Then you show me it does work so this morning I tried to find more links to Google Maps links. I found some by searching with "google my maps" in quotes instead of the unquoted google maps. Links I picked from the results worked fine. I went back to use link 1 in this thread and it worked fine. I hadn't changed any settings. That's the weird part.
This feature has been very finicky (hit and miss) for me in the past. Recently it seems much more stable.
Things happen behind the Google curtain.
In Google Maps on an Android phone click the
Saved button in the centre at the bottom of the screen.
On the next screen that shows I have a long list of things that I have saved and so I need to scroll down to the bottom of the screen. Most other people don't have enough saved information and so their next screen is already showing the bottom. In any case, go to the very bottom of the screen and click the
Maps button on the far right.
This will bring up a list of Maps that you have saved. In many cases you may not have been aware that you saved them as this has happened automatically, behind the Google curtain.
Only the map at the very top of the list will show up when you view the normal Google Maps view.
If you click on any of the other saved maps (or follow an html link to a saved map) then behind the curtain that map will move to the top of the list and it will show up in the normal G Maps view and if you return to this screen you will notice that it is now at the top.
For illustrative purposes I clicked on my top map and this is what came up.
Okay, now the finicky and quirky bit.
Links to maps that other people created seem to be treated differently to maps that I created.
In this case, I downloaded a klm file from the Dutch Confraternity website, removed a bunch of Caminos from it, made some adjustments and saved it as this file. As far as G Maps is concerned, this is now my map (even though it is a derivative of the Dutch map) and (importantly) it is now stored on my phone.
Other peoples maps that were viewed via an URL are not (normally) stored on my phone even though they show up when I first view them
If I do other things on G Maps then other peoples maps that are not permanently stored on my phone get deleted behind the curtain and I am no longer able to see those maps unless I re-follow the URL.
This means that other peoples maps disappear seemingly without warning. This is a bit awkward if I am relying on them for route navigation!
I have a trick that I sometimes am able to use to make those other people maps hang around. It only works when there is more than one feature shown in a map.
I will use the Dutch derivative map to illustrate as it contains many features.
Click on the map and then click on
View map legend (blue text at the bottom of the previous screenshot). This screen then shows.
.
On this screen, unclick one of the blue "ticks". This will force G Maps to save a local copy of the file and so it will become more persistent.
The long term solution to this persistence problem is to edit the map itself and save it on the phone.
This is one reason why I always edit the (very nice) Dutch Confraternity maps and why some months back I edited a map originally created by
@David Tallan (also based on the Dutch maps) and make them my own.