Thanks Towermatt for trying to help, but running the markers.xml just brings up my portal page which currently has no link to my map install so I don't see why the markers.xml is of any use here?

Hmmm, that may be the problem then. Have you checked your server to make sure the markers.xml is in the forums folder?

It really should bring up a page that shows the "entries" on your map

Sorry Towermatt, I typed 'forums' instead of 'forum' whilst testing your last instruction.

Right then you're onto something now, I have an error on one of the entry's, it reads:

A semi colon character was expected. Error processing resource 'http://www.ducatisti.co.uk/forum/markers.xml'. Line 29, Po...

And I think I can see what's wrong if I read the markers.xml file....

This is the line with the error:
This is the next line and it works:
For some reason Line 29 has appended the lat and lng to the end of the pimage, not sure why, but I've corrected the line and all works perfect again and my Markers are back on display....... Towermatt, you're a Super Star, thanks a million!

Just to add to the above obviously just editting the markers.xml isn't going to fix much so I had to correct the error on line 29 within the database, it all seems to work now..... well at least for the moment!....

I'm just glad to hear we got someone going. :nanadance:

I may have to come back and find out about that database fix if mine poops out again.

How did you correct the error?

I just installed this a couple of days ago, and the first couple of users that tried to use it (other admins of mine, as I like to do extensive testing) managed to break the pins, because of the XML validation error that others have referenced as "running the XML file".

The cause of the problem is that the pimage link isn't being parsed safely for XML.

Here's a fix that I think will work (at least it works for me -- I do NOT guarantee this, if it causes spontaneous combustion, fire, death, etc., I'm not to blame):

*** I JUST SAID THAT I DO NOT GUARANTEE THIS WILL WORK. I DISCLAIM ALL LIABILITY. YOU MUST BACK UP YOUR DATABASE AND ALL OF THE FILES RELATED TO THIS MODIFICATION, SO THAT YOU CAN RESTORE THEM IF NECESSARY. ***

In /forums/includes/cron/vbgooglemapme_cron.php:

Find:
Immediately ABOVE the text I have quoted, place the following text:

In the same file, find this:

Immediately BELOW the text that I have quoted, place this:

That should render all entities in the 'pimage' field safe for XML, so it will validate. However, that script is only called when the CRON job is executed... when someone edits their entry online, a different copy of that same script is called (which is really bad form, in my opinion, but hey, I didn't develop this...). That second copy is located at /forums/includes/functions_vbgooglemapme.php. You need to make the exact same changes in that file as I have mentioned above.

Now... I am not claiming that this will solve everyone's issues. It more than likely will not. It will, however, fix problems with 'pimage' being the reason that the XML won't validate. I think that this will probably fix the problems that quite a few of you are happening.

ronseal, awesome find. Thanks for that post, I followed your posts and sure enough I had the same thing going on. I was able to edit both the xml file and then edited that entry in the database and now the pins show again. Thanks, I like the map and really did not want to uninstall it.

msudawgs64, It's not all good news I'm afriad!!!!
Although my old pins show any new pins added/edited are not showing even after I run the cron job. So maybe it's time to try GeekDrew's '$pimage = parseToXML($pimage);' fix?

Hum, when i go to http://www.informatiquefacile.eu/forums/markers.xml

i got a blank page... :confused:
Did i miss something ?

Just got the following error with your fix Geekdrew, any ideas?

and line 39 was one of your additions: $xmlStr=str_replace("&",'&',$xmlStr);