Google Earth

[Gloria]

When I now go on google earth street view I am getting grey blocks randomly flashing about so that I cannot see the whole of the picture. Is it my computer or has something changed?

[PanBiker]

Quite a few areas now have groups of buildings greyed out when you zoom in. This indicates 3D buildings when in street view so you can walk round a resort or similar. Don't know if this is the same as you are experiencing Glo. Try enabling 3D Buildings in the side bar and see if it makes a difference.

[Stanley]

I gave up on Google Earth a long time ago. As for the 'greying out' of certain buildings, I first noted this a long time ago especially in American images and it was sites that could be regarded as security sensitive.

[Gloria]

Ian , it is ticked.
There are about 5 of these blocks all jumping about on the picture-----even outside our house and I'm sure we aren't a place of National Security. It began a couple of months ago and I had forgotten about it, I thought maybe it was a security thing at first to stop photos being taken, as I do that with places where my ancestors have lived.

[PanBiker]

Not sure about that then Gloria other than checking that background programs like Flashplayer and maybe Java are up to date. Not sure if Google Earth uses Java actually. I take it you are using the latest version of Google earth? It will be no detriment if you download and install again. Worth a try.

[Gloria]

Thanks Ian, I will give it a try.

[Gloria]

I have done that Ian but it is no different---perhaps I have got ghosts??

[PanBiker]

I have done a bit of zooming in and out into street view with a bit of wandering about various places thrown in and cannot replicate your symptoms Gloria. Google Earth and Street View is very memory intensive for the graphics card or interface in your machine. It could conceivably be a hardware fault that only manifests itself under higher loads.

[Tizer]

Gloria, what happens if, instead of opening Google Earth, you put an address into the Google search engine (e.g. Gillians Lane Barnoldswick), then click on the map that comes up, and click on the red A in the centre of the aerial view. This should bring up a pop-up box offering to go into Streetview, click the blue Streetview link and you should get the view on screen. Does that work OK or is it like your Google Earth?

[Gloria]

That works fine Tizer.
The plot thickens.
Ian, could that be a hardware fault then????

[Pluggy]

No, it probably means that the Google Earth is 'mangled' whereas your web browser isn't. You could try uninstalling google earth, rebooting and then re-installing a fresh download. I've used google maps over google earth for a long time. It works without installation, has most of the useful functionality (streetview) and is a lot quicker on a machine that is 'getting on'.

[Gloria]

Thankyou Pluggy, google maps is working fine.

[Tizer]

Glad to hear that's working for you Gloria. I'll second what Pluggy said - just use Google Maps to get Streetview when you need it and don't install any software. I use this approach all the time and I've never had any problem with it.

[Gloria]

Thankyou all. This is what I like about this site, someone nearly always has an answer.

[Stanley]

Thanks for that tip. I've never really looked at Google Maps and it does everything I want from it. It's bookmarked!