No postcode after adding a second region

[vhmoura]

Hi all,
I am currently running the street map locally where I initially added UK and Ireland maps. Everything works as expected and I can reverse geocode lat/longs with no issues.
I added a second regions, South Africa to do the same reverse geocoding. I followed the steps provided in my previous discussion from here: https://www.nominatim.org/release-docs/3.6.0/admin/Advanced-Installations/#importing-multiple-regions

I managed to import South Africa map and run the update. However, running a query like this: reverse.php?format=jsonv2&lat=-25.769930&lon=28.382810&addressdetails=1&extratags=1&zoom=17

returns no post code in the address detail.

Copying and paste the very same address above to Nominatim website https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/reverse.php?format=jsonv2&lat=-25.769930&lon=28.382810&addressdetails=1&extratags=1&zoom=17

return the correct post code in the address detail.

Did I perhaps missed a step during import?
I have also done compute postcodes but it doesn't make any difference.

Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Vini

[mtmail]

Can you check if there's an entry for the postcode in the location_postcode table?

SELECT * FROM location_postcode WHERE country_code='za' AND postcode='0054';
place_id        | 282817465
parent_place_id | 280470792
rank_search     | 21
rank_address    | 11
indexed_status  | 0
indexed_date    | 2021-08-03 17:25:43.131053
country_code    | za
postcode        | 0054
geometry        | 0101000020E6100000C6DF440D4A5F3C40EA57B364EBC239C0

SELECT count(*) FROM location_postcode WHERE country_code='za';
773

The cd build; ./utils/update.php --calculate-postcodes command updates this table (https://www.nominatim.org/release-docs/3.6.0/develop/Postcodes/), you said you already ran it.

It might be necessary to reindex the places, too. Try one place first, for example "City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality" https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/594484

1. SELECT place_force_update((SELECT place_id FROM placex WHERE osm_type='R' and osm_id='594484'));
2. cd build; ./utils/update.php --index

[lonvia]

That's tricky. The artificial postcodes need to be updated before indexing. So when adding a file, the order of execution should be:

nominatim add-data --file <FILE>
nominatim refresh --postcodes
nominatim index

We should update the documentation accordingly.

[vhmoura]

Hi Lonvia,
I am still facing issues with postcode. I have done all the steps you mentioned here but with no results.
I have recently imported a new map (NZ) and using the exactly same search for both nominatim and my own, returns different results: Nominatim returns postcode, but not my solution.
Can you point where in the php files the postcode lookup happens?

One thing that I noticed though (which might be the problem), the place_id and parent_id returned seems different than what I have in the lookup database, please see below:

Places: 103597666 => 'osm_type' => 'N' 'osm_id' => 5683477800 'class' => 'place' 'type' => 'house' 'admin_level' => 15 'rank_search' => 30 'rank_address' => 30 'place_id' => 103597666 'parent_place_id' => 103921629 'housenumber' => -1 'country_code' => 'nz' 'langaddress' => '257, Manuherikia Road, Alexandra, Vincent Community, Central Otago District, Otago, New Zealand' 'placename' => 'ref' => 'lon' => '169.4222771' 'lat' => '-45.2315454' 'importance' => 0 'addressimportance' => '0.00034045053971839395' 'extra_place' => 'addresstype' => 'place'

And you can see here the different when making both calls:

Can you please help?

[mtmail]

place_id is different for each import and will differ between servers, that's expected https://nominatim.org/release-docs/develop/api/Output/#place_id-is-not-a-persistent-id

Which version of Nominatim are you using?

Can you see an entry in the location_postcode table for the postcode?

select *,st_astext(geometry) from location_postcode where country_code='nz' and postcode='9393';

[vhmoura]

Hi,

I would expect that importing a new country would create ids that are related across the tables. What I am inferring is that the place id is different in the postcode table and place table, which should be the same shouldn't (or is it not related)? anyhow, running the query does return a record.

[mtmail]

Each place has a place_id, a postcode is its own place so the ids in the location_postcode table are different from anything else in the placex table. I wouldn't worry about the ids, they're just an internal data structure.

When Nominatim does a reverse search it looks at the exact search coordinates first, then increases the search radius until it finds a place (e.g. a fountain, a restaurant, a house number, a street, a city). Then for that place it looks up it's address as each street belongs to one neighborhood, each neighborhood to one city, each city to one state etc. Postcodes are separate though. That's another lookup SQL query and a postcodes doesn't belong to streets or cities or states, they're outside the address hierarchy.

What is the coordinate for the 9393 postcode in the location_postcode table? In my database I have POINT(169.41131921024285 -45.2381739) (map: https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/ui/reverse.html?lat=-45.2381739&lon=169.41131921024285&zoom=18). Postcodes in Nominatim are "only" center points. The center points are calculated from places in the placex table (the postcode column among other fields). It's possible that your center point is different, further away and then wouldn't match.

Does https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/ui/search.html?q=9393%2C+nz return a postcode result on your server?

[vhmoura]

Hi,

Thanks for explaining about the ids.

Please see below the image when requesting the location_postcode - same as you

and here running the search:

is it possible increase the center point? if so, where should I do it?

[lonvia]

I tried the following now using Nominatim 4.1.0:

1. Import Monaco into a fresh database: nominatim import --osm-file monaco-latest.osm.pbf
2. Add Liechtenstein to my database:

nominatim add-data --file liechtenstein-latest.osm.pbf
nominatim refresh --postcodes
nominatim index

After this is done, I have Liechtenstein data with postcodes:

http://localhost/reverse.html?lat=47.11715&lon=9.54380&zoom=16
{
  "place_id": 258347,
  "licence": "Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. https://osm.org/copyright",
  "osm_type": "way",
  "osm_id": 60827687,
  "lat": "47.1171808",
  "lon": "9.543818",
  "place_rank": 26,
  "category": "highway",
  "type": "residential",
  "importance": 0.09999999999999998,
  "addresstype": "road",
  "name": "Rossbodastrasse",
  "display_name": "Rossbodastrasse, Steinort, Rotenboden, Triesenberg, Oberland, 9497, Liechtenstein",
  "address": {
    "road": "Rossbodastrasse",
    "hamlet": "Steinort",
    "village": "Rotenboden",
    "county": "Oberland",
    "postcode": "9497",
    "country": "Liechtenstein",
    "country_code": "li"
  },
  "boundingbox": [
    "47.1139377",
    "47.1173403",
    "9.543645",
    "9.5468163"
  ]
}

[mtmail]

https://github.com/osm-search/Nominatim/tree/v3.6.0/lib

If I recall 3.x versions correct ReverseGeocode.php calls lookup() function in PlaceLookup.php. That's where you find a section "postcode table". The Debug::printVar( statements are printed in a HTML when you add &debug=1 to a URL, e.g. https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search.php?q=9393%2C+nz&format=jsonv2&debug=1

Check your server's output of https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/reverse.php?format=jsonv2&lat=-45.2318152&lon=169.422485&addressdetails=1&extratags=1&zoom=17&debug=1 and you will see the relevant SQL queries.

[lonvia]

The postcodes are added on import, so the PHP for queries is completely irrelevant here.

Nominatim 3.6 has a completely different set of commands for import, so your claim "I have done all the steps you mentioned" was obviously wrong. If I remember correctly, then 3.6 doesn't have an update function for postcode, so there is absolutely nothing you can do except using a more recent version of Nominatim.

[mtmail]

Hmm, true, nominatim refresh --postcodes didn't exist in Nominatim 3.6

[vhmoura]

Fair enough. Would you guys recommend updating from 3.6->3.7>4>4.1 or just do a new install on 4.1?

Thanks for your help.

[mtmail]

Starting Nominatim 3.7 the database can be migrated with the nominatim admin --migrate command. https://nominatim.org/release-docs/latest/admin/Migration/

I'd still do a new install of 4.1. Most install commands changed, the directory paths changed (new project directory) and the configuration file has a new format compared to 3.6.