Annotation fields not always present in app

[Star3]

I couldn’t find an existing bug report in the forum, so forgive me if this is a known issue.I’ve noticed that the annotation fields are not present on every observation.

I am currently running the iNaturalist app version 1.14.8 (384) on Android, but I have seen it in previous versions as well:

Not showing annotations:

Showing annotations:

I usually will switch over to the browser to annotate, so I never logged the issue before. With needing to add the new dead/alive annotation to my Animalia observations, through, I would like to be able to annotate in the app without switching back to browser.

I will continue to look through my observations to see if the determining factor is RG vs. Needs ID, Taxon (in the examples above, one is a vertebrate and the other is an invertebrate) , or some other factor that affects when they are available.

[Star3]

Ok, it’s not a RG vs. Needs ID issue.
This needs ID, but I can see annotations:

Not a vertebrate vs. invertebrate issue either (though it could still be taxon related I guess).
This is another Needs ID insect, but I can see annotations:

[pisum]

@Star3

Not a vertebrate vs. invertebrate issue either (though it could still be taxon related I guess)

this seems to be a taxon-related, but i think there’s a little more to it than simply what taxon the observation is identified as. when i look at my Sciapodinae (subfamily) observations, i see that about half of my observations here are missing annotations. the ones here that are missing annotations are the ones where the original id was Diptera / flies (order) rather than, say, Dolichopodidae / long-legged flies (family). some other observations where i have missing annotations are one where Chironomini (tribe) was originally Diptera (order), Chironominae (subfamily) was originally Nematocera (suborder), and Anopheles (genus) was originally Culicidae (family). so maybe the problem is triggered when you refine the id 2 levels or more?

separately – sorry for slightly switching topics – but i’ve also noticed that when i tap to try to add annotations, i don’t always get a response. i can’t seem to figure out a pattern, except that it seems the last annotation option on the list (ex. alive or dead) seems to respond less reliably than the first annotation option (ex. life stage). has anyone else noticed this?

[Star3]

I wish I had github access. I’d check to see if either of these annotation issues were already in.

Thanks for the additional info on the apparent random nature of the missing fields.

[pisum]

@Star3

I wish I had github access

everyone has read access, i think. iNaturalist has a few different projects, but i think the core one is https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/. issues are here: https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/issues, and commits to the master branch are here: https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/commits/master.

[zabdiel]

Android app is here: https://github.com/inaturalist/iNaturalistAndroid
And issues for it are here: https://github.com/inaturalist/iNaturalistAndroid/issues

[pisum]

right. i forgot we were talking about the Android app.

[Star3]

I have the iOS app too, but it’s on my work phone (with permission).

I rarely use it unless I’m unable to use my personal phone, so I haven’t seen if the same annotation issue occurs there too.

[Star3]

I don’t see anything in the open issues.

[Star3]

It’s still happening. I uploaded an observation today, and there’s no annotation fields in the app.

[Star3]

still seeing this behavior on observations in Android (iNat ver 1.26.02)

[jwidness]

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/android-app-annotation-fields-missing/29651 is quite similar, possibly with the same root cause. There is a github issue for it.

It might be helpful if you send log files to help@inaturalist.org