Glitch Discussion Thread

[VampirateMace]

The Cooldown Glitch - Has anyone actually timed this? I've noticed that the stops turn blue before they are accessible, then after a couple moments change shape. It might be that people just don't realize this is part of the coming out of cool down animation. . . or that stuff, plus a real glitch, where it really has happened, but a lot of people are just assuming that as soon as they turn blue it's been 5 mins, thus making it seem like the glitch is more widespread then it is.

Sometimes I have to close the app and reset before it'll let me click on nearby pokemon or stops. I thought it was a slower connection issue, but some people are saying it's the servers? Well, either way, it's only slightly inconvenient and hopefully, I don't lose anything rare to it.

I've experienced the 'relocation glitch'. My avatar was relocated to the middle of a nearby river briefly (but since my iPod doesn't have real GPS, I figured that kind of stuff is to be expected from time to time).

I've also been stuck at 25% on the loading screen, and since closing the app didn't fix it, I assumed it was servers. But if it's real common, I guess it probably is a glitch.

 

[FairyWitch]

Here's another link explaining the 'three step bug':

http://kotaku.com/pokemon-gos-three-step-glitch-makes-tracking-pokemon-im-1783854268

One theory is that not listing the distances helps the servers, but there's absolutely no confirmation on any of this unfortunately.

I am sure if we give enough complaints that they will fix it in another update again but it may take some time as of right now I will just rely on hatching eggs from stops until this bug glitch is fixed. I am frustrated as well but it is a free app so yeah :/

 

[Vroomer]

Let's see... Not getting coins when buying. So, close ap, buy again... Get 2x the coins.. Billed 2x. Tap once to Buy 1 thing of 25 incense and get 100 incense.

Use incense and not get animation. Restart ap.. Timer ticking down. Or restart ap to down servers... And down 1 incense.
Capture freeze glitch.
Restart ap to 'servers are down' message. <- NEWSFLASH! Your ap is the most popular thing on the planet. Get more servers to support you ap.

 

[VampirateMace]

Try to use incense, NOTHING happens; it doesn't use it up, it doesn't start the timer or luring pokes (even when I reset). Don't know if this has to do with my connection, location, lack of GPS, or maybe the three footprint thing. Not that big of deal I suppose, but it makes it a useless item in my bag.

 

[Burumun]

Try to use incense, NOTHING happens; it doesn't use it up, it doesn't start the timer or luring pokes (even when I reset). Don't know if this has to do with my connection, location, lack of GPS, or maybe the three footprint thing. Not that big of deal I suppose, but it makes it a useless item in my bag.

I know this sounds like a stupid question, but are you using it right? And have you tried it again? You have to activate it by opening it and then tapping on the incense. I mean, I've had it not work as well, but most of the time it works fine.

 

[Shraeder]

None of those explain it. I see CP of Pokemon I haven't caught, and I've seen Pokemon with higher cp than what I have and it always shows a number. I can't find any info on this?

Nah, the CP??? only happens when the Pokemon is higher CP than anything you have. Every Pokemon I've caught that had CP??? was stronger than my strongest Pokemon

@VampireMace, I've also had the relocation glitch happen to me, but it only happened when I was trying to see if there were any Pokemon by my house, when I went out to play it worked fine.

I've stopped encountering a lot of the other glitches from earlier in the release of the game, such as the one where Pokeball freezes when I catch a Pokemon (this happens very rarely for me), or the server crashing/not loading. I think once they're able to fix this nearby Pokemon glitch without causing another glitch, then the app will be almost perfect.

 

[Enkidu]

Idk if its really a glitch or if my hands are sweaty but when I try to throw a Pokeball the pokeball doesn't go far enough and falls close to me completely missing the Pokemon. I wasted a lot of Pokeballs this way.

Happens to me too, but you can tap the pokeballs before they disappear. You don't lose any that way.

 

[lunis the ogre]

Happens to me too, but you can tap the pokeballs before they disappear. You don't lose any that way.

This has yet to work for me.

 

[Cometstarlight]

Try to use incense, NOTHING happens; it doesn't use it up, it doesn't start the timer or luring pokes (even when I reset). Don't know if this has to do with my connection, location, lack of GPS, or maybe the three footprint thing. Not that big of deal I suppose, but it makes it a useless item in my bag.

That happens to me occasionally. Whenever it happens, just close out the app (reset it), and open it up again, then the incense will work. It's happened to me two or three times and it's happened to my family too.

 

[Lexya428]

- Relocation Glitch, I experience this one a lot, whether or not I have Internet connection. I'll be in my house and my avatar will glitch near the PokéStop by my house. I get items still usually I have to tap on the screen for it to figure out where I am.
- Pokéball Glitch, when it freezes while trying to catch a Pokémon. It happens all of the time and probably one of the most annoying glitches. I have to exit the app and reload it.
- Also, I have noticed that if you try and catch a Pokémon and as it begins to pop out but hasn't quite yet, you click on items, and your game will freeze. At least, mine does, and it happens every time I've done it. You click on the items and it says That item can't be used here. For anything. I'm presuming it's a glitch.
- Also, during the Pokéball glitch, I tried to see if I could fix it. I was trying to catch a Gastly and I clicked on Items after the ball froze and then exited and it showed that Gastly had popped out, but I was really zoomed in to the point where there was no way I could catch anything. I could see Gastly's two rings, but not Gastly. It was weird.
- Every Pokémon in the nearby list has 3 footprints, and yet will appear on my screen. I haven't had a 1 or 2 footprint for a very long time, for at least a week.

 

[VampirateMace]

I know this sounds like a stupid question, but are you using it right? And have you tried it again? You have to activate it by opening it and then tapping on the incense. I mean, I've had it not work as well, but most of the time it works fine.

That happens to me occasionally. Whenever it happens, just close out the app (reset it), and open it up again, then the incense will work. It's happened to me two or three times and it's happened to my family too.

Apparently what happened to me should not be considered I glitch. While I was doing it right (thanks for checking Burumun, but the process is almost idiot proof, and Comet, I did try restarting), the game is apparently smart enough to keep you from wasting incense if you're somewhere where no pokemon will show up (kind of disappointing that I can't lure pokemon to the woods where theoretically there'd be more pokemon in RL though).

 

[Meillquei]

So today every time I rotated my phone to the side the app froze. Does anyone else experience this?

 

[yumenokage]

Apparently what happened to me should not be considered I glitch. While I was doing it right (thanks for checking Burumun, but the process is almost idiot proof, and Comet, I did try restarting), the game is apparently smart enough to keep you from wasting incense if you're somewhere where no pokemon will show up (kind of disappointing that I can't lure pokemon to the woods where theoretically there'd be more pokemon in RL though).

I believe it's been shown that incense-generated pokemon have no relation to the "pokemon nearby" or such, and that instead it actually generates pokemon specifically for the user (unlike lure modules which, while also generating pokemon, have the benefit of creating the pokemon for everyone). Thus, whether or not there are pokemon nearby in the area you are trying to use incense doesn't matter. You do have to swipe the incense up to turn it on, though, which confused me for awhile, and caused the same phenomenon that you described. Once I did that, even though there are NEVER any pokemon near my house where I had been trying to use it (which also happens to be by a woods where you would think they would show up ), the incense started and pokemon showed up for me.

 

[Nibbles4Ever]

I'm not able to connect. Every time I try to sign in it says unable to authenticate )=

 

[Playful Latios]

I'm not able to connect. Every time I try to sign in it says unable to authenticate )=

Pokemon Trainer Club account logins for the US have been down since around 9am central time.

 

[Nibbles4Ever]

Pokemon Trainer Club account logins for the US have been down since around 9am central time.

That explains it. I hope they fix it soon )=

 

[yumenokage]

I've had my gps or game glitch so when I logged in it thought I was where I was where I had been when I was playing the game previously at first, before fixing itself (or where I had to restart to fix it), which may also have been what caused me around the same time to get soft banned a few times and have all pokemon run away on me after the first throw (which was really frustrating as I had no idea what was going on until a couple days later where I looked up the phenomenon. really stupid that they didn't even have a notification that it thought I was using gps manipulation and thus wouldn't allow me to catch pokemon. what if I had paid for those pokeballs? it's not my fault if it's being glitchy, and while I understand if they want to discourage cheating, they could at least have let me know I was soft banned for the next little while so I didn't waste all my pokeballs thinking I just had really bad luck, like how if one has a bunch of people flip a coin ten times, there'll be a few people who just get tails all ten times).

 

[JX Valentine]

I've had my gps or game glitch so when I logged in it thought I was where I was where I had been when I was playing the game previously at first, before fixing itself (or where I had to restart to fix it), which may also have been what caused me around the same time to get soft banned a few times and have all pokemon run away on me after the first throw (which was really frustrating as I had no idea what was going on until a couple days later where I looked up the phenomenon. really stupid that they didn't even have a notification that it thought I was using gps manipulation and thus wouldn't allow me to catch pokemon. what if I had paid for those pokeballs? it's not my fault if it's being glitchy, and while I understand if they want to discourage cheating, they could at least have let me know I was soft banned for the next little while so I didn't waste all my pokeballs thinking I just had really bad luck, like how if one has a bunch of people flip a coin ten times, there'll be a few people who just get tails all ten times).

???? Wait, who said these were signs that you were soft-banned? It sounds like you just encountered some of the usual server errors combined with some bad luck in getting Pokémon to stay. Keep in mind that although server issues are gradually clearing up, they've also just had a worldwide release, meaning some folks might still be encountering the same kind of trip-ups as folks've encountered last week and the week before. The Trainer Hangout login method still seems to be rather unreliable, as some users've reported as recently as today that they're struggling to get the app to authenticate their login details.

Niantic doesn't really do soft bans anyway for things like GPS glitching. Basically, they understand the GPS sometimes can't pinpoint your location, so they won't tag you for something like that. It's when you spoof (or outright fake your GPS location to the point where your avatar is far from where your actual location is—and not just for a second, either) that they hit you with a ban.

So don't worry. You were very, very likely not soft-banned, and stuff should be resolving for you soon. Hopefully, anyway.

Edit: To clarify, basically, if your avatar speeds all over the place before correcting itself and staying there, the app gets that. That's normal GPS drift. Teleporting or spoofing is when your avatar continuously moves across the map in abnormal ways for abnormal periods of time to the point where it's very clear that you're intentionally tricking your device/account into thinking you're somewhere you're not for the sake of cheating. (Or, as some folks on Reddit explained, the difference between drift and spoofing is that your device will be able to explain why you're traveling where you are. If you're spoofing, your device can't, as you've moved your avatar too fast and too far.) Tl;dr, you're not going to get banned for regular GPS drift (which it sounds like you're experiencing); it's very likely you're just encountering server issues with a side of bad luck. If you couldn't interact with Pokéstops either, then that would probably be a cause for concern right there.

 

[yumenokage]

???? Wait, who said these were signs that you were soft-banned? It sounds like you just encountered some of the usual server errors combined with some bad luck in getting Pokémon to stay. Keep in mind that although server issues are gradually clearing up, they've also just had a worldwide release, meaning some folks might still be encountering the same kind of trip-ups as folks've encountered last week and the week before. The Trainer Hangout login method still seems to be rather unreliable, as some users've reported as recently as today that they're struggling to get the app to authenticate their login details.

Niantic doesn't really do soft bans anyway for things like GPS glitching. Basically, they understand the GPS sometimes can't pinpoint your location, so they won't tag you for something like that. It's when you spoof (or outright fake your GPS location to the point where your avatar is far from where your actual location is—and not just for a second, either) that they hit you with a ban.

So don't worry. You were very, very likely not soft-banned, and stuff should be resolving for you soon. Hopefully, anyway.

Edit: To clarify, basically, if your avatar speeds all over the place before correcting itself and staying there, the app gets that. That's normal GPS drift. Teleporting or spoofing is when your avatar continuously moves across the map in abnormal ways for abnormal periods of time to the point where it's very clear that you're intentionally tricking your device/account into thinking you're somewhere you're not for the sake of cheating. (Or, as some folks on Reddit explained, the difference between drift and spoofing is that your device will be able to explain why you're traveling where you are. If you're spoofing, your device can't, as you've moved your avatar too fast and too far.) Tl;dr, you're not going to get banned for regular GPS drift (which it sounds like you're experiencing); it's very likely you're just encountering server issues with a side of bad luck. If you couldn't interact with Pokéstops either, then that would probably be a cause for concern right there.

I'm talking about it thinking I was on the other side of town or other side of the state. As for what I was talking about for soft ban, it's what I found on a number of sites after googling, and goes away after a period of time. It's definitely more than bad luck with run rates, though, as I'm talking about streaks of like 10 weak pokemon (like really low cp pidgeys) running away after exactly one ball thrown (like, I look at my journal and I confirm it's a ridiculously long straight streak of "xxx ran away"). If you have info that it's something else, though, let me know. Luckily, no problems with it today.

 

[JX Valentine]

I'm talking about it thinking I was on the other side of town or other side of the state. As for what I was talking about for soft ban, it's what I found on a number of sites after googling, and goes away after a period of time. It's definitely more than bad luck with run rates, though, as I'm talking about streaks of like 10 weak pokemon (like really low cp pidgeys) running away after exactly one ball thrown (like, I look at my journal and I confirm it's a ridiculously long straight streak of "xxx ran away"). If you have info that it's something else, though, let me know. Luckily, no problems with it today.

Again, be careful about diagnosing it as a soft ban before you check everything. Lots of the hits you might be talking about (especially if you're looking on Reddit) are also posts by people who confuse server issues and GPS issues with a soft ban. Soft bans entail quite a bit more than just running away. You can tell whether or not you've been soft banned if you can't receive items from Pokéstops and if you automatically get kicked out of gyms before you can battle.

To be honest, if you're experiencing severe drift frequently, then it sounds like there's an issue with your device—as in, it seems to have trouble stabilizing. It's true that if your avatar moves very quickly out of range of a Pokémon, it has a higher chance of running, so given the fact that your avatar seems to be literally all over the map due to GPS issues, it's possible that Pokémon are running away from you because of that, rather than because of anything on Niantic's part (unless you count GPS issues to be an issue on Niantic's part, given how many people have had problems with that despite the fact that their device is otherwise fairly accurate in that department). I know, that sounds even worse (because at least the soft ban has an easy solution), but the point is, it's definitely something you should test.

Either way, GPS issues are a bit annoying, and from what I can tell, even folks who have their devices set to high-accuracy mode are having trouble getting their GPS to pinpoint their location properly. Depending on your device, you should start by determining whether or not you're set to high-accuracy before anything else. (You'll find this under Location on most devices.) If that still doesn't help, some apps, such as GPS Booster, can also help you boost your signal. Point is, see if calibrating and boosting your signal helps resolve the GPS issues you're encountering. That way, you can at least eliminate any possibility that it's just your device being really, really weird with the app.

(Or in other words, sure, we could talk about soft ban versus server issues, but you'll deeeeeefinitely want to solve the GPS issue that started all of the trouble either way.)