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this issue seems to be fixed in the latest version (3.57.1).
loading data from the geocaching folder works fine now and is very fast.
thank you very much for the fix!

- i'm actually using the end-of-year-beta
- themes are zipped on the sd card
i think menion has already analyzed my logs. so this was just meant to be an update to confirm that this behaviouir is not because of a bad sd card.

in the mean time, i replaced the sd card. the new one is a samsung evo+ too, but has twice the size and is probably less fragmented than the one i had before...
but startup is only a few seconds faster than with the old one.
so the old sd card was probably fine.

i installed x-plore, but i can see only the internal flash (and a root folder of the same size, which is not accessible), but not the external sd card.
do i need to do any configuration to get access to the sd card (it does not even show up)

hi menion

ok, so i think it's not because of the themes. so this matches what i've seen during the tests.

so short question about installing the beta:
- will this install side by side with the official version from google play or will it replace the official one?
- and if it replaces, how will i get back to the official version afterwards?
  so far, i only know about getting beta versions from google play (but also don't remember exactly how to do so)

hi menion

sorry for reporting things getting slow again and again!

unfortunately, the getting slow issues always start with a locus update, so it really looks like they have something to do with the new locus version.

i already thought about having a problem with the sd card. it's a samsung evo+, so i would expect it to be not that slow. but to be on the secure side, i ordered a new one 2 days ago to make sure that the issues have nothing to do with the sd card.

i will generate an example geocaching folder for you within the next few days. to what email address can i then send the link to (i don't like to post it in a forum)?

btw: what screen is called point & track?

Any download or update will go to the internal mapsVector then, but via PC you can move them to external (if LoMaps), or in case of other map sources, just download to PC and then push the new versions to the EXT SD via PC.
The start times should be checked by Menion, based on your logs.

ok, so no issue for me as i download the maps from the pc anyway and copy them to the sd card then.

but i think this is only valid for mapsVector, that locus reads data from internal and external location as well, while it is configured to internal? right?
so for maps and subfolders of data, only internal or external is checked and not both?

ok, i tried to enable logging, but maybe i do someting wrong.
after enabling, i get a white window "Pref 'KEY_B_DEBUGS_LOGS_TO_FILE'", as well as a green field saying "Log to file: Disabled".
and after that, the hamburger menu still shows that logging is disabled.

in the mean time, i tried your option 2 (maybe not exactly as you described):
i moved the mapsVector folder away (using the pc), switched the mapsVector folder to internal, and moved the folder back (using the pc) under the private locus structure on the external card.
now, startup takes about 12s (only tried twice).

so now, the vector maps were still available, but there were no more themes.
checking internal private structure shows that the mapsVector folder only contains an empty folder called _themes.
so now, i copied all themes to the internal mapsVector folder (unzipped version).
now, startup takes about 12-15s. so no big change from having no themes at all.

do i need to expect any issues, when having mapsVector configured to internal while having all the vector maps in the external folder?

yeah. they came togehter over time, as i use different types/generations of vector maps using different types of themes.
and over time, i think i lost a bit the overview. so there might be some themes i do not really need anymore.

and there is bad news about startup time:
i haven't changed anything in the mean time, but after not running locus for about 1 hour, startup again took 22s,
and after stopping it and starting for a 2nd time, it took 18s.

so no real advantage from using the zipped themes.

thanx for the hint!
just heard once about zip themes - but had no idea what this is for.
so i compressed all my themes located in subfolders under the _themes folder, one by one, and deleted the former subfolders containing the 39 uncompressed themes.
so now, the "white screen with locus logo" phase on startup is reduced from 20 to 12 seconds.
so it's still much slower than before the last updates, but at least better than before compressing.
thanx for your support!

btw: what kind of problem does android have with with uncompressed themes?
i just try to understand what's going wrong, as this issue might be related to the issue of the geocaching folder, which i have since 3.56.1

i did a few more tests with having only few files under data/geocaching.

with 1000 html files, located directly under data/geocaching on the external sd card:
- opening the waypoint belonging to a html file, which is the first file in the geocaching folder (in alphabetical order) took a few seconds to open, switching between tabs works fine.
- opening any other waypoint shows a black or white screen and takes forever. had to terminate locus after a few minutes as it seemed to be dead.

with only 80 html files, located directly under data/geocaching on the external sd card:
- opening the waypoint belonging to a html file which is the first one in the geocaching folder (in alphabetical order) took about no time to open, switching between tabs works fine.
- opening another waypoint which belongs to a html file took about no time to open, switching between tabs works fine
- opening a waypoint which HAS NO HTML FILE IN THE GEOCACHING FOLDER took about 40seconds TO OPEN, SWITCHING BETWEEN TABS takes about 5seconds

so this latest of the tests above looks to me a bit like: locus has a problem if there are files in the geocaching folder but there is no file found for the actual waypoint yet.

i hope this is helpful for further investigations...

with 3.56.5, it is still not possible for me to use the huge amount of html and images under data/geocaching on the external sd card.
therefore, i think about a workaround, but i'm not sure if all my assumptions are right or if my idea is prohibited by any android rules.

when i have all the html and images, i used to have under data/geocaching to a different folder, e.g. data/gcfiles, locus does not seem to be harmed by those files anymore, but for sure, i do not see a spoiler tab anymore when opening a waypoint.
- i assume that locus is still allowed to access all files under data/gcfiles as they are still in the private locus structure. right?

my idea is to add a link to the user notes section within gsak. so this link is then shown under the basic info tab when opening the waypoint in locus.
so i expect that, when selecting this link on the basic info tab, the html it points to should open. right?

so i need to know how i need to define the path to access a file, let's call it "gc11111.htm"
located in the folder "\Android\data\menion.android.locus.pro\files\Locus\data\gcfiles\html" of the external sd card.
how does such a link look like from within locus?

can this file then be shown within locus or does this open an external browser (which maybe has no access to the file in the locus private structure)?

thanx for the implementation of having a separate setting for the geocaching folder.
so now i am able to have a setup similar to what i had before updating to 3.56.1:
- main folder internal
- maps, mapsVector, geocaching external
so i can go on with testing...

unfortunately, updating to 3.56.5 does not seem to help concerning the crash reported for 3.56.1. behaviour is still:
- opening a waypoint takes 90-120s (if it works). often locus crashes while opening a waypoint and has to be restarted.
- once a waypoint is open, switching between the tabs of a waypoint takes about 10s
i really wonder what's going in the background making the device that slow...as at least, once a waypoint is open, i cannot see what locus could do taking that much time to switch between tabs.

my actual file structure under the geocaching folder is:
- 100 files (most of them html) directy within geocaching
-  a html subfolder with 13000 html files in
-  a image subfolder containing about 1000 subfolders holding a total of about 19000 jpg images

as already tested with 3.56.1, removing all the images as well as the appropriate folders does not help.

before updating to 3.56.1, i had the same folder structure. at this time opening a waypoint took a few seconds and switching between tabs took about no time.

as soon as i delete the content of the geocaching folder, everything works fine again...but this is not really what i like to do ;-(

this morning, i updated to 3.56.5.
after this, i decided to move the locus directory to the internal flash...and i got some more info on the slow startup. so that's what i did in detail:

- with the sd card in the pc, i first moved the maps and mapsVector folder away from the locus pro private folder on the flash card.
- i put the sd card back in the phone and switched locus main folder to internal. took quite a while.
from this moment, startup of locus was much faster. the locus icon on the white screen only showed for about 2s instead of the 20s it had shown up before.

- then i put the sd card in the pc to move maps and mapsVector back to the locus private folders on the flash card. surprisingly, these two folders were still available as emtpy folders within the locus structure, while all other folders were gone. so then, they were no longer empty.

surprisingly, after putting the sd card back to the the phone, i noticed:
-  i could show a vector map, located on the flash card, although all folders in locus were still configured to internal
- (i didn't try to load a raster map from maps folder at this time)
- startup was still fast

to make configuration clean, i first reconfigured the maps folder to external private locus folder. after that, everything was fine so far.

after a restart, i also reconfigured the mapsVector folder to external. surprisingly, this took quite a while and it looked like some themes were copied (although i did not expect to have some themes internally as i had moved the whole mapsVector folder away from locus before switching main folder to internal).

anyway, this did not seem to change a lot as i was able to use vector maps already before reconfiguring to external (don't know why).
but what i see now is, that the white screen with the locus icon shows up for about 22s on startup.

or to make it short:
while i had mapsVector configured to internal (but maps were on external flash), i was able to load vector maps from the external flash and startup time was fine.
s soon as i configured mapsVector to external flash, startup got very slow again.