On many rides, I’m seeing riders go through buildings, cut across areas with no roads (like city parks), ride through fences and on sidewalks, and cut diagonally across corners of routes (over non-road areas) and then getting back on the route much further ahead. Usually, it’s just an individual rider but occasionally I have seen two riders doing this together. Also, while doing this, the rider(s) appear to be going at a higher than normal speed but I don’t know for sure because I can’t ever match them to anyone on the rider list display. This used to be an unusual occurrence but now it seems to be happening more often than not. Is this a hack or a system bug and is anything being done to correct it?
Normally signifies you, they or both are on a different version of Zwift to the latest.
I believe it can also be someone late joining an event and being spawned in the midst of the peloton or teleported from the race pens.
“Different versions” is impossible for Zwift using PC, and am in much doubt Zwift location is changing that much from version to version, if at all.
True, some here do hold “difference version”. But I have seen such platy. I would guess they are on a different world, but I really can’t tell.
(The standard disclaimer: No connectivity issues, PC + drivers fully updated, Zwift fully updated, platy of disk space, no WiFi interfering, etc.)
OP never said what platform he is on. I’m just saying there’s no accounting for what everyone else you see is on. There will be loads of people many versions out of date. It’s not necessarily the locations, but how the physics are calculated and all sorts of things behind the scenes.
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The usual suspect is network latency/packet loss. It happens in a lot of online games. The servers try to get avatars back to their proper location. One way is just snapping them into place, the other way is to interpolate intermediate positions (which may result in “impossible” courses/speeds). Neither is perfect. The more time you are willing to allow, the smoother the “getting back in place” can be. Just cutting a few corners could be considered a reasonable middle ground.
As I said: why would version difference change Zwift topography? And I have seen lots of what @Steve_Reynolds is describing (and more), on a fully updated Zwift/PC.
For example:
I do not claim such behavior may not be caused by different versions on different platforms. Occam’s razor would prefer a simpler explanation, IMHO. Unfortunately, we mortals are not in the know about Zwift bugs and version content, so we can only guess.
Just because you’re up to date doesn’t mean everyone else you see is, that was my original point. Thousands of people on every platform except PC/Mac will be out of date versus you. Some of them several versions behind. And it’s normally the answer to most issues, that’s all.
Furthermore, we know for a fact the the high speed thing was a bug. Then when they tried to patch it, it actually got worse on certain platforms. Then there was a corrective patch, then another, but you still see people speeding around at ludicrous speeds now, even if you’re on a fully up to date system yourself. Been loads of similar instances of this and it’s always noticeably worse shortly after an update, that’s what leads me to believe it’s the mismatch in update versions in the population.
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I submitted the original post. Just to provide some add’l info, I’m using a PC with the current version (it won’t let me log on without updating). I’ve played lots of video games over the years and have seen what problems latency and other network issues can cause. I didn’t realize that other non-pc platforms would let you play without updating so that’s not a cause that I’d considered. However, this seems different and reminds me of some old first person shooter games where players figured out how to get outside the game map and play with a big advantage. I’m not sure if being able to do this on Zwift would provide an advantage (I’d think not), but I could see people wanting to do this sort of things just to play by their own rules. I get the feeling it could be player generated when I see a rider coming down the course properly in the opposite direction and then seeming to steer off across the map as they get closer. Other times the rider will be going in the same direction properly before cutting a corner across a sidewalk before rejoining ahead. Maybe it is a network/version issue but I would like to also hear an official Zwift opinion on it.
Good luck with that. 
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Dave,
Just thought I’d close out this post. Zwift responded to my e-mail (and apologized for the delay in getting back to me). They confirmed what you said was the cause; the problem I reported is caused by version mismatches, particularly Android and IOS which includes Apple TV. Those platforms don’t require mandatory updates. Interestingly, I’ve seen a big drop in the number of times I’ve seen this issue in my last several rides. Thanks for your help with my post.
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Here is an idea: Have {iOS, Android} Zwift simply alert the user that an update is required (The Companion app sure alerts you a new game version is available.)
Granted, that won’t eliminate the version-mismatched-caused issues, but will reduce them.
And I still wonder… does Watopia move that much from version to version? tectonics in action? 
This bug happened to me today during the race. Everything was fine before the race started; as soon as the race is in commence, I started going sideways through buildings and cycling on top of the water. Has anyone figured out a fix to this issue yet? My zwift is up to date. Im using a Macbook Air with M1 chip.
Are you definitely on 1.22.4? If you are, then I suspect that you were having major problems communicating with the Zwift servers and that confused your Zwift client in a big way. Try rebooting your router. Was it a one-off?