CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-maps
Scole
Scole

Reputation: 97

Custom Placemark symbols used in KML not showing up in Google Maps

This is driving me crazy. I've been developing some simple embedded Google Maps such as the following:

http://publicworks.snoco.org/rdclosures/snocordclosuregmaps.html

This map in particular has several overlays but one of them is no longer displaying the custom placemark icons I had developed and specified. The problem KML layer is this:

http://publicworks.snoco.org/RdClosures/SnocoRdClosures4Gmaps.kml

Some time in the last few months, the custom symbols stopped displaying and have been replaced by the default placemark symbol. If you open the KML file in Google Earth, it displays properly. The KML file does validate using KmlValidator.

Through my searches on here, I saw a suggestion about using definitions at the top of the KML file and then using within each Placemark. I made that change to my KML but it did not appear to make any difference (the custom icons are still not displaying).

I realize that KML files get cached on Google's end so if you look at my javascript code, I'm using the dummy parameter trick with my KML URL path to force a refresh of the layer. The other thing I will note is that the content of this KML is not static and it frequently changes.

Any ideas? Because I'm stumped!

THANKS! Steve

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3367

Answers (2)

Brendan Kenny
Brendan Kenny

Reputation: 1573

Agreed with fragileninja that something is happening with your images between your server and Google's. The usual suspects are timing out and 404s (or other server errors).

Since the KML layer is actually being rasterized to tiles on Google's servers, the request has a relatively short timeout so the tiles aren't delayed from being sent to the browser. If the icon images aren't returned in that time, usually Maps will render using the default icon (as it's doing here). However, I also have no trouble getting the icons to work when I host them on my own server, and I don't see atrocious loading times when I access your icons directly, so it is strange.

It's possible that your servers are taking a longer than usual time to respond to Google's servers specifically, or even that they're returning some HTTP error to them instead of an image.

Can you check your server logs to see if you can see the requests and if they're returning as expected?

Finally, if there's no problem there, I would suggest filing a bug on the Maps API issue tracker. Make sure to pick the appropriate template from the dropdown list (you might also consider making a simpler test case, like just using your KML file with the KmlLayer example from the docs) . If you do end up filing a bug, please link it here and I'll make sure it's looked at.

Upvotes: 2

Allan Wintersieck
Allan Wintersieck

Reputation: 873

It's something to do with how your server is serving up the images. If I host the icons on mine, it works fine, and your other KML files are using icons from maps.google.com, which also works fine.

Since it works in GE, I'm guessing maybe your server is sending the wrong MIME type or something along those lines. I checked with curl and everything looks fine though, so I'm afraid I can't offer any more details than that. Hopefully this helps get you in the right direction. Good luck!

Upvotes: 1

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