App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About): 1.30.6 on Android pixel 5
Description of problem: I open a new observation and click to record sound, but when I try to save the sound, it goes into an infinite loading loop, deletes the sound, and doesn’t mark anything (date, location, time) for the observation, so that it’s just 100% blank.
Happened 6 whole times just today, then started working again fine. Lost many very clear bird calls because of it.
I wasn’t able to replicate this on my Pixel 7 - the sound saved and the observation uploaded fine.
Are you able to share a screenshot of the loading loop?
After this happens can you please send log files from iNaturalist? To send log files, go to the About tab in the iNaturalist app and tap three times on the version number. You will then have the option to email the log files to us. They might contain a record of the error.
I have a very similar problem. I will upload as much info as I can.
I use a Motorola G7 power running Android 10. The version of inaturalist app is 1.36.8.
As stated by the user above, I start a new observation, press on the “Record sound” button, then on the microphone symbol in the recorder app and the second counter starts playing. At the end of the recording I press pause, then the option to “Finish”, which takes me to the observation editing window, where I can see that the correct date and locality are already entered, I just add the appropriate species name, like “Bird” then finalize the observation at the bottom of the page. But when the screen goes back to the list of my observations, the new observation is completely blank, including the date and locality information. When I try to find the actual wav file of the recording in my Files app, I can see it, labelled as “inaturalist_sound_date_time.wav” and with a finite file size, e.g. 1.85Mb, but when I try to play the file back in the Files app, it tells me “Impossible to read this file” and the recording length is set at 00:00. It is also impossible to transfer the file to any other directory or storage card. It seems to me that at the point of finalizing the observation and uploading it to the server, the recording file is overwritten or corrupted, and the observation record itself is voided. I attach a series of screenshots as I went through this whole process.
START THE NEW OBSERVATION
PRESS ON RECORD A SOUND- SOUND RECORDING PAGE READY
BEGUN RECORDING SINCE 5.2 SECONDS
PAUSE/STOP THE RECORDING (RED BUTTON) THEN “FINISHED”
SWITCH TO OBSERVATION EDITING PAGE- DATE/LOCALITY CORRECT
ENTERING THE “WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN” INFO
“BIRD” HAS BEEN ENTERED, NOW I CHOOSE “SELECT” (GREEN BAR)
BACK TO THE OBSERVATION LISTING PAGE, THE NEW OBSERVATION AT THE TOP IS LISTED AS “UNKNOWN” AND THE LOCALITY “UNKNOWN”, THE DATE IS TOTALLY SPURIOUS
DETAILED PAGE FOR THE NEW OBSERVATION - BLANK
IN THE ANDROID FILES APP THE NEW SOUND RECORDING IS LISTED WITH THE CORRECT DATE/TIME IN ITS FILE NAME, BUT THE DATE TIME ATTRIBUTED TO THE FILE IS SPURIOUS (2nd JULY, 57290 AD). THE FILE SIZE IS ABOUT CORRECT (1.85 Mb FOR A 20 SECOND RECORDING)
WHEN THE SOUND FILE IS PLAYED, ERROR MESSAGE SAYS “IMPOSSIBLE TO READ THIS FILE” AND THE RECORDING LENGTH IS GIVEN AS 00:00 TO 00:00
