UKC

Anybody having problems with the record route function in the OS map app? I used to use it heavily to record and share routes and it worked nicely. Last few weeks the routes jumps violently around the page to places kilometres away from anywhere I’ve been. The GPS on the phone works just fine on other apps such as Google maps. OS does not respond and I see no settings that might account for this. It is a really useful feature, you can export the routes to Google Earth when it’s working.

I am very new to GPS mapping but heard some good things about OS so tried the app. However, I have had exactly the same problem that you describe and had put the problem down to my cheap Huawei p8 lite phone. It would suit me if it is the app that is playing up as I was looking to buy a new phone.

I had a problem when my phone decided to sleep the OS app when not in the foreground (or screen off), this can mess with the location.

I've have used OS maps substantially for the past 4 years and have never experienced your problem.

I do, however, have an issue with saving (to PDF) and printing on the upraded version - the printed version prints at roughly 40m short per km. I have to revert to the older version and that appears to be ok.

Not sure where you heard that, or how much experience the 'reviewers' had with other apps, but the OS app seems to attract a lot of negative comments, deservedly so, IMHO. About the only benefit compared to other apps is access to OS mapping. Fortunately, I have access to an alternative source for use with a decent mapping app.

For the OP, large excursions like that point to poor GNSS reception, possibly due to where you are storing the phone, or local geomorphology; canyon, large cliff, rockface, etc. Straight line sections on the route, but otherwise 'sensible' suggest loss of reception for some time; the timestamps in exported GPX will indicate missing points.

This sounds like your phone is trying to save battery by turning off GPS location for the app.

Try to disable battery saving for the os map app. And also allow it to run in the background.

I've emailed OS more than once about this, they just advised me to use the old version! They obviously don't employ anyone with the technical skills to enable the new site to print their own maps at the correct scale.

I'd urge as many people as possible to contact OS support in the forlorn hope they might get round to rectifying this issue.

Before its sad demise, I would have suggested that you try Viewranger instead.  Ah well.

I've briefly tried the OS app for this, and found it to be a bit rubbish.  Though I do use it (and like it) for other things.  As mentioned above, it might be something to do with a 'permissions' issue, with the app needing access to the GPS functionality of the phone while the app is in the background or when the phone goes to 'sleep'.

There are various other apps you could try for the tracking.  Anything that allows you to save your track as a .gpx file would do the trick, and you can upload that file via the OS app or the website later if you like. 

Honestly though, if you want to look at your track after a walk to see where you went, what your pace was etc., a GPS watch might be a better bet than a phone anyway.  (Cheap second-hand ones quite often pop up on here as people upgrade, and even with slightly tired batteries are good enough to map a full day in the hills these days.)

The only time I use my phone to make a track these days is for sea kayaking, and I generally use an app called 'Sail Free GPS' for that.  It has some useful 'nautical' features, but the .gpx files it produces can still be uploaded to Garmin (or Strava if you like), OS Maps, Memory Map etc. afterwards.

Have you tried again recently?  They seem to have 'worked around' the issue by taking away your ability to print for yourself completely!  Instead they generate the PDF at their end and give you a link to download it which suits me fine actually as, like you, I was saving to PDF anyway.

It does seem to have fixed the issue with the scale.  Near enough anyway - printing the PDF with page scaling set to 'none' I get squares that are almost perfectly square - 4.00cm across the page and 3.98cm along it as far as I can tell, more than good enough for me and it's probably my printer doing that rather than the PDF itself.

All well and good for the next 10 days!  (After which the old version will no longer exist.)

As I just mentioned above, their current workaround of generating a pdf at their end for you to download actually works very well for me.  And for what it's worth having printed a couple of them now, the print quality genuinely does seem to be significantly better than it was on the pdf's that I was 'printing' off the old version of the website.

just tried using the 'newer' site and it's printing grid squares at 39mm instead of 40mm (which is an improvement on the previous 37mm). I also find it practically impossible to print the exact area you want to without going through a lot of trial and error.

How can the OS fail so miserably on what surely isn't too difficult to get right? - most other apps manage it.

How odd.  The new website doesn't let me print at all, it just has a big button labelled "Generate PDF", which I'm then invited to download.

Is that what you're doing?  And then printing the pdf?

If so..  dumb question possibly.. 

When you print the pdf is there a drop-down box labelled "Page Scaling"  with options such as "Fit to printable area", "shrink to printable area" etc. ?

If you have either of those selected it'll be shrunk a bit to fit the whole of the A4 or A3 page you're trying to print inside the margins of the slightly smaller area your printer can actually print on.

You need to select "None" so that the page is not scaled and it attempts to print right up to the edge of the paper even though your printer probably can't do that.  (Which doesn't matter, because there is already a margin around the 'image' that you are trying to print if you see what I mean.)

Hang on a sec..  maybe try this.

Here's a map that I already printed and the scale was fine for me (this link is to the pdf that I generated on the new OS website and subsequently downloaded):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/smzcc1l63kkeq26/map_20220312-124413_EXPLORER_-1.9...

What happens if you download that one and print it?  It's an A3 pdf, so if you're printing on A4 paper and have the page scaling set to "none" you should just get a bit cropped out of the middle.

I think I might see where I'm going wrong... when I click 'print', although I have explorer, 1:2500 and A4 selected, the slider at the right of the map screen shows 1:50k which is completely misleading. I'm now ignoring the slider on the right of the map and all seems well

...apart from the grid squares printing at 39mm instead of 40mm

Hmm, this is a bit odd. I downloaded you map and it printed perfectly accurate 40mm grid squares. Mine however, still print 39mm squares regardless of whether I print the pdf directly from OS web page or if I save it before printing. I have the scaling set to default :-/

As reported on this thread https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/hill_talk/finally_you_can_print_1_25k_exp... that problem is known to the OS and they claim to be working to fix it.

I don't normally use the OS web app for printing (although I do otherwise use it a lot), but after reading about scaling problems that other users have had in this thread and the one linked above, I thought I'd have a look at how it works for me.  I'm 99% sure that I was able to print directly from the web app when I looked at it the other day, but now all I get is the pdf option.  Which seems a bit odd.  Maybe it's to do with the work being done to fix the 1mm error?

Anyway, the first 1:25,000 map I printed was definitely well under scale, with the 1km squares about 36mm wide.  I then realised that my Mac's print engine had for some reason used 93% scaling: setting it to 100% got me the 39mm grid squares that the OS is aware of.

When I tried using the old version of the web app, as some have suggested, the grid squares came out significantly over sized, at about 44mm (with printing set to 100% scaling).  So I don't think I'll be going down route.  Which is just as well, since they're taking it away soon.

I know, ...but what confused me more is that I downloaded deepsoup's map and it printed the grid squares perfectly at 40mm!!

Any maps (pdf) that I save and print have 39mm grid squares. I'm using a Mac and Chrome browser - could it be saving the pdf's differently?

Baffles me too.  Stupid question probably, but just to double check - you're definitely definitely using the new website ( explore.osmaps.com ) and not the old one ( osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk )?

Your computer and browser shouldn't make any difference - that's the advantage from the OS's point of view of removing the option to print it directly yourself (to paper or to pdf) and having that "generate pdf" button instead. 

The pdf is actually generated at their end by their server.  Your own computer has nothing to do with the process other than downloading it, just as you downloaded the one that I downloaded previously and then uploaded again to Dropbox - so I'm completely stumped as to how you and I are apparently managing to produce them at slightly different scales.

Yes, definitely the new website, if I use the old one I get 40mm grid squares.

One improvement I have noticed is that the margins aren't as wide as previously, meaning there's a bit more of the map printed on the page (nothing to do with grid square size).

I have used the on line version at osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk for some time and it has been fine, but have the same problem with the scale on the newer version. The grid squares on the 1/50, 000 maps are 1.8cm apart. I have fiddled around but still get the grid squares on the maps printed 1.8cms apart. I have told the OS this, but after waiting 3 days to get a reply all they could say was sorry you do not like our new website. A joke.

I cannot find the printer scaling does anyone know how to get it?

I would repeat Glyno’s comments-please e mail the OS and let them know that the scale on their maps is wrong. If enough people contact them, they may just listen.

I have printed deepsoup’s map, but the squares are about 2.7 cms apart.

You do not have to generate a PDF to print a map-you can create an open generated file, but the result is the same-squares 1.8cms apart.

Robert.

Um..  dumb question possibly.. but that's on A4 paper I presume? 

The squares on that one are 4cm pretty much bob on, but it's also an A3 print so that suggests that there's some page scaling going on at your end - the map being reduced in size to fit inside the  'margins' of your A4 page.  (Though shrinking from A3 to A4 paper you'd expect closer to 28 than 27mm.)

Those OS pdf's already have a margin, so the same thing happening to an A4 print will also throw the scale off.  If you're printing from Acrobat reader or similar you need to have the 'Page Scaling' set to 'None' rather than 'Fit to Printable Area' or somesuch.

BTW.  After I had the conversation with Glyno above I realised that I did still have a problem sometimes, and that it seemed to just fluctuate randomly and I was just lucky with that one map.  I haven't printed a map since, so don't know if that's still the case.

Yes it was on A4 paper. I have printed from either the PDF or from an Open Generated File to us OS jargon, but the result is still the same.

I have emailed Stephen Lake, acting CEO of the OS no reply yet (no surprise) also no reply from the Customer Service desk. If you or anyone else wants to take this further, the OS Head Office address is:-

Ordnance Survey, Explorer House,  Adanac Drive, Southampton SO16 0AS.

They have 9 Executive Directors. I will be contacting these three:-

Steven Showell (Chief Financial Officer), Nick Giles (Managing Director of OS Consumer), and Rebecca Patterson (Customer & Marketing Director).

The only bit of good news from this whole sorry mess is that we can still use the classic site. 

Good news. I had a reply form Mala Donnelly at the OS in response to my e mail sent to the Acting SEO informing them of the problems with the scale on the printed maps. They said they have made the decision not to switch off the classic version just yet, so it seems they are still planning to switch it off in the future.

Please bombard the OS with demands to keep the classic, so much better than the version they are planning to replace it with which is just dreadful. 

I've emailed them about this before, but will again.  TBH though I'd be perfectly happy with the new version of the website if they would only get it working properly.  I get how it might be difficult to make it work with everybody's printer at home, but it really surprises me that it's apparently so difficult to generate a pdf to the right scale on their own servers.

It's a bit baffling that the OS of all people don't seem to realise what a fundamental problem it is not being able to print a paper map to the right scale.  Sign of the times I suppose that they're apparently more interested in making the app look pretty for people just using the map on their phone and, judging by the 'coming soon' tabs that have just popped up on the app, trying to compete with Outdoor Active's ridiculous bloatware.

You’ve pretty much summed it up.

Surely it can’t be that difficult to produce a pdf to print at the correct scale?

Latest news from the OS: they will keep the classic version until April 25. I have asked them not to drop the classic as it is clearly better then its proposed replacement.

The access to the old site seems to have been turned off already:  osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk now automatically re-routes to explore.osmaps.com.  At least, it does for me, and I've tried clearing caches and the like.

I suspect, like all major companies, senior managers have only the vaguest notion of what the company actually produces and what it does.

Unfortunately, Martin W seems to be right. The new website, which is hopeless, comes up when you try to log in to the classic website. There has been a slight improvement though. The grid squares on a 1/50000 map are now 1.9 cms apart as opposed to 1.8 a few days ago. This error is still not good enough for me, and it looks like I will be using paper maps again.

No doubt the OS will only see the error of their ways when someone sues them for personal injuries suffered as a result of an inaccurate map. 

Maybe, just maybe, the OS don't want their maps printing perfectly to scale as it might just affect the sales of their paper maps?

Very much doubt that. They are happy for other platforms to print their maps to scale, and they explicitly claim to support printing to scale. They’ve also apparently apologised for the issue and say they are trying to sort it.

If they were deliberately not allowing printing to scale, telling outright lies to their customers is just going to piss people off  even more and lose them online sales as well as paper sales!

They are happy for other platforms to print their maps to scale,

Who are these other platforms? I have spent a very frustrating evening trying to find a website from which you can print maps to scale. The websites I have looked at, but which also cannot produce  maps at the correct scale are Streetmap, Bing and Grough.

If the OS know their maps are not to the scale stated (1/25000 and/or 1/50000) but have launched the website regardless, then that is negligence of the highest order and they are laying themselves open to Personal Injuries litigation. Perhaps the only thing that will make them see sense is some very expensive legal bills. 

OK. I'm going to play Devils advocate here. I've just got the 1:50000 map of my local area out. The grid lines are 2.0 cm apart rather than 1.9 cm. Which is great.

However my house, which is a smallish detached property in a fairly remote location, isn't 50m (1mm on the map) wide, nor is it 100m long. (Wish it was, I'd be flogging it for a fortune). The dirt track across the field across the road is 5m wide at the most, not the 25m (0.5mm) indicated on the map. All printed maps have inherent inaccuracies.

In a 100m square any feature indicated on a map with grid lines at 19mm rather than 20mm apart would be displaced by about 5m on the ground. My pacing isn't accurate enough to detect that difference when navigating. Maybe yours is.

I'm not saying that the OS isn't in the wrong with their dodgy app not printing correctly, but you'd have to have to have a lack of situational awareness to end up being injured due to a slight offset in what are representative, rather than precise reproductions of geographical features on the ground. In fact most grid squares have deliberate mistakes on the features for copyright reasons.

The blue symbols for ski lifts etc. (Which can be hundreds on metres out), are a far greater hazard IMHO.

I use Anquet. I can’t give a personal recommendation for others like memory map etc. If you are looking to get it for free then I don’t have any suggestions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the licensing for free services actually does prohibit printing to scale, for obvious reasons.

On the old OS site maps never quite printed to scale for me either now I think about it. I just adjusted my print settings to scale to 98% (took a little trial and error to find the scaling needed) and that sorted it out. If your grid lines are 19mm apart then printing at somewhere between 101-105% should correct it. 

Well, lucky you if the scale on your printed map is correct.

For the rest of us, If the scale of a map is 19mm per kilometre instead of 20mm, then the error is 50 metres on the ground which is quite substantial. No amount of situational awareness is going to help you in a white out. You then have no idea of what is up or down, let alone what may be under your feet. 

The answer may be to change the scaling on the printer. However I find it absurd that we have to go through all this just because the OS cannot get the correct scale on their maps.

I am now sick of the whole sorry mess, and I will not be going to the hills with an inaccurate map, so it looks like it will be back to paper maps for me.    

It's 50m per km. In poor conditions, you should be using shorter legs, and moving from feature to feature. Pacing accuracy in difficult conditions is probably poorer than that mapping inaccuracy. Feature plotting accuracy on 1:25k mapping is about 7m rms, IIRC. It will be higher for 1:50k, and a lot of detail will be missing.

Printer scaling errors are well known (including non-square printing; differential axis scaling errors), and outside the scope of the OS; they're not responsible for your printer, or your use of the print dialogue (e.g. taking care with scaling and margin settings).

If you know your map is incorrectly scaled, correct your measurements accordingly.

None of that is to forgive the incompetence of the OS to generate true scale PDFs.

I've been using MemoryMap for years, and have never had a problem with printing.

I think I might have found the/a solution.

When going to print a map, you click the 'generate a pdf button', if you then print directly from this pdf you get the 1-2mm inaccuracy of the grid squares.

However, if firstly you save the pdf to your HD (downloads/docs/whatever) then open it, make sure the scale is set to 100% and - hey presto! perfect 40mm (for 25k) grid squares

...this would explain why the pdf deepsoup sent me via Dropbox worked perfectly

I recently had an e mail from the OS which has solved the problem. Just before printing, go into more settings, and click on "Actual Size," and you have a map printed to the scale selected, in my case 1/50000. A pity they could not have told us this earlier....

When printing PDFs of maps, you have to be careful with the printer settings. Not only do you need to set "100%" or "Actual Size", but you also need to disable the addition of margins.

Not so much the route jumping about but when I look at the elevation profile afterwards there are all sorts of vertical spikes in it - so the total ascent is often about 3 or 4 x higher than it should be. It seems to be a recent new version of the app (slightly different interface) that does this as it didnt do it before.

Still missing Viewranger.