Trainers, we resolved an issue that added a small number of Wayspots to Pokémon GO that violated our inclusion rules. We’ve also addressed an unrelated issue affecting Wayspots syncing with Pokémon GO, resulting in a net increase of 11,588 Wayspots. https://t.co/dc5wQVdBts

– Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) November 12, 2021

Hello coaches! Sometime on October 29, a massive Wayspot sync occurred resulting in many new PokéStops and Gyms. Niantic was silent on the radio until November 10 when they updated us stating that the synchronization was done by mistake and that they would be correcting them.

Fast forward to today as Niantic has posted a tweet stating that they have completed their review of the Pokéstops and subsequent gyms that were created by mistake. Niantic has also made a blog post on the Wayfarer community forums with some questions and answers.

So what happened?

In the blog post, Niantic doesn’t go into too much detail, for obvious reasons. However, they did reveal that the problem was due to “a database error” which they have since fixed. They revealed that approximately 45,000 Wayspots were created due to this database error.

Why does that matter?

Maintaining the integrity of the game board is very important to Niantic, and many of the new Wayspots that were created violated their own default rules for inclusion. IE: More than 1 Pokéstop in cell S17, or Wayspots that were too close to existing waypots, so they had to be removed. You can read all about S2 cells and how they determine which Wayspots turn into Pokéstops and how gyms are created here.

What is the end result of all this?

Niantic indicates that they did not implement new rules or new criteria, they simply established and enforced their own rules that they had been following since they were first created. They go on to say that as part of correcting the problem that created all these additional waypoints, the end result was a net gain of 11,588 Waysposts worldwide.

My Pokémon was in a gym !!

Don’t worry, Niantic indicates that once they finish all their work, your Pokémon will be returned to you. If you don’t see it in a day or two, contact Niantic support and they will fix it.

Parting thoughts

While Niantic wants to maintain the integrity of their game boards not surprisingly, it probably wouldn’t hurt to re-revise the rules by which they maintain that integrity and loosen the reins a bit. It’s encouraging to see that they just didn’t remove all of them, but instead took the time to review them against their rules and kept the ones that were actually valid.

Niantic’s post reveals details about the recent PokéStop sync error that first appeared on the Pokémon GO Hub.