Has anybody noticed this strange phenomenon? Duplication of photos at places labelled "Unknown

Google Maps tips & tricks
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Yesterday, I discovered to my horror, count of photos in “your contribution”, “Photos” tab to be higher by approx two hundred numbers, as compared to the one on the badge.

Next, I scrolled through the photos collection, painfully.

I noticed, there were many duplicates with places labelled as “Unknown.”
Amazingly, all the photos were present at the precise point of interests also.

I deleted all these “Clones” painstakingly.
There was no change in points as these did not represent the badge count.

Now the tally on badge & contributions tab matches perfectly.

However, the mystery remains, how did this duplication happen?

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Hi @C_T

I have noticed similar earlier (but not recently) that photos suddenly look copied as if every image was uploaded twice. Clearly it was a cache issue - and I remember reading warnings about trying to delete any of them. The problem was solved by just waiting. I don’t think it was exactly like what you just described.

Cheers

PS: Why did you block Private Messages?

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Appreciate your response @MortenCopenhagen

However, I was seeing the same numbers on the phone as well as on the desktop.

Even then, I cleared the cache and history on both, still, the figures remained unchanged.

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That’s weird @C_T , so bad …

I remember very well the false duplicate that we can see when we open a photo and then we move back with the back arrow (on desktop), as mentioned by @MortenCopenhagen , but this was indeed a cache issue, while what you are mentioning (a duplicate related to an “unknown place”) is totally new.

Can you try to replicate the issue and add a screenshot?

I am Tagging @MashaPS for a check on this post

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@C_T and @ErmesT

I can’t even think of how duplicate upload could happen by accident except if the internet connection is so weak that upload is forced to start over.

Was the problem you saw, @C_T , one continuous row of pictures or were there “holes” in the row? This could hit if upload failures could be the cause.

Cheers

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Hello @ErmesT

Regret, I did not capture any screenshot.

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Hello @MortenCopenhagen

Most of the photos were from Dec 2917 and May 2018. Till date, there wasn’t an issue.

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I have noticed this situation on some profile @C_T , but my thought was: the LG tried to add a place, and the edit wasn’t applied. I never thought about a potential issue, I will put more attention from now to this kind of situations. Of course, for everyone’s privacy I will not report publicly, but I will let have a feedback here, if I see something similar in the future.

Thanks again for highlighting a potential issue

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Hello @ErmesT

These clones remain private and thus others can’t see those.

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Oh, I see. @C_T

Well, so we will have to wait for your feedback (hopefully not, of course)

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Hi @C_T and @ErmesT ,

Thanks for tagging me.

Let me summarize what I understood so far: Cloned photos appeared under Unknown places on your Google Maps profile. You have deleted them, and this did not impact the points amount nor the initial photos were removed together with the “cloned” ones. Is this correct?

I am sorry that you don’t have any screenshots handy, and we couldn’t replicate it either.

Note that we will keep an eye at this post and on Connect if other Local Guide reports the same.

Thank you!

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You are correct @MashaPS

There were several clones against the place label unknown along with the ones at the right POI.

Further, all these clones were private. Only I could view those.

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