The first "Tilt down… at your meter" task blocked the start in all three runs: no timeout, and the two-spots rule is never explained #77

The first walk task, "Tilt down to show the ground / The strip along the wall, at your meter", blocked the start of all three runs: about 151 s in run 1, 70 s in run 2 and 73 s in run 3, each time for a different reason. It has no timeout or skip, nothing else (walking included) can come before it, and the card never says that each ground row must be seen from two spots at least 25 cm apart.

Seen in the build 4.1 field test on 2026-09-26: TestFlight 4.1, beta at 45017ba, iPhone 14 (no LiDAR), iOS 26.6.2. Times are in the screen recordings.

• Run 1 (20:00, indoor mock wall): 0:33–4:13, asked six times, about 151 s of the 225 s walk. It was worst at 3:05–4:13, one stretch of about 65 s. The phone's own gap request "Show the ground about 11 ft right" was stuck the same way at 4:29–5:39.
• Run 2 (20:15, the same wall): 0:28–1:38, 70 s, with the correct ground.
• Run 3 (a real house): 0:21–1:34, 73 s, never met. The tester gave up on the run.

Reports: A41-1-03, A41-1-07, A41-2015-04, A41-2055-03.

What happens.

• Run 1. The guidance log has the task at 0:33–0:54 (met, then asked again 3 s later), 0:57–1:18, 1:47–2:04, 2:20–2:48, 3:05–3:40 and 3:42–4:13. Every one asks for the same ±0.3 m around the meter.
  • At 2:21–2:46 the tester walked to the right end, 20 ft away, while the card still asked for the ground "at your meter", with a chevron pointing back.
  • "Walk slowly to your right" never appeared in the whole run.
  • The ground was taken from a table top (Ground height taken from a table plane, so every height is about 3 ft too high #62), so the task could never be met.
• Run 2. The ground was right; the two-spots rule was the blocker.
  • The tester crouched and tilted in place, and consecutive kept views were mostly under 25 cm apart.
  • The tilt card alternated with "Take a step back" four times, which reads as a different request rather than "change position".
  • The task was met 8 s after the tester stepped back, at 1:29.
• Run 3. The wall line was 1.1 m behind the real wall (Meter tap on an estimated plane put the wall 1.1 m behind the real wall and 46° off, and nothing corrects it #69).
  • In the app's frame the foot of the ground band was 3.2–3.4 m from the phone, at or past the 65° viewing limit. In reality the tester stood about 2 m from the wall.
  • The tester walked about 20 ft into the yard and back (0:57–1:16) with the same card up.
• What the tester said:
  • "I don't know what it wants me to see" (run 1, 0:41);
  • "What the heck does it want? I have no clue" (run 1, 3:46);
  • "Still tilting down. Still tilting down. I don't know what it wants from me." (run 2, 0:45);
  • "It's already tilted down a lot." (run 2, 1:15);
  • "Well, can't get there. I'm just gonna end the test here." (run 3, 1:27–1:30).
• "Can't get there" would have unblocked it: on this task it marks ±0.5 m as skipped (ScanEngine+Actions.swift#L354-L356). But the tester was standing at the meter and could get there, so in runs 1 and 2 they didn't press it ("Can't get there" reads wrong on tilt tasks; testers look for a "that's the ground" answer instead #63).

Cause.

• preferredTask returns .aimAtGround(s: 0) until groundByMeterDone. Only "step back" and a hidden-area task can come before it; walking can't (GuidancePlanner.swift#L127-L150, #L162-L171).
• The task needs 80% of its stretch covered. A cell counts as covered only when every ground row has two sightings at least coveringBaseline = 0.25 m apart, each within 65° of the surface's normal (CoverageMap.swift#L96-L105, #L224-L229).
• The 3 s minDwell only lets the planner switch to a different preferred task. When the preferred task stays the same, the card stays forever: there is no timeout, auto-skip or escalation (GuidancePlanner.swift#L80-L94).
• The card says only "Tilt down to show the ground", never "move a step" (ScanCopy.swift#L38-L39).

Fix direction.

• Add a timeout. After about 20 s with the target in view and no progress, offer "Skip this, start walking" (the stretch goes to review) or skip it automatically. Never let one ±1 ft task hold up the walk for more than about 30 s.
• When a row has one sighting and the phone is still within 25 cm of it, say so: "Now take one step to the side and look again". The planner has what it needs to know this.
• Fold "Take a step back" into the same card.
• Don't say "at your meter" when the phone is 15 ft away. Say "go back to your meter", let the walk carry on, or centre the task on where the phone is.
• Fix Ground height taken from a table plane, so every height is about 3 ft too high #62 and Meter tap on an estimated plane put the wall 1.1 m behind the real wall and 46° off, and nothing corrects it #69, which made the task impossible in runs 1 and 3.

Related.

• Tilt-down prompts never ask for the ground in front of the meter #28: in 4.1 it is inverted. The ground at the meter is now the only thing asked, and it blocks the start.
• Ground height taken from a table plane, so every height is about 3 ft too high #62 (run 1's cause), Meter tap on an estimated plane put the wall 1.1 m behind the real wall and 46° off, and nothing corrects it #69 (run 3's cause), "Can't get there" reads wrong on tilt tasks; testers look for a "that's the ground" answer instead #63 ("Can't get there" reads wrong on tilt tasks).
• ""It's too dark to see the wall" flickers, hides the task and its button, and asks for a light that is already on": it covered this task in run 3.
• Report IDs A41-1-03, A41-1-07, A41-2015-04, A41-2055-03.

Screen recordings are in the comment below.