A bunch of observations that I have suddenly had their observation field data missing. Some had nothing in the observation field despite me having put data there – I fixed all of those so I don’t have links for those. Some had the data, but it’s not “linked” to the taxon data in iNat. Those links are above showing the issue. I had to correct a bunch of observations for this, and it’s concerning because sometimes I add data via the app, and sometimes I add it via the website, and either way, it seems like they just didn’t record right for some reason? Not sure if other people have this issue, but I also manage a project where this data is important so it disappearing or breaking worries me for that reason also.
it probably does work in most cases. in the ideal case, the iPhone app has a connection to the internet and probably can do the proper lookups to get the taxon id based on a user input string. but maybe when it’s not connected, it can’t do the lookup and just saves the user-input string instead of the actual numeric taxon id. (your cases and the cases reported previously have string values saved, not the numeric taxon ids.)
sigh. this is frustrating- I’m usually connected to the internet so this is weird. do you know if the new iNat app allows for observations to be added to projects yet?
it’s fine, I just wondered if you knew off the top of your head. you’re the only person who’s replied to my bug report, so I’m just at a loss for what to do.
if you’re just looking to fix the bad data, it’s possible to find the records with bad data and just update them. would like like help finding such records?
I might be able to try to help with this some if you’d like… I know you’re always working on things. I’m assuming there’s no way to limit the results from the endpoint and I’d instead need to filter the results to exclude those w names lookup.
I also kinda wondered if the meta data tool could easily use name lookup when it encountered a plain text of type taxon when doing a copy. This might be a way to somewhat “cleanse” some data when copying obs fields for the purposes of consolidation.
obviously this is somewhat beyond the scope of the tool (adjusting the data during a copy)… but it’s interesting to think about.
i’d be weary of trying to create something that automates the matching of text to taxon id. there are lots of taxa that share similar names. so it’s not always clear what the original intent was. it’s better if someone can go in and add them based on actual knowledge of the taxon.
so if you want to take on the project, i think the best thing is to help find cases where taxa have be input as text instead of numbers, and then let subject matter experts go and clean up from there.
@pisum@stockslager the bulk of the observations that need corrected can only be corrected by the observer who entered them, so I have to reach out to them directly. That is one reason why I was looking for a fix from iNat to stop this problem from happening in the first place.
anyone should be able to edit observation fields, unless the observer has specifically elected to prevent others from being able to do so. (i just updated the last observation in your original set of 4.)
i don’t disagree that iNat ideally should fix the problem, but it looks like it occurs in the old iPhone app, which i bet gets the lowest priority for development. i would guess that the problem will never be fixed, and that iNat staff will focus on trying to get users onto the new app instead.
Yes, that is the issue (I didn’t want to say it out loud but oh well lol). Thank you for fixing my observation - I really appreciate it - I forgot I needed to do that actually.
And agreed re: the app priority. It’s just there are still a lot of people using the older app because of the bumpy ride on the new app, so not having things fixed is an obstacle.
quick follow-up: this was on the product goals for H1 2026. it looks like they’ve been working on it, but it hasn’t been rolled out to the masses yet, as far as i can tell.