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I've updated the Standard map layer in my neighborhood where I live, but when I view the Cycle Map, Transport Map, or Humanitarian layer I see the street I deleted still showing up as I scroll through the different zoom levels. i.e. 20M/50 ft visible, 30M/100ft visible, 50M/300ft visible, 100M/500ft visible, 300M/1000ft visible, 500M/2000ft visible, 1KM/3000ft visible. Have I done something wrong? If not, is there a fix, I'm hoping to fly x-plane 11 with the new scenery. When I download the new OSM data for x-plane via Ortho4XP the change doesn't show, even though it's there when I go to modify it in standard mode.

asked 19 May '17, 20:34

nobleg's gravatar image

nobleg
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The other maps use the updated data but don't update so often. I guess it's simpler for them to check for changes less often.

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answered 19 May '17, 21:47

andy%20mackey's gravatar image

andy mackey
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accept rate: 4%

edited 20 May '17, 21:22

Thanks for the answer, what a shame, I put in 15 Hours on correcting streets, and the street that runs through my house still does. Any way to force a update? I was so excited to be able to help, and now the wind has been knocked out of me.

(22 May '17, 17:37) nobleg
6

@nobleg your edits are really useful even though the other layers do not update as quickly as the standard layer. The layers you mention are only a few of the thousands of renderings that are out there, made by various groups. Each makes there own decisions on how they will allocate computing resources, and how often they will update their rendering.

One of the great things about OSM is that the database that has all the map data can be downloaded by anyone and, as long as credit is maintained to the OSM contributers, anyone can process it how they see fit.

I get a good feeling when I see the edits I've made become visible on the standard layer, but as long as my edits are improving the underlying data it doesn't make a big difference if they go live in 5 min or a week. Either way I'm improving the underlying data, and it'll come through to the users.

(22 May '17, 18:49) keithonearth
3

@nobleg You appear to be confusing the contents of the OSM database (which is our primary product) with the various renderings out there. The Standard map layer usually renders updates within a few minutes, while i.e. the Cycle Map only renders them every few days. I'm not familiar with Ortho4XP or how it works, but such sites typically copy our data once a week or month or whatever is suitable for them, for processing. You basically can't expect changes to the OSM database to be reflected everywhere immediately. In some cases you will have to wait quite some time for it to happen.

(24 May '17, 20:45) Hjart

@Hjart. You are right. This is very confusing for newcomers. I know you can't expect every rendering to update in a few seconds, but the thing is that these layers are presented so that they look as if they are part of the main product.

Until recently, I had no idea that these were all being performed on people's private machines. (I had the idea of a big render-farm at UCL byteCenter)

If this is the case (private machines), shouldn't OSM at least make sure that the renderings are kept reasonably up to date, before denoting them 'featured' perhaps annotating them with 'last rendered on YYYY-MM-DD' or whatever.

If it takes a month to re-render, then that's fine, but say so. Otherwise, it's very difficult to see that someone's changes have actually taken.

I mean, I make changes to the OSM database, go back two weeks later to see a rendering of some relations, labeled as 'daily', to check that it all looks right 'from the air' with no wrong-way loops, missing stops etc, and all I see is long out-of-date bus routes. What would you think ?

(30 Apr '18, 13:13) Bobby444

Thanks for the information.

I was misled by the wiki page that says "the data are updated every few days" and "Since August 2010 the database is updated using diff updates, every few hours (currently every 24 hours)".

I'd update the wiki myself if I knew the actual policy :-(

This page:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenCycleMap#Update_cycle

(30 May '18, 17:49) patmans

(for the avoidance of doubt) since the comment above https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenCycleMap#Update_cycle now says "about every two weeks" followed by a series of caveats.

(10 May '20, 12:13) SomeoneElse ♦
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Not only tile updating takes some resources and some maps have less resources available than others, but also, for lot of maps users have to request a tile to trigger re-rendering. If the server is fast enough, you see the new tile, if not you'll see it a next time.

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answered 30 Apr '18, 07:03

yvecai's gravatar image

yvecai
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accept rate: 9%

I'd like to know this as well. It's very confusing to look up something (anything) about OSM, be led to a web page, and then find it's some 7+ years old. Transport Map is supposed to be updated 'daily' but bus routes that are no more and deleted by me are still being rendered. If this is not being kept upto date, then why is it shown as a 'featured tile' ?

A couple of days askew I can take, but 3+ years is ridiculous.

It's unreasonable to expect any private individual to keep their own server going for decades, of course, for rendering, but it's very difficult trying to work out what is current in the OSM world

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answered 29 Apr '18, 17:35

Bobby444's gravatar image

Bobby444
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accept rate: 0%

1

Can you point to where 3-years-old bus routes still appear in the transport map? The chances are, the data's still in OSM and needs to be removed from here...

(29 Apr '18, 17:52) SomeoneElse ♦

I am away from my computer at the moment, so I can't get access to the particular relations that I had in mind, but try this one:

I added relation 3638340 (under a different user ident) for the 44C bus route (it was a one-way route, so I haven't got it mixed up with the relation being a reversed direction of same) five years ago, and deleted it two weeks ago.

It is still showing up on the Transport Map, on way 222975963, at least.

Another example is relation 3420754, which is still showing.

I know two weeks isn't 3+ years, but it's still rather a long time, when the quoted frequency is daily. If it's only supposed to be two weeks' update, then say so. It is already terminally difficult to see what is 'current' in the patchwork that is the OSM world, and this ambiguity does not help. If I make a change, and see that it hasn't 'taken' several days/weeks later, it's very difficult to avoid the interpretation that 'it's not being maintained any more' - you don't know whether the 'fault' lies with some web cache, the renderer, the OSM database, something that the contributor has/not done.

(29 Apr '18, 19:05) Bobby444
1

Where did you read that the transport map is updated daily?

Try to be a little bit more patient. It takes a lot of resources to maintain and update several map styles continuously.

(29 Apr '18, 20:52) scai ♦

Bobby444 OSM is free, we are all unpaid contributors. If you know something is incorrect and you have up-to-date information learn how to edit and improve it. Why did you post your comment as answer??

(30 Apr '18, 07:25) andy mackey

@scai The information that the Transport Map is updated daily is here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Featured_tile_layers It is about the third item down.

(30 Apr '18, 12:40) Bobby444
1

@Bobby444 For info, I've never known the cycle and transport layers update daily. It would be useful to see who made the wiki edit that said that they did. "about weekly" has been what's actually been said in the past. In this case it's two weeks out of date, which might just be one or two missed updates for technical reasons. See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Transport_Map for details; also other transport maps (linked from the wiki) are available.

Also, feel free to create your own map that can be as up to date as you like :)

(30 Apr '18, 12:50) SomeoneElse ♦

@andy mackey I posted the comment as a reply as the 'comment' button and box was not available to me the first time round. If I knew there was 'supposed to be one there' and that my mobile browser had simply not shown it for whatever reason, I would have waited.

To my mind, the biggest problem of OSM is its decentralised nature. Everybody seems to want to do their own thing, and trying to find the 'correct' way to do something leads one down a labyrinth of interlinked blogs/talks/proposals, much of which appears to be old or abandoned with no resolution.

So, when I see a 'featured' 'awesome' map layer presented on the sidebar of the front page of OSM, I naturally assume that it's 'official'. When I see that it is clearly marked as daily, but apparently not showing recent updates, I naturally assume that it has stagnated, like so much on the www in general.

@andy mackey You say that 'if [I] have up to date information..', but this doesn't work when it's so difficult to see what is up to date and what isn't.

I'd be happy to donate some CPU rendering time on my own computers, using some Seti@Home / BOINC paradigm, if such were to exist.

(30 Apr '18, 13:01) Bobby444
1

@Bobby444 Looks like that wiki page is outdated. The transport map updates less often as you have noticed. Also the cycle map only updates about updates every two weeks or so.

(30 Apr '18, 14:41) scai ♦

@Bobby444 You may also need to check that your browser cache is flushed. I can see the X43 which you added recently on the Transport Map. Many years ago OSM did have a Seti@Home map renderer, called Tiles@Home. The map produced being called Osmarender. It ceased production around 2011 when it became too difficult to maintain.

The Cycle Map & the Transport Map are both produced by Thunderforest and I believe they use the same vector tiles for rendering so are likely to be on identical refresh cycles. OpenCycleMap has always made the tradeoff between frequency of update and the competing hardware demands of database refresh & rendering queries. I would suggest checking OPNV Karte (https://www.öpnvkarte.de/#6.6699;52.0432;7) as an alternative for checking mapping of bus routes as this has a more frequent refresh rate.

I have also corrected information on the page you mentioned

(31 May '18, 16:59) SK53 ♦
showing 5 of 9 show 4 more comments

I'll jump in here and say that it is definitely misleading to have featured maps on the main page, if they are not a part of OSM, and there is no indication of when they might have been updated.

Changes that I made three years ago to the forest walking trails of my local Marsh Park are still not showing up on the Cycle or Humanitarian maps, although they appeared almost immediately on the main map.

And because the walking trail graphic is darker on the Cycle map than on the default map, I can see a situation where people would choose it, and not realize that the paths are incorrect.

As SomeoneElse said above, it is certainly possible to create a custom map that updates more frequently, A) I don't yet have the skill to do this, B) I think it would be unlikely to replace one of the featured maps on the home page of OSM, and C) even if it did replace one, there are still two other featured maps that show incorrect data.

I believe the one of the changes was a short path across a natural bridge that has since been removed. It is listed in Changeset #47845228. https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/47845228

The shortcut path across the loop can still be seen on the Cycle and Humanitarian maps, but not on the default or Transport map (which did seem to update recent changes after about 9 days). I made a public note at the spot, and I think the following link will take you to the location: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/47.16271/-122.59719

There are several other non-updated trails in the marsh besides this one, so I hope there is some solution. Thanks!

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answered 09 May '20, 20:30

jrickclark's gravatar image

jrickclark
111
accept rate: 0%

edited 09 May '20, 20:36

2

This isn't really the place for a policy discussion (both in general and then more specifically on a years old question).

In any case, it's likely to be some sort of glitch rather than a lack of updates. It's already expected that featured layers update regularly:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Featured_tile_layers/Guidelines_for_new_tile_layers

(09 May '20, 20:49) maxerickson

Aha. Thank you. I did a search for my problem, and saw the date as April 30, and did not notice it was from two years ago! And since it seemed the problem was still occurring, I tried to contribute. If you think I should delete my response in this old thread, I will do so. Thanks!

(09 May '20, 21:53) jrickclark

I have just checked some changes to paths that I made myself 2 months ago, and they now appear correctly in all 4 layers. And some changes I made to paths just today already appear in the Humanitarian layer. So it's not the case in general that these layers have completely failed to update for 3 years.

That leaves an interesting question about why your change in particular does not seem to be reflected in two of the layers. (In fact I think zoom levels 18 and 19 may be OK in the Humanitarian layer). But I agree with maxerickson that it might be better as a fresh question rather than reviving an old one.

(09 May '20, 22:11) alan_gr
1

It's fine to leave the response, just something that seemed worth mentioning when responding. OSM communication channels are sort of a mess (people use what they like or so):

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contact_channels

There's a relatively active OSM US slack at https://slack.openstreetmap.us/

(09 May '20, 22:14) maxerickson

After writing my previous message, I remembered that I made an almost identical type of change (deleting some paths that no longer exist) on March 10 of this year. I have just checked all 4 layers and the paths have disappeared as expected. So I have no idea why that didn't happen in your example.

I wonder if it's possible that the path was added back and deleted by other mappers in the intervening period (I don't know how to easily check for that I'm afraid - if that happened the path would have a different ID from the one you deleted).

(09 May '20, 22:30) alan_gr
1

With regard to the specific issue raised at https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2186979 I think you'd need to contact the providers of the layers concerned. For the cycle map, click through the "tiles courtesy of" link. For the Humanitarian style, I believe that it is https://github.com/hotosm/HDM-CartoCSS .

(10 May '20, 12:22) SomeoneElse ♦
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question asked: 19 May '17, 20:34

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