Real time map animation for new visitors is not displayed anymore

[anonymous-matomo-user]

The real time map is showing a negative amount of seconds ago that a page view happened - this in turn causes no animation of the circle when a new page view happens.
Keywords: realtime map

[mattab]

Can you please post screenshot of that bug?

[anonymous-matomo-user]

Attachment:
screenshot.jpg

[halfdan]

That "bug" is quite easy to explain: The server time and your local computer time don't match. The "[x] time ago" strings are computed on your computer based on the timestamp that the server recorded for the visit. The time on your computer is probably running a few seconds behind and that's why the visits seem to come from the future.

I'd vote for wontfix.

[anonymous-matomo-user]

Although I agree that your theory makes sense, it does not explain how I get this error on two seperate computers both on my server and on the piwik demo. I will however verify the time on both my server and local computers and report back.

But even if this is an issue, there is surley a way to prevent this from happening.

[halfdan]

Both, the Piwik Demo and your own server are probably synced with the ntp service - so their clocks match. The only solution is to ensure your local time is synced with a time server.

[anonymous-matomo-user]

Okay, so I will give it to you that updating my time did in fact fix the negative seconds. However, it did not fix the missing animation.

[mattab]

I believe this will be fixed in git master after this pull request is merged #235

[rristow]

I would reopen this Issue for the countless problems that it will certainly cause to many users.

What causes confusion is the difference between "real time" and "real time map". "Real time" is satisfied with the accuracy of countries, the real-time map requires accuracy of "latitude" and "longitude".
The problem is compounded because Matomo does not come with a geolocation database installed.

Proposal for solution
1 - I think the ideal solution would be for the map to always work, if there is no exact information (latitude), then the entire city or country should be marked, with an warning message: "The map is not accuracy because your geolocation databank does not contain exact latitude / longitude information"

2 - If it is not really possible to show anything on the map, this menu option should be complet disabled with an explanation.

3 - Implement different messages for these two cases so that there are really no doubts: 1 - "No data was found to be presented. Please wait or check your filters." 2 - "Your geolocation database is not accurate enough to be displayed on the map (latitude and longitude are not present)"

Quick and dirty solution
Change the message to (suggestion):

There are no visits to displayed at the moment (check the filters) or the geolocation is not accurate enough.

To resolve this issue, make sure you are using a GeoIP geolocation provider with "latitude" and "longitude" information. If this does not resolve your issue, then it is possible (though unlikely) that your visits have IP addresses that just cannot be geolocated.

[tsteur]

Cheers for the feedback @rristow

In Matomo 4 we will by default install a GeoIP DB (unless someone unticks the checkbox) which should also include longitude and latitude information. I wonder if it'll still be needed then? Guess it be mostly for existing users.