queriesForRegion does not wrap regions

[alvivi]

I created a simple project with an MKMapView, a GeoFire query and an MKMapViewDelegate, which updates GeoFire query region every time UIMapView region changes. But that crash with an unhandled Not a valid geo location exception, but only valid regions where used.

The problem is that queriesForRegion:region is not wrapping locations when computing locations from regions. As a workaround I have to limit zoom on to MKMapView.

[jwngr]

@jdimond - Can you take a look at this please?

[austincarrig]

I've also been experiencing this problem for quite a while. The solution I use is to only update Geofire when the region is valid. The problem I come across is that when I am zoomed out and scroll to the north or south pole, there is an exception thrown in GFGeoHash.m on line 38.

The call throwing this exception is in GFGeoHashQuery +queriesForRegion (line 178), when passing latitudeNorth (line 201) or latitudeSouth (line 205). It's always because these values are > 90 (north) or < -90 (south), which doesn't exist on a map. My problem is that when I call setRegion: on my Geofire query, the region comes directly from the mapView without any alterations, and Geofire should work for any region it's passed.

Hope this helps you track down the problem.

[AJMiller]

I arrived at the same conclusion as @austincarrig. I've written a gist which adds this region validation check as an extension to MKCoordinateRegion so you can just wrap your GeoFire queriesForRegion call in a if mapView.region.IsValid { } check.
https://gist.github.com/AJMiller/0def0fd492a09ca22fee095c4526cf68

[ahaverty]

Is there any workaround for returning all keys by distance from the current location, for locations existing globally? I've hit the same issue as @zgosalvez in #64 , and also tried to use MKCoordinateRegion zoomRegion = MKCoordinateRegionForMapRect(MKMapRectWorld);
spanning the whole world, but I'm getting the same geo location error @alvivi is hitting here. We're creating a simple list using the user current location, so I don't think the isValid extension would help us either?

It seems geofire-java supports a large radius? firebase/geofire-java#46

[AJMiller]

@ahaverty so I know this probably isn't official, but why not just attach a .childAdded event to the /user_locations endpoint in the database that GeoFire is working in? You're just read-only I assume so you shouldn't affect GeoFire's data integrity at all. That will get you all of the locations, which you can then sort by distance using a CLLocationDistance. You could even attach a .childChanged event to monitor changes in the list ordering.

`import MapKit

let location1 = CLLocation(latitude: 10, longitude: 100)
let location2 = CLLocation(latitude: 20, longitude: 120)
let distance : CLLocationDistance = location1.distanceFromLocation(location2)
print("distance = (distance) m")`

[ahaverty]

@AJMiller Thanks for the suggestion. I've found an alternative workaround that shows my users an 'no nearby locations' screen, but would prefer to handle this using geofire like I have with the android version of geofire, as I can't guarantee geofire will work consistently across the world.

Is this not an important bug, especially for anyone living near the north/south poles?

[Ekhoo]

I also have @austincarrig issue. Did someone find something ? If I use the @AJMiller extension, I lose some points on the map.

[G-Steve-E]

I opened similar issue (#129) as GeoFire fails with a big radius. I have also tried using a region Query but it doesn't return all markers for my map when I zoom out to show the whole world. I'm assuming the same issues exist for Firestore?
This issue makes GeoFire unusable for my application. It's a shame as it would be a great solution if it worked.