Google Earth 7.1 - planet is spinning like crazy

Question

Google Earth 7.1 - planet is spinning like crazy

Hi,

today when I opened Google Earth, the window came up, the overlays loaded and then the planet startet to spin like crazy. Everything I tried did not stop the spinning. It spins fast and constantly moves from north to west and back to north. It is unusable and I have no clue, where that is coming from. I googled the problem and could not really find any usable info, that's why I am posting it here now.

I have rebootet my machine, deleted the app and redownloaded it from Google to no avail. Still doing the same crazy thing. I just used it last week a few times and all was fine. I have not done any hardware changes or hook ups to my iMac since then. For all the years I use Google Earth, I have never had anything like that.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Peter

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), iPad mini, MDD G4 1,25 Dual, iPod

Posted on Aug 5, 2013 10:09 AM

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Answer 1

Ethan73

Level 1

0 points

Aug 7, 2013 2:55 PM in response to petervogelphoto

Hi,

Today I had the same experience like you did .I re-installed it and no luck I think it might be a bug with Google Earth at the not very sure but the way i made it to stop is by going to Google maps a message popped up saying to install a plugin so i can use Google Earth via Google Maps I did it a it seemed to stop spinning like crazy!.

Install it then go to the satellite view next to it's should say eath click it and your in Google eath.

Hoped this helped.

Ethan

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Answer 2

Aug 8, 2013 2:33 AM in response to Ethan73

Hi Ethan,

Google Earth via Google maps does work and thanks for the hint, because I didn't know that before, but it does not offer all the features, that Google Earth does. I use it a lot to measure distances and I can't do that on google maps.

It is still spinning, when I fire up Google Earth. Well, maybe it is a bug and will be solved in the next update.

Cheers

Peter

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Answer 3

Aug 8, 2013 5:32 AM in response to petervogelphoto

Open Google Earth.

From the menu bar top of your screen click Google Earth > Preferences then select the Cache tab.

Click both: Clear memory and disk cache.

Then click OK.

Quit and relaunch Google Earth.

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Answer 4

Aug 8, 2013 6:20 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

Hi Carolyn,

I already did that and forgot to mention it in my initial post. When that did not work, I deleted the app and redownloaded it from Google.

I might try to delet the caches manually while the app is closed, if I find where they are located.

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Answer 5

Aug 9, 2013 5:40 PM in response to petervogelphoto

Check your USB devices.

I had the same problem and went through the whole delete and reinstall the application rigmarole, including preferences and everything that I could find, even in the hidden /User/Libray folder, and nothing worked until I Googled the problem and found the answer: that by unplugging my (rarely used) USB steering wheel, quitting Google Earth (easier said than done as it was very sluggish in responding) then restarting Google Earth, the application now works perfectly.

Relief!

So it seems that, in my case, a USB device was sending the earth into a spin.

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Answer 6

Aug 11, 2013 11:51 PM in response to Deepthought2006

Hi Deepthought2006,

that was it, thanks!

My Logitech Wingman caused the spinning and as soon as I unplugged it, Google Earth worked fine as it should.

Funny thing is though, that the joystick has been pluuged in for years and has never caused any problems with Google Earth. Hopefully Google will fix that issue in future realeases.

Cheers

Peter

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Answer 7

Oct 15, 2013 10:33 AM in response to petervogelphoto

Hi all:

I tried these fixes but none of them worked for me. What did work was the advice in the following link:

http://code.google.com/p/earth-issues/issues/detail?id=1633

Basically, go into Preferences and deselect the "Enable Controller" option. Back to normal for me (Mac Mini, OSX 10.8.5).

Good luck,

Michael

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Answer 8

Oct 26, 2013 12:57 PM in response to petervogelphoto

All of the above may work, but if not, unplug other USB "stuff". I found that it was caused by my Epson scanner, which I normally leave turned on. When I turned it off..... the spin arrows disappeared as well.

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