Large areas of o-charts missing

[jimseng]

Hello
I just purchased Uk charts from o-charts. Much of the south coast is missing. What have I done?

[nohal]

You are in single chart mode, enable chart quilting by pressing Q or in the hamburger menu in the lower right corner of the screen.

[jimseng]

Hi
Actually I emailed O charts directly to see what they say. This is their response:

"you are not the first to report that issue.

We are in discussion with UKHO who garbled the latest version (2024/1).
You should know that we just publish the material we get from UKHO, and this was correct during the last years.
The answers we have right now - today we finally got one - are quite bizarre.

Quite some cells are flagged as "cancelled" and you will agree that a plotter shall not show cancelled cells.
However the cells that substitute those cancelled cells are not included. "Will come with next update 2024/2, second quarter".
A reply we do not accept.

A very uncomfortable and unacceptable situation for you and us.

Stay tuned, we shall see how UKHO does respond."

I am not fully sire what this means but my interpretation is that the UK tax payer funded UKHO has broken the charts for the UK and don't intend to fix it for at least 4 months. I am a bit of a loss.

(I don't have a chart quilting tick box under display...but I think that is irrelevant. Thoughts anyone?

[nohal]

You do have the chart quilting checkbox, like everybody else, see attached screenshot for what we talk about.



I have no thoughts about UKHO's chart publishing procedures to share, sorry.

[jimseng]

Ah. OK. I was following the help file.
Unfortunately that isn't the solution. I am at a loss as to what UK chart users are to do for four months while the tax payer funded UKHO gets its act together. This is very bad news.

[hoolie]

Can o-charts provide you with a previous, though slightly out of date, set of charts that do work?

[jimseng]

I have asked that question. I wonder if anyone has a previous working version downloaded for the offline install, I believe there is a fingerprint process to go through. That might work. Then it is just a case of not updating until there is a fix. I haven't had a response yet.

[bcn]

Originally Posted by hoolie

Can o-charts provide you with a previous, though slightly out of date, set of charts that do work?

First we want to get the things right from UKHO.
We shall not play with cancelled cells, those flags can be there for many reasons and how can we know the reason of the cancellation? Manually inspect each single case is no option. Edit and overrride a cancellation neither.



To recover the 2023/4 set might be an option if UKHO fails to resolve the issue in a short time.
Sad story for an institution with the record of UKHO...


Btw. the background of massive cancelation of cells is the switch to tiled cell lay-outs. Something that NOAA is doing, BSH has done for a good part of German waters and other HOs are working on that.
When cancelling cells, then of course the replacing tile is in place.

[jimseng]

Originally Posted by bcn

To recover the 2023/4 set might be an option if UKHO fails to resolve the issue in a short time.
Sad story for an institution with the record of UKHO...

What is a short time? According to the email from 0-charts, UKHO have said the second quarter. That is at best April, but who knows? Well into the sailing season by then. I don't think the charts should be available on the 0-charts website if they are not fit for purpose. And I have paid for a product that doesn't work.
This might sound more grumpy in text form than it is supposed to. It is the UKHO I am grumpy with but I persuaded my friend to go with a Pi 5 and OpenCPN on his new boat. We have spent some time doing the installation and I am left looking a bit foolish right now.

[bcn]

Yes, UKHO tells us right now to wait until April to get a working set of charts.
What is not acceptable by no means.
And no guarantee that the same mess will not happen again with 2024/02 or the next release.



But give them at least two working days to analyze and respond.


As a fallback we can rescue the 2023/04 version. Not what we would like to see. And not what users and us at o-charts, paying licenses, do expect.

[jimseng]

The 2023/04 version would be much better than the current situation.