A couple of people who are participating in my projects have reported seeing an Error 422 message, and been unable to upload their observations unless they deselect the project from the observations. These are both huge projects, and only one person from each project has reported this problem, but I don’t know what it means. How can I help them to be able to add their observations to my projects? Thank you in advance!
I’m guessing you mean error 422 b/c I don’t think there is a 477. What are the URLs of these projects and what is the URL of one or a few observations that cannot be added to them?
Yes, it was an Error 422. I will see if they can send me the observation URLs. Thanks.
I’m also getting Error 422 sometimes when I try to upload on the iOS app. Nothing is different on my end between the times it takes my observations and the times it doesn’t. I have to wait a few hours and try again and it will take them.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/41444649
Strange, it looks like this observation did upload successfully at least?? And hi, welcome to the iNat Forum :)
Welcome to the forum @Zentimetadenken!
I get this error quite often. It is extremely frustrating.
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For people experiencing this issue: more information about what triggers the problem is probably necessary for trouble-shooting. Can you provide URLs for the projects and the observations that cause the error?
It appears to be random. I can get the error when I’m uploading into a project I manage or with no project at all. When the error occurs, it never clears itself later. I always have to delete the observation. If I try to reupload the same image in a new observation (either immediately or some time later), I get the error again. If I do something to alter the image… like take a screenshot of the image on my phone and the use the screenshot of the image instead of the image taken by the phone camera, it will sometimes work without returning the error. This has been occurring at random for over a year… over several versions of the iNat client and over different iPhone hardware (7 Plus, X, and 11 Pro Max). I’ve gone for months at a time without seeing the error while doing observations in different states across the US, then randomly will receive it for a few observations, then go for months again without seeing it. When it occurs, I typically will lose those observations if the screenshot/re-upload workaround doesn’t work. I wish I could offer more help, but it really does seem to be random. It happened this morning with an observation I want to upload of turks cap leaves that are new growth coming out of winter.
Thankfully, it is infrequent enough that the platform remains usable most of the time… but when it occurs, it is really frustrating. Especially if you have a lot of observations you want to upload and can’t.
Sorry I’m not more help! :)
Hmmm, if it’s an error consistently on some images, that would suggest it’s something specifically about the image file causing the issue. Can you email the offending image to help@inaturalist.org? @tiwane may be able to help from there.
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Ok, I don’t know if this helps, but this may be a range-related thing where the geographic metadata (lat,long) pulled from the image falls outside the range boundary of a project area.
I absolutely thought this error occurred several times while I was travelling out of state and wasn’t specifically adding an observation to a project, but lets say, for the sake of discussion, that I am wrong and that is incorrect.
I went into my Turk’s Cap observation from the web interface (Chrome on Win10) - which did upload successfully, despite the error on my phone - and noticed it was not in my geofenced biodiversity project as expected. When I tried to add the observation to the project manually, I received a popup saying the operation failed because the record was observed within the boundary of the project. I manually reduced the range circle of the observation location and saved, then was able to add to the project (via web). Afterwards, when I relaunch my iPhone app and refresh, the error flagged to the observation cleared.
I know it isn’t much, but perhaps crumbs leading toward the path?
Thanks,
Clayton
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The 422 is usually triggered when the observation does not meet the requirements of a traditional project, so knowing which project you are trying to add the observation(s) to is key, as well as a URL of the observation(s).
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If it’s the Tranqulity Project, then that project’s only rule is that an observation must be observed within the boundary of the Tranqulity place. iNaturalist doesn’t consider an observation to have been recorded in a place if its accuracy circle is too large. See this FAQ for more info: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#placeindex
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Thanks… that makes sense to me and it is easier to work with knowing the observation may be the issue and not something in the platform. Now that we know the reason a 422 may be triggered, it should be easier to check the quality of the observation to ensure it meets the project criteria.
Awesome support, guys… thank you soooo much for taking time to explain how to work through this when it happens.
Be well…
/c
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Okay the problem is still there, even when I check the requirements for the projects. I tried to uninstall the app on my iPhone 7, but nothing changed. I tried it again on the website, but the result was the same. I tried to check if there are any projects that work, but I couldn‘t find one. Even the iNaturalist observation of the day project doesn‘t let me upload it.
Thanks in advance for your support.
Specific examples here would really help us diagnose this - project name and URL of the observation(s) you are trying to add to it.
Here are the observations and the projects I try to add them to:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/42104678
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/42104410
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/41650050
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