FAQ Update - Archived Caches in Pocket Queries

1. GC.com didn't create PQs for users to maintain offline databases. They were created as a means for querying against the database and downloading sets of caches for quick upload to your GPS.
   
   
2. Any offline database created by a user is - by definition - instantly out of date with the most current version, which resides on Groundspeak's server.
   
   
3. GC.com takes a hard-line stance that while caches are in the database for archival purposes, they do not send out data on archived caches. As far as the PQs are concerned, they do not exist except in the "All My Finds."
   
   
4. Since offline databases are stored and maintained in third party software, the onus is on third party software to weed out archived caches.

This is by far the easiest way. When you are importing your data to GSAK, click the setting found in the image to the right. This will purge all of the logs, markings, waypoints, additional waypoints and all other data from the database prior to loading the new data. Since archived caches weren't included in the pocket queries, the archived caches are deleted with the purge and won't refresh.

Sorting by Last GPX Update Date and Deleting the Data The other method is a little more complicated. Make every effort to ensure that your Pocket Queries are truly grabbing all of the data for the area for which you're trying to build the offline database. In other words, if you have the PQ set to grab caches within 10 miles, and there were 995 caches, but today's PQ would have included 1002 - that's bad. Each PQ results should be set to return less than 1000 caches. Once you have your data, load the database with the "Clear database before loading" UNCHECKED. This will overlay the new data on to the old one. This has several effects. Instead of purging the previous logs and only loading the 5 most recent logs, the system will add the new logs on to the old ones. It will also update the Last GPX Date field in each line. This is the critical point. Once the data is loaded, sort on the Last GPX Update field (if it's not showing, show it). Any date that is older than the most recent upload of caches means that it wasn't in the most recent set up Pocket Queries. Since you've hopefully made sure that the pocket queries are capturing ALL of the data, the only reason they wouldn't be included is if they are archived. Use the "User Tick" check box and click the delete Delete all user ticked (or use a filter for a certain date). When you're done, you'll have ONLY the caches that are currently not archived, and you'll be able to stack the logs from previous pocket queries. But of course, the data is already out of date.

Updating GSAK with the API GSAK now utilizes an API to call data directory from the Geocaching.com website (for assistance in setting up the API with the proper credentials, head over the the GSAK site and ask around their forums). Using the Last GPX Update method to the left, you can identify the caches that haven't been updated in your GSAK database. Once you have the caches marked, you can filter to just those caches that didn't update. Using the API, you can update only those caches and bring in up to 30 logs per cache to check on the status of these potentially archived caches. First, make sure you have the filter set in GSAK to only display the caches that are potentially archived. If your database is quite large and you try to update all of the caches, you'll use your maximum number of cache retrievals per day (6000). Once the filter is set correctly, Then click "Geocaching.com Access" and "Refresh Cache Data". Make sure you select "All Caches in Filter" and "30 logs" which is the maximum. Then click "OK" This will make an API call to the Geocaching.com database and pull down information - even from archived caches - and update the GSAK database. It will bring in 30 logs per cache for the filtered caches, and update the status to archived if appropriate. I personally use this method to double check that I'm getting all of the caches updated and use this before the step of deleting all of the user ticked caches in the method to the left.

Last Updated: Sept 7, 2013