UKC

PRODUCT NEWS: Rockfax Digital Android Version and FREE Access

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 UKC Gear 23 May 2019
Rockfax App Android Version To mark the Android release, and the change to subscription on the iOS version, we are offering FREE access to the entire Rockfax catalogue to everyone until the end of June 2019.

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 SuperLee1985 23 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Bit late for an April fools joke, no?

11
 Brian H 23 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

App doesn't work on my phone (Galaxy S6). I get message "Rockfax has stopped" or "Rockfax keeps stopping". I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling but makes no difference.

In reply to UKC Gear:

Hi Brian.

Thanks for reporting this to us. I'm aware there seems to be an issue with some Galaxy S5 and S6 devices crashing at startup. I'll be taking a look at that over next few days.

There also appears to be an issue when navigating to the store from the map or some offline maps/overviews. The fix for this will be in tomorrow morning.

Cheers,
Martin 

 Angrypenguin 23 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

A lot of software comes out these days half finished, lacking features, full of bugs and then is patched over months and years all whilst people pay for it. Good on you for holding off on release until it was done (I know code is never done but still !). The app is smooth to use, good looking, pretty intuitive and well featured.

Although I wasn't convinced of the necessity of the app, since the guidebook would be "better", after using it I see it has sufficient distinguishing features that it is a useful supplementary tool to a guidebook rather than replicating it directly in digital form.

When (if!) I get back to climbing regularly then I will take out a subscription.

 TomTeece 23 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

What will happen to the packages I have already purchased when I update the app and the free access ends? Will I still be able to use my old purchases?

 Luke90 23 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Impressed by the pricing! I've found the app much more useful than I expected during the beta period and was curious to see what price you set. I was anticipating Netflix-esque pricing which would have been a tricky decision with the investment I've already made, and will continue to make, in actual guidebooks.

3 or 4 quid per month is cheap enough to be justifiable for me as a useful addition to those guidebooks. Sold.

Any word on your ambition to start including non-Rockfax guidebooks in the app? Have I remembered that correctly from previous threads?

Andy Gamisou 24 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

I like the last item in the apps FAQS. 

In reply to TomTeece:

> What will happen to the packages I have already purchased when I update the app and the free access ends? Will I still be able to use my old purchases?

Hi Tom

This is Q1 in the FAQs - https://www.rockfax.com/publications/rockfax-app/#faq

If you bought packages on the older iOS version of the app, these will still be available in the new version on iOS with out a subscription. Until the end of June 2019 everything is free. After that date the previous purchases will show up in Settings > My Account > Manage Legacy Crags. These legacy packages will not be updated and new versions of the app information for the same area will require a subscription although the old one will stay accessible. We will be implementing a system to ‘trade in’ legacy packages for subscription time.

We noticed yesterday that there was a bug in the Manage Legacy Crags section that means it currently isn't showing up previous purchases, but rest assured, this will be fixed before the end of June.

Android users, who previously bought packages on an iPhone, will not be able to get the legacy packages but they will be able to trade in the value of their previous purchases for subscription time from 1 July.

Alan

In reply to Angrypenguin:

> A lot of software comes out these days half finished, lacking features, full of bugs and then is patched over months and years all whilst people pay for it. Good on you for holding off on release until it was done (I know code is never done but still !). The app is smooth to use, good looking, pretty intuitive and well featured.

Thanks. We appreciate that comment. I know Stephen and Martin have been working incredibly hard, supported by Paul and Andy.

One of the problems we have with iOS is that the real world user testing environment is virtually impossible to fully emulate due to the fact that Apple's test system claims to be identical to real world, but isn't in practice. This means there are some things that we can make work but have to cross our fingers when releasing to the public. Thankfully there seem to be only  a few of these showing up yesterday.

Because we now control the data packages, there should be far fewer of these in future.

Alan

In reply to Luke90:

> Any word on your ambition to start including non-Rockfax guidebooks in the app? Have I remembered that correctly from previous threads?

We are currently working with the SMC to get the Scottish guidebooks onto the app. This is going well and hopefully they should start appearing over the next few months.

We are happy to work with other guidebook producers and the system has been created with this in mind. One important consideration though is that we can't have the same route in the app twice. This means that we would probably only be able to work with guidebook areas that we don't already cover. There are lots of those, like in Scotland, but not so many in England and Wales.

Alan

 LardClimber 24 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Looks good guys, well done! 

However the vector graphics in the large scale offline map are completely off (android oneplus 6). See the screenshot of the Argentiere Glacier:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zoTYk6LEg2Mo7fBc6

Post edited at 09:58
In reply to LardClimber:

Hi,

Thanks for point that out to us. It looks like there is a data issue with this particular crag that is causing that Offline Map to render badly. Try downloading another Chamonix crag and using the Offline Map there. It's the same large map shared across all the crags for the area. We'll see about updating the data for that asap.

Cheers,
Martin

 Adam.Caine 24 May 2019
In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

Dear Alan, 

This reply has answered one of my questions about the legacy crags. However, I have an issue where I can't view any legacy crags under the 'My Crags' tab. I can see that I have 2 guidebooks but when I click on a specific crag it is greyed out and won't load instead showing the message "How Do I Get This? Users with a Rockfax membership can download this content. Visit the Rockfax website for more information."

Along with this, I am unable to download any of the other guidebooks in the app. 

Does this fall under the same issue as the legacy crags and is being worked towards, or is this a separate issue? 

All the best, 

Adam

In reply to Adam.Caine:

Hi Adam. I think that is another issue that may be resolved by logging out in the app under "My Account", then logging back in.

Would you mind sending a support request from the help section? That will allow me to look at your log file and see if I can see what's going on.

 zhwang 24 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

What if you own both an Android phone and an iPad? Will the UKC account subscription be valid for both?

In reply to LardClimber:

I've fixed this issue and uploaded a new version of that package. Currently the update mechanism is a bit hidden:

Go to Downloads, search for 'argentiere', then tap the green update button. It may take a minute for the update to propagate so you may still see a red cross at first.

We'll change the crag page to indicate if there's an update available to make it a bit easier to spot.

In reply to zhwang:

> What if you own both an Android phone and an iPad? Will the UKC account subscription be valid for both?

Yes, two devices, cross platform fine.

Alan

 Adam.Caine 24 May 2019
In reply to Stephen Horne - Rockfax:

Hi Stephen, 

Logging in and out has rectified the problem, I tried to email a support request but it said I needed to try emailing from a device that supports email. 

Best, 

Adam

 Johan le Roux 24 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Is it possible to download or move the data to my Android phone's SD card? 

 Luke90 24 May 2019
In reply to Johan le Roux:

I certainly second that request, though I assume that Google's constantly changing approach to handling the SD card over the years probably makes it a more complex task for the developers than it ought to be.

 planetmarshall 24 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Well done Martin, I guess you can go outside now.

 routrax 24 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Looks great!

Does the subscription give full access to all guidebooks? 

In reply to routrax:

Yes, all the Rockfax guides and hopefully some SMC guides in the next few months.

£4/month or £36/year.

In reply to Johan le Roux:

> Is it possible to download or move the data to my Android phone's SD card? 

This is something I'm going to look at. It's more complicated than you might think though when dealing with external storage on Android. 

Ill take a look at any security implications of doing this also. Keeping the app data secure is obviously a priority. 

 LardClimber 25 May 2019
In reply to Stephen Horne - Rockfax:

Looks good to me now 👍👍

In reply to LardClimber:

Turns out it was all of the Chamonix crags that had this wonky map in them. I've updated them all now. 

 Steve Woollard 26 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Down loaded okay but when I press "Open" it says "Unfortunately, Rockfax has stopped"

I'm using a Samsung S4 running Android 4.4.2

In reply to Steve Woollard:

> Down loaded okay but when I press "Open" it says "Unfortunately, Rockfax has stopped"

> I'm using a Samsung S4 running Android 4.4.2

Hi Steve,

I'm aware of some issue on Galaxy S5 and S6 devices so this doesn't come of much of a surprise. I'm going to be looking into the issue next week. Unfortunately we can't seem to reproduce these crashes in the emulator so we're trying to get a hold of some hardware to test on. 

Bare with me on it, although looking at the issue it might not be an easy one to fix. I'll post an update here though when we know more.

Cheers,
Martin

 jon 26 May 2019
In reply to Stephen Horne - Rockfax:

Another Chamonix Rockfax problem. The topo for La Zone at  Barberine Gietroz - there are only two routes that are shown as having belays/lower-offs. All the rest seem to stop in the middle of nowhere - even though the book topo is correct.

In reply to jon:

Thanks Jon, I know what's causing that - I'll get it fixed. To be clear: the route lines are correct, it's just some of the lower-off symbols that haven't exported properly.

 Max Hangs 26 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Very minor complaint here, but if I've repeated a route clean that I've dogged before, or if I've lead a route clean where I only seconded it before, the tick colour in the app stays the same colour it was before...

I'm not getting the satisfaction of tidying up those ticks 😂

In reply to Max Hangs:

I can imagine this is keeping you up at nights, so we'll get it fixed.

Android or iOS?

 routrax 26 May 2019
In reply to Paul Phillips - UKC and UKH:

That's great value, thanks! 

 Max Hangs 26 May 2019
In reply to Stephen Horne - Rockfax:

Ha! No comment

It's Android (recently updated Galaxy S7)

Edit: I think I originally logged these routes on the website, then latterly on the app, if that matters. 

Post edited at 23:09
In reply to Max Hangs:

> Ha! No comment

> It's Android (recently updated Galaxy S7)

> Edit: I think I originally logged these routes on the website, then latterly on the app, if that matters. 

Thanks for reporting this.

Where you log the ascents shouldn't make a difference. It sounds like the app probably is either just looking at the first ascent that route has and setting colour based on that or the colour priority is off.

 cwarby 27 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Having looked forward to this release and downloaded a couple of crags free to assess (and I do like the style), will crags, when I come to buy them, have a "last updated" date? 2 examples; One Way Reflection at Lammergayer is E5, or is it 7a? At Brean, Prisoner of Bullworker doesn't exist, yet on ukc it does. I understand printed versions can be out of date at time of printing, but an app?? If I go somewhere I don't know, can I rely on the apps info? In the above, I'd be better off printing the ukc route logs and writing notes.

Could you get the crag moderators to cross check (pay them) and then sell the app fully up to date?

Chris

In reply to cwarby:

> Having looked forward to this release and downloaded a couple of crags free to assess (and I do like the style), will crags, when I come to buy them...

First point here - you don't 'buy crags' any more, you buy time for all the crags.

> have a "last updated" date? 2 examples; One Way Reflection at Lammergayer is E5, or is it 7a? At Brean, Prisoner of Bullworker doesn't exist, yet on ukc it does. I understand printed versions can be out of date at time of printing, but an app??

Well we do intend to try and keep the main app data more up to date than in the past when it has been pretty much synchronised to the book releases. This was because it was such a pain to update the packages when Apple were hosting them. Now we have control of the data packages it will be much easier for us to keep them up to date. 

However, with 50,000 routes and hundreds of crags, actually keeping everything up-to-date is big ask. It isn't something that the UKC moderators can do since it is a far more elaborate procedure than  just altering a grade on UKC Logbooks. We will do our best but I can't promise that everything will be continually up-to-date. That simply isn't possible for us since there really is only me keeping an eye on that sort of thing and at present, even I have to go through Stephen each time I want to change something (although we are intending on changing this soon).

> If I go somewhere I don't know, can I rely on the apps info? In the above, I'd be better off printing the ukc route logs and writing notes.

Or you could use the app to have a look at the UKC Logbook version of the crag. Check the Logbook tab or the Map to locate the crag.

Alan

 cwarby 27 May 2019
In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

Alan

I appreciate the reply. I take your point over buying crags, thanks. Also, having looked at another route at Brean, the topo photo has already given me some help and I can see the app useful as a whole.

What I did notice was the route (PoB) was 12 years old, so it's not recent, hence the "last updated" reference.

Chris

In reply to cwarby:

> What I did notice was the route (PoB) was 12 years old, so it's not recent, hence the "last updated" reference.

Ah, well that is a link-up from before we wrote West Country Climbs which was omitted from WCC since we generally don't document link-ups that much in our print books. The data in the app comes entirely from our print books and, as a general rule, the older the print book, the less 'app-ready' it is so the less likely we are to have done much with it. 

It is obvious from UKC that section of crag has quite a few routes that aren't in the app or the book and it will get a re-visit when we do a new edition of WCC, but it is unlikely to get one before that.

Alan

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 Johan le Roux 30 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

The 'Sort by Crag Name' function of the Logbook/Wishlist doesn't work properly after today's update. It's fine on iOS but on Android some of the 'Area' headings under which the climbs are listed seem to be taken at random from any of the other crags in the wishlist. Scrolling down and back up changes the names of some of the Areas to random new ones.

Post edited at 18:32
 karinbradbury 31 May 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

The Samsung issues don't seem to be restricted to phones. I'm using a galaxy tab s2, and the app keeps freezing. Also the routes don't always show up properly on the topos. 

 Johan le Roux 01 Jun 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

With reference to my post on Thursday about the random names assigned to wishlist crag sectors, here are two screenshots. All I did was scroll down and back to the top:

https://i.postimg.cc/d0ZNtYQg/Screenshot-20190601-105604.png

https://i.postimg.cc/9QYgDpyY/Screenshot-20190601-105547.png

It seems every crag needs a far west buttress

Post edited at 10:56
In reply to Johan le Roux:

Hi Johan,

Yeah, I've noticed this bug now. I'll find a fix for it. I'm prioritising working on a fix for crashes that some people are experiencing and then I'll sort that. Thanks for the information.

Martin

 dereke12000 02 Jun 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Two requests/criticisms:

1. When you go to Crags > My Crags > (e.g. Dorset Bouldering) and then scroll down to Topos, you have a horizontal swipe through all the topos grouped by area. The problem is that the name in the grey bar only appears over the central topo in each group. So you appear to be scrolling horizontally through a load of photos with the occasional title every now and then.

2. When you look at your own logbook the climbs are just shown as a list of route names grouped by date. On the UKC website you can see in which crag the  routes are located. I miss this in the app (bad memory on my part !!)

Otherwise, very grateful for the probably thousands of hours required to create this very useful and long awaited app.

In reply to dereke12000:

> 1. When you go to Crags > My Crags > (e.g. Dorset Bouldering) and then scroll down to Topos, you have a horizontal swipe through all the topos grouped by area. The problem is that the name in the grey bar only appears over the central topo in each group. So you appear to be scrolling horizontally through a load of photos with the occasional title every now and then.

This is a bit of a unique problem to Dorset Bouldering where each ‘buttress’ has loads of photos. On most ‘buttresses’ in other areas there are only a few photos, often just one, so it isn’t a problem.

> 2. When you look at your own logbook the climbs are just shown as a list of route names grouped by date. On the UKC website you can see in which crag the  routes are located. I miss this in the app (bad memory on my part !!)

Tap on the arrows next to the search bar. You can filter by Date, Crag or Grade. The funnel gives you even more options.

> Otherwise, very grateful for the probably thousands of hours required to create this very useful and long awaited app.

Thanks.

Alan

 live_to_climb 04 Jun 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

I get the same "Rockfax has stopped" error on a Lenovo tablet - it is running an old(ish) version of android but not that old. Is there a minimum android version requirement for the App? 

I am also experiencing issues on my iPad mini - the original App was working perfectly but the new App crashes, but still runs in the background, effectively bricking the iPad. The only way to restore the iPad functionality is to forcibly restart it, then delete the app. Currently, not only does the App not work for me, but I can no longer access the guides I originally paid for!   


Cheers

Dave

In reply to live_to_climb:

Regarding the Android issue, Martin tells me a fix is in the works.

I'm currently working on performance issues for iPad - can you tell me what kind you have?

 live_to_climb 04 Jun 2019
In reply to Stephen Horne - Rockfax:

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your response. The iPad in question is the mini 2 (A1490).

Cheers

Dave

 Alex Riley 04 Jun 2019
In reply to live_to_climb:

Is there a way of viewing the top 50 list for each guidebook area that has one?

In reply to Alex Riley:

> Is there a way of viewing the top 50 list for each guidebook area that has one?

On the routes tab you can filter by star rating which goes to the Top 50 star. This will find all the all the top 50 routes on crags you have installed though.

Alan

 markK6 05 Jun 2019
In reply to live_to_climb:

Same here Android KitKat 4.4.2 

Still the same problem as with the beta version in April!

In reply to markK6:

> Same here Android KitKat 4.4.2 

> Still the same problem as with the beta version in April!

Yes, we're working on it. We've fixed the issue with crashing on startup but there are still some issues we need to resolve before releasing the update.

Can you give me some information on what device you are using?

 kristian Global Crag Moderator 05 Jun 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

There is still a problem with the dates of older comments. They have not copied over from the logbooks correctly. 1 January 1970 seem to be the default.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Hi Martin,

If it's any help, I also get the "Unfortunately, rockfax has stopped" on a Moto E with Android 6.0. It shows up when I scroll to the end of the start up help tips, which is presumably when the main app loads. Perhaps this is the fix you already made but haven't released it yet.

Richard

 markK6 13 Jun 2019
In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

> Yes, we're working on it. We've fixed the issue with crashing on startup but there are still some issues we need to resolve before releasing the update.

> Can you give me some information on what device you are using?

Martin It's a Tesco hudl2 on KitKat 4.4.2 rooted. We did discuss the issue via email in April and I sent you a crash log.

 scope 16 Jun 2019
In reply to UKC Gear:

Any update on the update?

In reply to scope:

> Any update on the update?

I'm sorry, you'll need to be more specific as to what you're wanting updated on. There has been a lot going on in this thread.

I released an update (v1.0.3) on Friday that dealt with some of the problems on lower end devices, particularly crashes on startup, however there are still issues to resolve. This week coming I'm working on other aspects of the subscription system but I will be returning to work on crashes etc soon.

 scope 17 Jun 2019
In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

That's the update I was after. Now working on my old, tired Samsung S4. Thanks.

In reply to scope:

Hi Scope,

The startup issue is fixed but there are still some issues if you navigate to some topos. You'll likely run into these, especially on an S4 as the S5 I'm testing on is still experiencing them. I'm planning to fix issues these but some other things are taking priority at the moment.

Cheers,
Martin

 RoK 09 Aug 2019
In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

Hi Alan, 

A bit late to the party, apologies. 

I'd purchased several crags on iPhone and am now on Android. According to the FAQ I can trade in these for time. 

Could you outline this process? Q3 points to Q4 as a solution. 

Was expecting to see an option under Settings > My Account > Restore Purchases, but I'm guessing that is only for current iOS users. 

Cheers, 

R. 

In reply to RoK:

Hi Ronan, apologies that no one's or back to you. 

To trade in you'll need to borrow an iPhone for a few minutes and follow these steps:

- sign in to your Apple ID in settings

- open the rf app

- sign into your account in the app

- restore purchases 

This should let our servers know what you've bought in the past, then you can check your account at rockfax.app and do the trade in.

 RoK 18 Aug 2019
In reply to Stephen Horne - Rockfax:

Cheers Stephen, 

I had a feeling that might be the case.

No worries though, I have a few to hand. 

Ronan. 


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