[Qgis-user] FW: "Phantom" point in created layer

Fri Apr 4 00:49:32 PDT 2025

Hallo Abdo,

I guessed that it happened when I use a shapefile and deleted some points during in editing mode (using backspace). I think, it deletes the geometry only, but not the (line in attribute table).
This makes sense, thanks.
I will test it.

Regards

Nôra Badenhorst
RESEARCH ASSISTANT AND OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR

nôrabadenhorst at nova.org.za<mailto:n%C3%B4rabadenhorst at nova.org.za>
+27 (0) 72 146 3633
Office 1, Aura Aesta Building, 2 Witteboom Street, Hartenbos 6520

nova.org.za<https://nova.org.za/>
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From: Abdou SENE / Geo - Tech - Dev <seneabdou460 at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, 03 April 2025 15:23
To: Nora Badenhorst <norabadenhorst at nova.org.za>
Cc: Tobias Schula <geospatial at schula.org>; qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Qgis-user] FW: "Phantom" point in created layer

Hi Nora and all,

I struggled sometimes with a similar problem but didn't know that the phantom points was plotted at lat/long (0.0).

I knew that they didn't have valid geometry.

I guessed that it happened when I use a shapefile and deleted some points during in editing mode (using backspace). I think, it deletes the geometry only, but not the (line in attribute table).

Can you try this ?

Thanks

On Thu, Apr 3, 2025, 09:00 Nora Badenhorst via QGIS-User <qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>> wrote:
Hi Tobias,

Hope you are well?
Thanks for the feedback.

I have created a NEW shapefile for each of my areas.
Attached find one of these layers. It was created (geometry type: points) and saved. I then "edited" the layer and adding points using "add pint feature"

When realising that there were "phantom" points, I selected the visible points and saved it as a new layer.

I do not use GeoPackage as as layers but will definitely try it in future.

Thanks again - have a great day.

Nôra Badenhorst
RESEARCH ASSISTANT AND OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR

nôrabadenhorst at nova.org.za<mailto:rabadenhorst at nova.org.za>
+27 (0) 72 146 3633
Office 1, Aura Aesta Building, 2 Witteboom Street, Hartenbos<https://www.google.com/maps/search/2+Witteboom+Street,+Hartenbos?entry=gmail&source=g> 6520

nova.org.za<http://nova.org.za>
Quality of life
begins at home

-----Original Message-----
From: QGIS-User <qgis-user-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:qgis-user-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>> On Behalf Of Tobias Schula via QGIS-User
Sent: Wednesday, 02 April 2025 14:46
To: qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Qgis-user] FW: "Phantom" point in created layer

> I created a shapefile layer

This seems to be the culprit. Did you create the shapefile specifically and newly in QGIS, or did you reuse some old shapefile where you just deleted features? Shape is a brittle format and can easily get corrupted, especially if different apps and programs got their hands on the same file.

QGIS always had bugs with shapefiles, e.g. this one:
> https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/19349

I don't work with shapefiles at all anymore, I just treat them as data- interchange format. If you receive a shapefile, import it into geopackage, spatialite or postgis, when your done editing, export it again as a new shapefile. Saved me a lot of headaches.

Export your points in a temporary scratch layer that you then save as a new shapefile under a new name, so QGIS won't use the old sidecars anymore. Try editing the "new" shapefile and see if the error persists.

Try to create a completely new shapefile with the same columns and see if the error persists, try to save your shapefile into a different format and continue editing the new format. I highly suspect the shapefile is broken and thus creates phantom/mystery geometries.

Do you have any other layers joined or connected to the offending layer? It could be that the creation of a point triggers further action. What are your settings in Layer > Layer Properties. , tabs "Actions" and "Attributes Form"?
Do you have an expression saved somewhere as an automatic input field?

I had similar problems with mystery points added in QField, no more problems since only using geopackage. I also tried to recreate your problem, but my newly created shapefile layer only shows the points I added. Can you share your shape with us, or does it have confidential data?

Best Regards

--
Tobias A Schula
Forestry Expert

geospatial at schula.org<mailto:geospatial at schula.org>
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