New "fence" feature on group rides

We are aware of the bug that causes riders behind the leader to sometimes be considered “ahead” of the fence on certain routes. This seems to happen more frequently when the route overlaps itself in some places.

We are working on a fix.

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I think the “removes riders from the group when falling too far behind” feature refers to the ones that have rubber-banding.

I joined the slow ride group ride last night to see if falling behind is always buggy but I got stuck in a worse bug where I could only interact with the environment but not with other riders… probably another hard-to-reproduce one time issue. :crazy_face:

Done a pack ride tonight and found out if you drop back you will get ejected from the ride this is due to a bug, hope this helps

i was doing the The Herd’s Thundering Turtles Endurance Ride (D) over the watopia volcano and jungle course, i got multiple warning when i was helping sweet off the back.
the count seemed to go away 59-54 ish!
On one occasion as the fence was turned back on at the top of a climb, i seemed to be thrown right from off the back, to in front of the fence, when i stopped until it passed me!

Steve please excuse my dimness but I don’t fully understand what you are saying…can you elaborate a little…if you hadn’t stopped (until fence passed?) what would have happened? I am hearing off this forum some strange occurrences, all over the map!
Thanks

I assume that if i had not stopped ( not sure how i got infront of fence from back where i had been getting rejoin group messages whilst sweeping) i would have been thrown off the group ride, as those that sprint off the front were.

Thanks Steve
Yes it is confusing indeed. This morning I tried a Pack sub-2 ride and thankfully all went well I again was off the back when the leader called the “fence” and while 12 were thrown out I was spared…so it APPEARS some progress is being made on this issue.
L

I was in the pack sub 2 ride this morning. I was averaging around 1.7w/kgs and about 2 mins behind lead, as the pack came down the volcano and passed me I got kicked out. This is a bug and you would expect to this to be tested before implementation.

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Mark
Yes I am surprised that there has not been more upset riders posting here.
I personally know a good few who have been impacted but won’t bother their ■■■■ posting as they feel Zwift doesn’t listen!

@Mark_Harris_7203, I was part of one of the early tests where we tried to break the fence feature. the focus of the test was to see how it respond to riders going into the fence coming back and ejected from the event.

I think the ejecting of people that are behind the Leader only manifested once it was released and now you have bigger groups and people off the back. (during testing there was no one off the back because the point of the test was to test the fence, so people were focused on riding at the fence)

It is also at very specific circumstances that this will happen.

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Why are you surprised? Zwift (Wes Zwift Staff 9 days ago) did acknowledge that they are aware of the bug and working on it.

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I’m not “Zwift” but I do work here and the team worked hard to get this feature out. As one of the original ride leaders (leading rides since 2015), it’s near and dear to my heart.

I’m not Zwift, I’m just Wes … but I am listening (even if I can’t reply or share specific information sometimes). :ride_on:

My theory (willing to be proven wrong of course) is that people impacted by this bug are far enough away to already feel like they lost the group, so being erroneously removed from the event isn’t quite as jarring as it is when you’re a proper flyer in front of the fence.

We are working to fix this bug of course (it’s complicated) but luckily it does not appear to be a massively disruptive bug for the majority of users.

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I’ve been affected by this bug twice. While there may not be a massive number of people who’ve been affected by it, it massively ruins a group ride when you are hit with it. And I disagree with the premise that if you are so far behind, that you feel that you’ve lost the group anyway… The first time it hit, I’d had 2 big drop-outs on Innsbruck and was working very hard to catch back up to the group… I’d caught up to within a minute from the group and then the bug hit. Similarly, tonight we were doing the volcano circuit and a few of us had been dropped, but we were working together to catch up, again we were about 1 minute behind and the bug hit.

This is not a trivial bug and needs addressing as a priority.

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I agree Mark, you can see from my previous dialogue that a few so-called people in the know (Wes & Gerrie) told me in nice terms to just go away it was being dealt with…so much for their knowledge. Good Luck!! I for one am reconsidering my membership in Zwift.
Larry

No one told you to go away, it is important that people bring up issues and concerns. But sometimes replies to these questions are in response to how the concern was raised. Feeling and empathy gets lost when we type.

I have changed the way I use the fence in the group rides that I lead to try and minimize this effect. I found that switching it of before a turnaround point (out and back) or on the start of a second lap solved the issue.

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your theory is wrong :wink:
I was sweeping at the back, close enough to pull people back to a “slower” D group ride, when the bug struck.
Surely a “simple” ( I know, they never are!) check to see persons distance covered wrt leader, ie in front or behind?
( I suppose the there could be a late joiner, who rides off the front… ! )

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For me, both times it hit was on a short multi-lap course with no turning points. The most recent time, the “return to group” popped up for about 10 seconds for a few of the occasions I went through the lap counter, before it eventually booted me out. I wonder if as a work around, the leader needs to switch the fence off and then on again every time he passes the lap counter, to then reset the fence for everyone else???

Hey everyone, a quick update on this bug. Yes it’s still happening and it’s a bummer when it strikes for sure. As with most things in software, what seems like a simple thing to fix on the outside (just count distance between leader and rider, how hard can that be??) is a bit more complicated on the inside.

We are however working on this bug and hope to have it fixed in a future patch.

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Steve K’s comment above raises a topic about lower-wattage rides. Although I wasn’t the lead for the Thundering Turtles ride on July 2, I do lead that ride at 1.0-1.3 w/kg. We regularly get 100-150 riders: not huge but not trivial either. The topic has to do with speed and distance. At 1.2 w/kg, I pull about 11 kph going uphill through the Jungle. With the fence set at 5 seconds, that gives 14+ meters for riders in front of the beacon. Is it possible to set the fence options to 10, 30 and 40/60 seconds for slower rides? By the way, there is NO way I’m going to chase fliers to consolidate the blob – I’ve had leaders ride away at double the posted w/kg and that’s not for me.

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@Paul_Smith_1948_HERD Yes the 3 fence distances are configurable by whomever sets up the event with our events team. Are you setting up your own events or are they organized by someone else in ZBR? If so, have them request the timings to meet your needs for your event.