OwnTracks publishing invalid coordinates

[edgauthier]

Occasionally, OwnTracks will publish a message with invalid coordinates (e.g. the longitude set to "0.000000"). Is there a way to prevent the app from sending these messages?

[jpmens]

Please tell us which iPhone/iPad model you are using, iOS release and OwnTracks version.

Also, when you say occasionally, how frequently would that be? I don't think we've seen this in years.

[edgauthier]

• iPhone 12 Pro
• iOS 14.4
• OwnTracks 14.0.3/en_US

I've seen it happen at least twice in the past two months (only started using OwnTracks at the beginning of the year). I started logging the messages while I was integrating this into my Home Assistant setup. When these have occurred, HA marks me as away from home (and when I look at the map, I'm not shown anywhere). As soon as I open the OwnTracks app, it publishes a new message with the details. In both cases, I was sitting at home when it happened.

Messages logged when this happens with some data redacted:

2/4/2021, 2:51:17 PM - {"batt":90,"lon":0.000000,"acc":4,"p":99.277,"bs":1,"created_at":1612468277,"vel":1,"SSID":           "XXXXXXXXXX","BSSID":"XXXXXXXXXXXX","inrids":["62667d","1b7297"],"vac":3,"lat":XX.XXXXXX,"inregions":                 ["Neighborhood","Home"],"t":"b","conn":"w","tst":1612468220,"alt":0,"_type":"location","tid":"EG"}
3/5/2021, 7:09:42 AM - {"cog":235,"batt":69,"lon":0.000000,"acc":4,"p":99.822,"bs":1,"vel":0,"SSID":"XXXXXXXXXX",          "BSSID":"XXXXXXXXXXXX","inrids":["62667d","1b7297"],"vac":4,"lat":XX.XXXXXX,"inregions":["Neighborhood","Home"],"t":    "b","conn":"w","tst":1614946183,"alt":163,"_type":"location","tid":"EG"}

I have 2 waypoints configured in the app - one circular region, and in the center of that an iBeacon-based region.

{
  "_type" : "waypoints",
  "waypoints" : [
    {
      "rad" : 0,
      "tst" : 1611518352,
      "_type" : "waypoint",
      "rid" : "1b7297",
      "lon" : -XX.XXX730000000005,
      "lat" : XX.XXX230000000003,
      "desc" : "Home:XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX"
    },
    {
      "rad" : 400,
      "tst" : 1611465647,
      "_type" : "waypoint",
      "rid" : "62667d",
      "lon" : -XX.XXX730000000005,
      "lat" : XX.XXX230000000003,
      "desc" : "Neighborhood"
    }
  ]
}

[ckrey]

Thanks @edgauthier for the details. We do suppress invalid lat/lon when they are 0.0/0.0 already, but we have never seen a case yours before.

"t":"b" in both cases indicate your phone detected entering or leaving an iBeacon region. "conn":"w" in both cases indicate you were connected to Wifi. We can assume iOS took the location information from your Wifi signature, not from GPS. It may be a problem with the Wifi location database used by iOS...

Interestingly altitude is once reported as "alt":0,"vac":3and in the other case as "alt":163,"vac":4. What is the altitude reported in a good situation?

[edgauthier]

Normal altitude when I'm home is between 158 and 162 depending on which floor I'm on.

[ckrey]

mmh, locations with zero lat OR lon are suppressed since 6 years:

[edgauthier]

Is there anything I can/should try and change from my perspective?

[ckrey]

Does the problem occur once a month as shown in your example above, or does it happen frequently?

[edgauthier]

So far, once a month (only 2 occurrences being the ones mentioned above). Logging is still enabled, so I'll be looking for it come April (assuming it's tied to some pattern).

[ckrey]

@edgauthier I'm closing this issue for now.

[jpmens]

We've just seen this happen. Reopening.

[ckrey]

[klofrau]

I've seen it happening, too. Once in April and three times in May (I started logging with owntracks in March). Any useful data I could provide?

This is what I removed from the *.rec-files (redacted with lower case x):

{"_type":"location","acc":5,"alt":158,"batt":100,"bs":3,"cog":124,"conn":"m","lat":5x.644897,"lon":0,"m":1,"p":100.538,"t":"C","tid":"xx","tst":1713765917,"vac":3,"vel":79} {"_type":"location","acc":5,"alt":176,"batt":89,"bs":2,"cog":105,"conn":"m","lat":5x.651184,"lon":0,"m":1,"p":98.706,"t":"C","tid":"xx","tst":1715006050,"vac":3,"vel":31} {"_type":"location","acc":5,"alt":115,"batt":80,"bs":1,"cog":254,"conn":"m","lat":5x.971771,"lon":0,"m":1,"p":100.839,"t":"C","tid":"xx","tst":1715421080,"vac":3,"vel":6} {"_type":"location","acc":5,"alt":155,"batt":69,"bs":2,"cog":236,"conn":"m","lat":5x.692749,"lon":0,"m":1,"p":99.691,"t":"C","tid":"xx","tst":1716470199,"vac":3,"vel":56}

Uneducated guess: Maybe lon is provided as an integer 0, but the check is against double 0.0?

iPhone 13 Mini iOS 17.5.1 App Version 17.3.1 frontend 2.12.0 recorder 0.9.7