Due to the Bluetooth pairing issues introduced with the update last week, I made it into my group ride tonight a few seconds late, just in time to see them rolling out of the start pens. After being dropped into the group a few hundred meters down the road, I was immediately welcomed by the “RETURN TO GROUP” notice, without ever being in front of the fence. That stayed on screen, the whole ride, even after I dropped back to help sweep. The ride had the rider position/race results turned on, but mine displayed “–/483” the whole time, even as more riders joined (leader reported 600 riders after the late join cutoff). Also, the rider list was missing the vast majority of riders, including the ride leader even if I was right next to him. The red beacon always showed in the list, no matter the gap, and there were 5 other riders, also sweeps, that would show if I was close enough to them. This was mirrored in the Companion app Zwifters list as well. As far as I could tell, chat was working fine, even if the other riders didn’t show in the list.
As soon as the ride ended, everyone else showed up in the rider list.
It’s been a long time since I’ve joined a ride late, so I don’t know if this is new behavior or if it’s been around a while.
I have experienced the same behavior twice in the past week, never having seen this prior to that- so i believe it’s a newly introduced bug. Please investigate and fix so that we can see an accurate set of riders nearby!
In addition, in one of the two events where this occurred, when I joined the event my distance traveled shown in the top bar started at around 6.5 miles, but I had not pedaled prior to joining. The distance shown for my avatar in the riders nearby list was correct (eg 6.5 or so miles less).
The event I had joined was set for a total of 38.5 miles, and my event distance remaining counter showed me as reaching that distance when other group participants were at around 32-33 miles in, at which point I had only actually ridden about 32 miles rather than the 38 that the top bar mistakenly showed.
When the event distance remaining counter reached zero, the platform put a finish line banner up, and when I passed through it I was ejected from the ride back into the normal (open to all riders) version of that world. I could no longer see the group I had been riding with.
I continued riding until I reached the full distance that I should have needed to ride, and when the group finished the full distance and returned to the open version of the world I was again able to see them.
I don’t know whether these two issues are separate or related, but they were both frustrating and clearly incorrect/inaccurate/undesired behavior within the platform.