Online search does not find Laliderer Wand. Why? How can we improve it?

Georg D shared this question 2 months ago
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Locus' Online Search for Laliderer Wand produces zero results. Online search tells it's powered by LoSearch, GraphHopper and OSM

so without a look into the code, it's hard to understand why online search produces zero results.


Would be great if it produced a result – maybe by also asking Nominatim and/or Wikidata and/or wikipedia.org (more tricky due to different languages' namespaces) additionally to the current providers, then filtering out dupes i.e. results having identical name and being very close and maybe also having similar category/kind.


In case this peak is categorized as climbing spot by you and thus not appearing in the results: Sorry for the dupe.

Some more details & thoughts from very old Locus search system which is AFAIK not any more present, see https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/search_others_osm_nominatim

Replies (14)

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Hi Georg,

after intense discussions quite some time ago and a longer pause, in a recent update the old search has become an alternate function for online search in LM 4 (it is using the Google engine as one option). Just tried the place from the title and it gives you Vomp, right below that mointain.

I 100% agree that the new search function has a long way to go, and in the end it might never match what Google offers for geographical search. Hence I appreciate very much this workaround.

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Hi Georg. 'Laliderer' produces many results, 'Laliderer wand' produces 2. We checked three languages even though this should not be relevant in this case (as language in the OSM node tags is not specified). So we don't know what is going on. If the problem persist (some server response time-out is not ruled out), please tell us more about your setup so we can replicate and fix.

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I also got two results in Austria

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PS: the "LoSearch" did not produce any results on my device, as it happened for Georg.

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Then please give me some details, as this is 90% not real functionality problem. There may by some configuration error in app which affects many. At least your language, the initial position of map, and if any points of interests are returned at all (those which can be highlighted on map with full detail).ea272ed01ca5791edec97e954743237a

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After some inspection I may rephrase: Those of you who do not see results for "Laliderer". Please perform some search for "imbiss", "stube", any common name, ideally such a name that appears as street, town, place, pub... Then please share screenshots.

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Hi Radim, that's weird 🤔

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Laguage "English", initial position of map varied over time (IIRC 35.51, 11.05 at time of screenshot and e.g. 47.99, 7.85 in previous tries), online search works in general as you can see in the screenshot, it just does not provide expected results for some search terms – I tried with in different networks across roughly 8 weeks so several reboots, always zero results for Lailiderer Wand. Locus 4.26.3 on Fairphone 3 with Android 10 Stock ROM. As it may be relevant: I also have Locus 3 installed, sharing several data dirs with Locus 4, but not using v3 since several weeks.

Can we users somehow see/recognize whether search did hit timeout or other error in any of the 3 services? IIRC, I never saw any error message, just zero results.

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@Michael A link to some text telling how I can use another online search provider would be great!

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@Georg D The old screen can be re-activated in expert settings. Yes, what i see on your screen is: At least one component of results is missing completely.

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Radim was quicker :-)

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This behavior happens when Locus has no location to send - when gps is off. Is this the case? If yes, enabling GPS should enable also missing segment in the online search. (Anyway this behavior is wrong, as map seen by the user should be used to determine location to set up search).

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I don't recall. To be sure, I just activated location and waited for GPS fix in Locus. Now, searching for "Laliderer Wand" produces the desired output – but after switching location off, it also appears 🤷‍♂ I can't tell whether you already changed something in the backend, if yes, it was successful 🙂

Out of curiosity, I searched for "Milano Freiburg" with and without location & GPS fix. I expected to see restaurant Milano in Freiburg https://web.locusmap.app/poi/2104430 which is 1.6km away from me, but only the shop KIKO Milano in Fribourg (N46.802873, E7.151742) in 141km distance is shown. Bing Maps and Google Maps provide the result, so it is possible. I would also be very fine if there was a certain syntax like "Milano in Freiburg" making "guessing" the user's whish easier and the results more reliable.

As a user, I do want results irrespective of location on/off or a GPS fix. For example, while sitting in a train to my hike, I rarely have a GPS fix (metal in the windows and the walls), hence, location on is useless but just draining battery. I clearly prefer results nearby my screen center and not my GPS fix position, because I can't leave the train at all moments – so nearby results are not relevant, but only the results of the region I am currently doing a research for (e.g. destination station, hiking route).

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Location for online search: Intended, current, (now fixed compared to previous version of LM Android) behavior: Apps report their map envelope. (What part of map we see). In some cases, "fallback" gps location is used, but this should be rare. Search works for all segments searched using map envelope, if not given then gps location. In the recent version, Android app always failed to provide information on map envelope. This is now fixed. So no gps location is used as a fallback, no gps is needed. Map location is prefered.

The others points and suggestions are indeed valid, but there is no short answer apart from "Not such a rocket science these days, but lot of work", I am afraid.

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OK, I'll try after next update.


At your last paragraph: Is one major challenge that you do not know which piece has which meaning? So is all an administrative place name? Or is all a category name? Or is one piece some property of an object, and another piece an administrative area, like in search term "Milano Freiburg"?


If yes: If it makes it easier for you because search request is well-structured and regionally contained instead of guessing on free text entry in global scope, I guess most users are also fine with an optional short search form if that is the means to get the search results they want.

Possible flow could start with current online search, i.e. one text field. After showing the 0..* results, at bottom an area refine search appears that can be unfold (such a UI element is sometimes called accordeon). If user unfolds, he has a label "Search for", then a text field pre-filled with the entered search term, then "in" and below 3 radio buttons (or deop down?) to choose how to determine where to search


  1. current map screen
  2. a slider distance from screen center. This may also have the existing circle icon to choose another point, e.g. clipboard, current GPS position,...
  3. 4 textual fields, only country is active while the other 3 are greyed out. After typing into country (or confirming last chosen country), results show, after selecting one result, the 3 other text fields region, city and zip become active and user can freely choose where he types. Typing shows results found within the selected country, user can click one, this further restricts the results in remaining fields. Users know such forms from online shops etc. so will accept them.

Like this, the search can clearly distinguish what and where to search. After doing the "normal searches", if the area is small enough for current server load, even a full text search in many or all objects' key-value pairs can be done – these hits of course have to be shown, so users understand that search term appeared in e.g. description and thus an object with a completely unrelated name is shown as result.

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note2self for re-test: When screen center but not GPS fix position is in Freiburg, also search "Eiger Nord" – this was 10/2024 at least not on 1st page of results, but results hundrets of km away that did not have exact but just partly matching name .

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Another test case for you – it might have to do with stemming of single characters or with whole search terms: In https://web.locusmap.app/ I zoomed out that whole world is visible, so all regions shall be equally high priorized. I entered Gålå as search term but only got results that do not match

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I expect the exact spelling match https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/266120531 to be first result.

At least, I would like to be able to scroll to the exact match.

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