "install on more devices" not the standard two "open" and "uninstall" buttons.
And the dumb system as it works, means that if you click the link it redirects to the App, but Android won't redirect you to the app from the browser address bar.
if the ONLY profile i can get a link for is my own, and can only use it on android devices, then this feature is COMPLETELY useless. why would i ever jump through hoops like that when i can just open my profile in the ingress app the old way?
The whole point is to give your profile link to other people. That's why it's called "Sharing".
but it doesn't work for that purpose. i literally can do nothing with that link except (a) get a blank page on a desktop or (b) go to the play store in android.
Why do you need a link to your own profile?
The purpose of the link is to give it to other people, in which case you post it in a place they can click.
Niantic did not write the Chrome app or Android. Go talk to Google about their inability to open an app from the browser address bar...
No, Android exists as it is. Why should i criticize Google when Niantic fails to integrate with it properly?
Because the criticism you have is for Chrome. Not Ingress. You're expecting Niantic to criticize Google on your behalf.
regardless of where you want to point the finger of blame, it doesn't work as expected.
i don't honestly expect chrome to change, do you?
Except the expected behavior on mobile is working perfectly, just because it's not your expectations doesn't make it wrong...
wrong...
https://link.ingress.com/?link=https%3a%2f%2fintel.ingress.com%2fagent%2fGorillaSapiens&apn=com.nianticproject.ingress&isi=576505181&ibi=com.google.ingress&ifl=https%3a%2f%2fapps.apple.com%2fapp%2fingress%2fid576505181&ofl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.ingress.com%2f
I don't expect anything to change, and I don't want Chrome to change that functionality. But you're railing against Niantic for something that is inherent to Chrome. There is no way for Niantic to change that functionality. It's not broken. It's not badly written.
You're demanding something that cannot be done by Niantic.
i don't honestly expect chrome to change, do you?
No, but you can't honestly expect Niantic to be magic can you? It works in every single other way besides the one where it can't.
"Not Found
The requested URL /agent/GorillaSapiens was not found on this server."
a link should work, or do something, regardless of what browser / platform i'm on.
this is just a stupid "feature" then. it does nothing we want.
<<There is no way for Niantic to change that functionality.>>
srsly? you srsly believe niantic is incapable of making that URL do SOMETHING useful on desktop???
i'm curious to know, what magic powers does "XMAmbassador" give you? because all you seem to do is carp on suggested improvements.
I've taken another closer look into the link scheme Niantic uses for the deep links. They use Firebase as a service to archive the deep links, which has a way to "debug" a link before it actually leads somewhere. Taking a look at a portal deep link, I can see that it has a few warnings, but it seems to only affect the beta and dogfood versions of Ingress. It performs as expected: If you paste the link into the address bar on your phone, it redirects you to the app store, and on desktop (or desktop mode in browsers), it sends you to the intel map.
Using the same debug view for the agent link however throws up an additional warning: "We could not match param 'https://www.ingress.com/' with whitelisted URL patterns in this Google project.". That means that Firebase doesn't trust the URL and refuses to redirect people to it. Because it doesn't have another fallback, it sends people to the first link it knows: To the intel with /agent/InvestigateXM, which works in Ingress, but not in the Browser.
TL;DR: The agent link should send you to ingress.com, but because Niantic hasn't whitelisted the URL, it instead sends you to a link that only the app can understand, but not the normal browser.
This seems like an easy fix though. @NianticBrian, any chance you could add https://www.ingress.com to the Firebase Dynamic Link whitelist so Deep Links for agents function as expected? :)
As with whenever I disagree with an idea, this gets trotted out, ignoring all the ideas I support or even the ones I write myself. But sure "You hate everything".
This isn't a question of "They did it wrong". The discussion here is that you wanted something that's not actually possible.
TL;DR: The agent link should send you to ingress.com, but because Niantic hasn't whitelisted the URL, it instead sends you to a link that only the app can understand, but not the normal browser.
Redirecting from a Chrome pasted link to Ingress.com won't satisfy the OP request though, because it cannot open the app from the Chrome address bar. On Windows 10, they'd have to implement a web profile, which would be nice, but it's outside the scope of the feature they told us they delivered.
Something like that would have to be implemented.
Not actually possible?
you think it is "not actually possible" to give a link that would go to a web page that displayed a player profile?
🤣🤣🤣
No, it's "not actually possible" for you to paste a link into chrome on your mobile browser, and have it open anything but a website, which is what you're asking for, when you want it to open Ingress.
But sure, attempt to rewrite your own claims a month later because you forgot what you were whining about.
Note that what I posted at the end is precisely a link that opens a website, and is 100% possible, because that's what they would have to implement.
No, that is NOT what i'm asking for.
you have misread my request.
i ask for the link to do something useful.
this could be taking me to a web page with player profile.
taking me to the play store, or displaying "NOT FOUND", are not useful.
And I linked the request to do just that. But when I asked you what you expected, originally, you argued:
i didn't even notice that the link button is missing from other profiles. if the ONLY profile i can get a link for is my own, and can only use it on android devices, then this feature is COMPLETELY useless. why would i ever jump through hoops like that when i can just open my profile in the ingress app the old way?
And the answer is, that the method you were using is not implemented in the way you want, because it cannot be done. You can't post a link into Chrome on the browser and have it open the app, and the web page isn't implemented, but I linked you to the request to implement a Web version of the profile which is a completely different request.
It's a computer. Everything is possible, if you're open to a different way of thinking about it. So we both agree that there should be a web page view completely separate from the app. What is impossible due to Google's implementation is posting your link into Chrome and having it open the App.
FURTHER, i challenge your assertion "chrome cannot open other apps"...
"everything is possible" and "we both agree that there should be a web page view completely separate from the app."
I'm glad you caught up. ok now, see my previous comment, which shows a reddit url in chrome giving you the option to open the reddit app.