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Since the update to version 1.9.2 ME, Locus got this behaviour:

• start Locus
• Enable GPS
• Hit home button, so Locus goes to background without quitting it
• After a small amount of time, you'll see the system GPS notification icon disappearing and GPS being disabled (good! Locus isn't active and I have the setting "Disable GPS" enabled)
• Hit the power button (screen off)
• Hit the power button again (screen on)

Even before you actually unlocked the screen, you'll see the system GPS notification icon appear again and even though Locus is still in the background, it has just activated the GPS.

Open Locus again, then hit the back button. Confirm that you want to quit Locus. The GPS icon disappears. Screen off, screen on and the GPS stays disabled.

When creating a new category, enter a name with a ' (quote) in it and save it.
It won't appear in the list, but Locus will generate an error log which gives away some nice SQL statements  :twisted:

I'm filing a new report for these two, just minor bugs.
When MyTracks recording is used, it appears to me that Locus looses its grip on the MyTrack recording status, mainly because Locus gets killed while the MyTracks service keeps going.

• MyTracks recording is started within Locus and Locus is sent to the background. After a while (say: one hour, but you can manually kill Locus as well, it has the same result) you launch Locus again. The recording bar will give you the option to start recording, although recording is still running. You can hit the "start" button without any problem, but an error log will be created
• MyTracks recording is started within Locus. Start MyTracks application itself and stop recording using MyTracks. Return to Locus. It didn't notice the recording was stopped. Hit the "Stop" button. Locus Force Closes (stacktrace in screenshot, couldn't export it as text)

[Version:]

Version: 1.8.3ME
System: Android 2.3.3, HTC build 2.36.405.8
Device: DHD

When recording using the MyTracks method and you hit the homebutton or "back" button, Locus will disable the GPS as though it was in non-recording mode. This is a virtual disable of course, since MyTracks keeps the GPS physically active. This behaviour however has consequences for the NMEA recording: although it is set to "track recording", it stops when Locus isn't active.

Current behaviour: When MyTracks recording is started and NMEA recording is set to "track record", NMEA recording will stop when Locus isn't active because of the GPS disabling.

Expected behaviour: When MyTracks recording is started and NMEA recording is set to "track record", keep GPS enabled and keep recording NMEA data, just like it is the case with Locus recording. GPS should only be disabled when Locus isn't recording, in the background (and the option "Keep GPS On when paused" is disabled, of course   )

[Version:]

Version: 1.8.3ME
System: Android 2.3.3, HTC build 2.36.405.8
Device: DHD

Today, I did some testing with the MyTracks recording method.
It appears to me that the trail isn't shown in this case. It is however available in the Tracks list.
What works is this:

• Select the track that is currently recorded
• Go back to the map screen
• The track is shown up to that point.

Of course, you keep on moving, so you can repeat this later on to update the track.

It is a nice-to-have when Locus would be able to do this automatically: retrieve the data and draw it while it's still recording, to have the same behaviour as when Locus tracking is used.

[Version:]

Version: 1.8.3ME
Android version: 2.3.3, HTC build 2.36.405.8
Device: DHD

Hi Menion,

This was reported previously, then considered solved. However, I'm experiencing the same issues as a while ago: track recording stops by itself.
A little while ago, I updated my DHD to Gingerbread. Since then, I started stress-testing Locus again and I stumbled upon the same issue as in the early days of Locus.

Concrete situation: This morning at 8:09 local time I started a recording. Then, I hit the home button to return to my home screen with Locus running on the background. It's a 20 minute drive from home to work and I kept Locus recording on arrival. During the morning, I did little to nothing with my phone before I checked on Locus around 13:30. The GPS indicator told me that GPS was active and in good reception.

When I started Locus, it started from scratch (noticed because the screen was rebuild) as though it wasn't started yet, then the notification "unfinished track detected" popped up and the "recording state" was set to "paused".

Since I noticed this in the days after the upgrade, I cleaned all error logging yesterday (there were a bunch of  them) and I checked those log files: there was one created at 12:31.
Then I checked the recording itself and it seems that it didn't record a lot since my arrival at work, which could be due to my settings (not recording when new point is no 3m from previous recorded point, no recording when accuracy is lower then 15m).
Then I checked the NMEA file, which is recorded on track record, the last entry was saved at 9:20

During the recording, I was inside the building all the time, mostly next to a large window which means that I did have full GPS reception, I did however move some times so that GPS reception was sometimes lost.
At 9:20 I was still at my desk next to the window and what's more: yesterday I had a 150km car trip on which recording was stopped as well after about two hours of recording and while having a constant reception.

Included there's the error log from today - which is quiet unreadable due to obfuscation :-)  - which I hope can clarify things to you. It is created the moment that I opened Locus again to check for the current recording state.


After I noticed recording was stopped, I restarted recording (around 13:31) and checked again at 14:30. The same happened: Locus had to re-open and rebuild all over again and a new error log was created (included as well). No extra points were recorded, which could be because of my settings of course but I'm not sure because in the NMEA file there was no new entry either: the last entry was still the one of 9:20 and there was no new entry created for the recording (re-)started at 13:30

So, I'm detecting a couple of problems here:

• Track recording stops after a while, probably when Locus is in the background
• Restart recording doesn't seem to go very well after this kind of error
• Restarting NMEA recording doesn't work either in this case

Please note: when starting a recording, stop recording after a little pause, restart recording after a little pause... both normal tracking as well as NMEA tracking work as expected!

[Version: 0.9.28 ME]

Version: 0.9.28 ME
I need a little more testing on the restart unfinished track recording, but so far it looks great. I'll keep you posted on that.
There's a problem when recording is restarted: the positioning icon disappears. You can see the track advancing, but there's no arrow/dot that shows the current location.

How to reproduce

• Start a recording
• Pause the recording
• Kill Locus manually
• Restart Locus

At this point, you don't see the arrow anymore.

[Version:]

Version: 0.9.27 ME

In the Tracks screen, tracks are automatically sorted by name. Of course, this will cause Mar 10 appear before Mar 2. You provided a nice way to order these tracks by date, which is great.

However, this ordering isn't remembered.
How to reproduce:

• Go to the tracks screen
• Order tracks by date
• Return to the main screen
• Go back to the tracks screen

Tracks are ordered by name again

[Version]

Version: 0.9.27 ME

Yesterday, the track record (continually during the day) went just fine: the entire recording was successful.
When I came home, I paused recording and left it that way till this morning. Locus was moved out of the memory, so it had to be started again. When hitting record, it didn't remember that the track was paused, while the notification icon was still there. I restarted recording, got the message "unfinished track detected" and clicked OK to continue. When I arrived at my destination, I hit stop recording and got a Toast message that said something like "Process unsuccessful, Please restart downloading [...]" (it was a little to fast gone to remember the entire message)
I guess "downloading" should be "recording" in this case.

I restarted recording, the "unfinished track" message appeared again so I clicked "ok" and continued recording. When stopped, the track was saved. However, the track data between my first "continue recording" and my arrival at my destination is lost. The track does contain:
- The entire recording of yesterday
- The couple of seconds at my destination of today

Thus, I lost the data from home to my destination of today.

How to reproduce:

• Start track recording
• Pause track recording
• Kill Locus (manually, using a task manager)
• Start Locus
• Start track recording, answer "ok" for the "unfinished track detected" dialog
• Stop recording. Toast message appears
• Restart recording, answer OK for  the "unfinished track detected" dialog
• Stop recording. Recording is saved.

The data recorded between step 5 and 6 is lost.

Suggestion:
Also keep the recording state in the service. When Locus is killed and restarted, read the recording state when the user hits the Recording functionality, thus presenting him/her a recording state there where he/she left it. I think implementing this will cause the "unfinished track detected" dialog disappear since you know the last recording state (probably "paused", but I guess it can be "recording" as well when Locus the app is killed while the service is still running - didn't try that one yet) and you know that the user wants to resume it when he/she hits "record" or he/she wants to finish it when he/she hits "stop", which will deprecate the dialog.

About that "continue unfinished track record"... When you stop a continued record, it won't get named automatically:
- Start a new track recording
- Kill Locus using a task manager or the default Android one
- Restart Locus, start recording
- The question "do you want to continue recording" appears. Click "yes"
- Then, stop the recording. It'll be saved as an unnamed track

On the "Tracks" screen, there is this behaviour when you have a lot of tracks (on a Desire HD it is clear when you have more than 8, preferably more than 16 tracks)
- Scroll down to the bottom
- Select/deselect the last track
- The list scrolls back to the top.

This behaviour is annoying when you want to select/deselect multiple tracks in the middle of the list, since you have to search for the correct position :-)

Ok, this is one just to keep in mind, since I wasn't able to reproduce it consistently and thus difficult to test or fix. It is however quite problematic seen from the tracking point of view.

The problem is that Locus stops tracking after a while. Not always, just sometimes. Coincidence or not, it seems to be happening only when I use the HTC Locations application as well. I thought of different possible scenario's:

• It might happen when HTC Locations (and thus "another application that uses the GPS") stops listening for GPS signal. However, in several situations, the tracking just continued when I closed the application at arrival.
• It might be caused by the fact that Locus responds on tap-inputs, although it isn't the active application. However, I think that would be strange and by the way, it also happens when the "stop" control isn't visible.
• It might be because Locations makes a strange call to the GPS and force disables it. Don't know whether that would be possible, I haven't tried to write an application that disables the GPS after a while. It seems to happen often when I re-calculate a route, causing Locations to "disable", then "enable" gps again and recalculate. However, the problem never occurs when I do a manual recalculation as a test.

Fact is that, when the problem occurs, these are the symptoms:

• The track isn't visible on the map, while it is displayed while recording is going on
• The tracking buttons (record, pause, stop) are in status "stopped" so that only the "record" button is clickable
• The track is visible in the list of recorded tracks. However, it is unchecked, this in contrast to the behaviour when you hit "stop" after recording: when you hit "stop", the track is saved and checked by default, so that it is still visible on the map. When the problem occurs - as said - the track is visible in the list but unchecked.

In some occasions, tracking stopped during my trip (driving) and in other occasions, it stopped when I already arrived at my destination.
I'll keep you updated when I discover more information, but I wanted to share this anyway. The pattern "stops recording but doesn't activate the newly recorded track" might be a good start to discover what's going on, since that is not default behaviour..

There's a weird map refreshing issue when doing these steps:
- Open Locus
- tap upper right button "start screen with online/offline map select and download ability"
- Choose "Download map" and tap "This screen" to start "this screen" downloading
- hit cancel (btw: this screen is ALWAYS in landscape mode)
- You're returned to the map view
- hit "Zoom in" button (lower right)

The zoom key will stay grey and the map doesn't zoom in.
However, when you start panning the map (tap and drag), the zoom button becomes black-transparent again and the map's zoom level is adjusted.
Zooming out has the same problem.

You can repeat this until you stop restart Locus. Zooming in will then perform normally again.

The track pausing feature is cool, really. I thought I wouldn't have a use case for it, but I could immediately use it the first day I downloaded the new version from the market.

When Locus is active but hidden behind another application, GPS is disabled, which is great to save battery.
When a track is recorded and Locus is hidden behind another application, GPS is kept activated, which is great as well, obviously.

However, when a track recording is paused and you hide locus, the GPS is still activated, unnecessarily draining the battery since you're not using it: recording is paused and Locus isn't active. It would be a nice improvement when GPS was deactivated when track recording is paused and Locus isn't active.

The current behaviour when NOT recording is:
- Start Locus
- Enable GPS (gps is activated)
- hit HOME button (toast message displays "gps disabled", gps is disabled.)
- long tap HOME button and select Locus again (toast message displays "gps enabled", gps is activated)

The requested behaviour when recording, but PAUSED:
- Start Locus
- Enable GPS (gps is activated)
- record track
- hit HOME button (gps is still activated)
- return to locus, pause recording
- hit HOME button (toast message displays "gps disabled", gps is disabled)
- return to locus. Now, to be consistent with the "non-recording behaviour", GPS is enabled again
- resume track recording
- hit HOME button (gps is still activated)

Hi,

First of all, thanks for this superior app that you're creating. I'm loving it and I'm using it as my maps app, better than Google Maps and MyTracks together!

Now, I do have an item on my wishlist. I would love to see NMEA as export type so that the full raw GPS data can be exported as well rather than the converted GPX version.
Don't understand me wrong, GPX is the way to go since all other applications that have one or the other location function use GPX, but I myself am using the raw data once in a while.

I know it might require a different approach, since it requires registering an NMEAListener rather than a normal LocationListener, but however I was wondering whether it could be done :-)

Anyway, you're doing a great job and I thank you very much!