GPSLarp's map is blank or missing
The window opens and where the map should be there is nothing — an empty area, a flat colour, or a short panel explaining that the map is unavailable.
Four things produce this, and the first one is not a map problem at all. Work down them in order: it takes about a minute and it matters which one you have, because two of them stop you setting a location and two of them do not. The map is a way of choosing a place. It is not the part of GPSLarp that talks to your iPhone, so a missing map is not automatically a broken app.
01First: is that the sign-in screen?
GPSLarp asks who you are before it touches a phone, and the sign-in card covers the whole window while it is up. So a copy that cannot get past that point does not look like an app asking you to sign in — it looks like an app whose map has gone.
This is not hypothetical. It was reported to this project in exactly those words, "the map is not there", and the map was fine; the cause was three layers away in the sign-in path. Before anything else, read what is actually filling the window. If it names an account, mentions signing in, or carries a button about a browser, the map is not your problem — I can't sign in to GPSLarp is.
Why the map is not simply drawn behind the card
It is, and that is the point of confusion. The map loads as the window's background before the sign-in gate has decided anything, so on a normal launch you see it appear and then the card land on top of it. If the card goes up immediately and stays, you never see the moment underneath.
02A copy of GPSLarp built without a map
The map needs a key to fetch its imagery, and that key is compiled into the application when it is built. A copy assembled without one says so plainly rather than showing an empty rectangle. The panel is headed No map on this build and the explanation under it is:
The map is not configured on this build (missing Mapbox access token). Everything else still works: saved locations, address search, and setting a location.
Occasionally the shorter form No Mapbox access token. appears instead, which is the same condition reported with less detail.
Read the second sentence, because it is doing real work: this does not stop you. Searching for an address, picking a saved place and setting a location all go through paths that never touch the map. What you lose is the ability to click a place, which How do I set an exact latitude and longitude? covers alternatives for.
If you see this on a copy downloaded from gpslarp.com, install the current published build — The installer won't open, or I can't find the app.
03The Mac's graphics could not start a map
The map is a hardware-accelerated scene rather than a grid of pictures, so it needs a graphics capability your Mac has to provide. When it cannot be started, the app says:
This machine's graphics could not start a map.
followed by the reason the graphics layer gave, and then the same reassurance as above about what still works.
01Quit and reopen GPSLarp
The scene is created once, when the window opens. A graphics context that failed to start does not retry by itself, so a fresh launch is the only thing that asks again.
02Close what is competing for the graphics card
Other running applications that hold a lot of graphics memory — a game, a video editor, several browsers with many tabs — make this likelier. Close them and relaunch.
03Restart the Mac if it persists
A graphics driver in a bad state survives quitting an application and does not survive a restart. This is a genuine mechanism rather than general advice.
04Carry on without it if it will not come back
Address search and saved places are unaffected, and both reach the same place a map click does. This costs you convenience rather than capability.
04The Mac is offline, or the imagery cannot be fetched
Map imagery is downloaded as you look at it. With no connection there is nothing to draw, and the app raises a message headed The map could not load which says:
GPSLarp needs the internet for the basemap and for address search. Setting a location you have already saved still works without it.
Two failures that look like being offline and are not:
A network with a sign-in page
Hotel, café and campus networks intercept requests and answer with their own page. Nothing fails outright, so the app waits and the map stays empty. Open a browser, complete whatever that network wants, and relaunch.
A VPN, proxy or content filter
Anything between this Mac and the internet that decides what may be fetched can allow a browser through and block the map's imagery. Turning it off briefly is the way to tell.
Does GPSLarp need an internet connection? has the full split of what needs one and what does not — including the part that surprises people, which is that a saved place can be set with no connection at all.
05If that did not work
The map is there but everything is the wrong shape, or clicks land in the wrong place. The map is a tilted three-dimensional scene by default, and near the top of the view you are looking at sky rather than at ground. A click up there has no position to give, and the app flashes That is sky, not ground — click lower down rather than guessing. The 3D button switches to a flat map, which its own tooltip describes as Switch to a flat map — faster, and exact to click — use it when you want precision.
The map appears and then goes blank as you move around. That is imagery for the new area not arriving, which is section 04 rather than section 03: the scene started fine, the pictures are not coming. Check the connection rather than the graphics.
The window is entirely empty — no map, no sidebar, no message. That is not the map. Quit the app fully and reopen it, and if it recurs, install the current build over the top — The installer won't open, or I can't find the app.
You want to know what the map fetches, and from whom. What does GPSLarp send from my Mac? names every company the app contacts directly from your computer and what each request carries, and the privacy policy is the governing version of it.
The honest limit of this page: it is about the picture on your Mac. The map is how a place gets chosen, and nothing about it appearing — or failing to — is evidence about what your iPhone does with a coordinate afterwards. If the map is fine and the phone is the problem, that is I picked a place and my iPhone's location didn't change. Nobody in this project has watched a location change on a real iPhone from beginning to end, which is why every account gets a free run of each mode.