Google maps on observation shows large "503" text

Platform (Android, iOS, Website): website

App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About):

Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) : chrome

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages:
Any url
Screenshots of what you are seeing :
image

Description of problem :

Step 1: Open any observation on inaturalist.org (ex: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/243140552 )

Step 2: Zoom in and out of the maps shown to your right on the observation details window

Step 3: You would notice 503 text show on maps, this shows up despite of zoom in and zoom out

I can’t replicate on either chrome or opera, so perhaps this is an issue with your specific machine

Interestingly it works fine when tried in Incognito mode without login. But, the moment I login to inaturalist , it is reproducible on my incongnito mode too on chrome (negating cookies and cache issue that way!)

Also can’t replicate on Windows + Chrome; logged in or in incognito.

Do you have an extensions/plugins that you’ve also permitted while in incognito? Some extensions have settings such as “Permit Incognito”. If so, you might try disabling those as a test.

Same issue for me on Safari with Monterrey, but I do have some maps that don’t show it.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1360268-Lycaena - this one does not show the “503” for me, but the two species under it do show it, as well as the genus. I do have other taxa that also show it.

I played around with observations listed in "Explore " around my location on the website. Some observations have this issue with maps and some do not have. Trying to see if there is a pattern to this.

Likely has to do with iNat using an outdated version of the google maps javascript libary.

The developer console says:
“util.js:76 Google Maps JavaScript API warning: RetiredVersion https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/error-messages#retired-version
eAa @ util.js:76”

2 Likes

I encountered this only when trying to enable the GBIF overlay for the map on a taxon page. Went to GBIF and there was a notice that their systems were having issues on the page.

Then my cat walked all over my keyboard and closed and restarted Chrome, which had had the “Relaunch to update” notification (I had been putting it off) and effectively updated Chrome for me. Now neither GBIF nor iNat maps are giving me any errors.

2 Likes

I had the same bug this morning on the taxon page, using the browser Ecosia, with the gbif overlay. But now it work fine.

I saw this issue yesterday for awhile but I haven’t seen it today

This is problem with GBIF overlay and has no connections with Inat at all. The endpoint sometimes returns 503 error.

2 Likes

Agree with others. I am no longer seeing this issue