Incorrect time zone and elevation

Photo Ephemeris Web uses Geonames to lookup time zone and elevation data on demand. If you are seeing incorrect data displayed in red text, that indicates a problem connecting to the Geonames server:

Checking for connectivity problems

It is possible that you are able to connect to the internet, to load Photo Ephemeris Web, but still not be able to connect to Geonames. The most common reason you may see this is due to firewall and network security rules restricting your internet access - this is particularly true in enterprise network environments where your IT department likely limits what sites can be reached.

The easiest way to check for this is to inspect your browser's console output (instructions here: How to view web console output in your browser). You should check for errors displayed in the console. The following are examples of messages that indicate something blocking access to Geonames:

• Network Error – ""
• Failed to load resource: Could not connect to the server.

Required domain access

If you see these or similar messages, then ask your network administrator to whitelist the following domains on any firewall or web application security device your machine is connected to:

• *.geonames.org
• *.geonames.net

The primary domain the application needs access to is secure.geonames.net, but note it is possible that this could change in time.

Testing

To check whether you can access Geonames successfully, you can simply move the map pin - each move request the time zone and elevation afresh at the new position.

If you are able to connect your machine to a different network (e.g. a mobile hotspot via your phone) this can be a quick way to check whether it is a firewall issue on the original network or something else.

If you continue to see any of the error messages listed above after changing network, then this would suggest a firewall or other network security software installed on your local machine that might be causing the problem. (For example, the screenshots above showing the error condition were obtained by me manually blocking secure.geonames.net using Little Snitch.)

Checking Service Status

You can check whether the service itself is operating normally by visiting our status page at http://status.crookneckapps.com. Geonames is very rarely down, so this is unlikely to be the issue.

Other causes

If you believe there is a different issue causing the problem, please contact us with details, including full screenshots and your browser console output.