Caches with blank pages
There are quite a few caches out there which appear to have blank cache pages with no information to solve the cache. Here is a set of techniques to attack these caches - please let me know if you find any I have missed and I will add them to the list.
I assume you have already checked the dummy coords and the cache title and got nowhere! Don't forget to try the dummy coordinates as the answer - sometimes something as simple as that is all you need.
1.Check the cache page and the logs for hidden/white text. Either select the whole page (CTRL-A) or click and drag with the mouse.
2.Check the source of the cache page for hidden html. Open the source (right-hand mouse click) and search for <! which is the start of a hidden html comment. There will be a bunch of geocaching.com ones - you are looking for anything out of the ordinary.
3.See if there is a background image - search the source for background. Sometimes blank cache pages have white background images. Open the link for the image in another window and save it. Open the image in notepad, right-hand mouse click and check its properties, open it in e.g. Picasa and look at the metadata, play with the image (e.g. contrast, brightness) in photo software.
4.Look at the title and GC number carefully - can you make coords from them in some way? e.g. translating the title into numbers to give coords, translating the dummy coords into letters, translating the GC code into numbers etc.
5.Is the cache owner (CO) using his usual name, or is the name a hint?
6.Look at the profile for the person who placed the cache. Read carefully. Check for white text and hidden text as above. Look at their statistics (not the geocaching generated ones, but any they have put in their profile). Profiles are written in html so you can hide all sorts of stuff in there. If they have stats, check that the numbers look right. If they have photos on their profile page, check them.
7.Look at the date published - is it set at some previous (significant) date?
8,Look at the related webpage - a link near the top of the page (I use this a lot to point at this website!!)
9.Look at the URL at the top - can you turn this into coords?
10.Look at any TBs they have in their possession. Read carefully and check for hidden/white text.
11.Look at any bookmark lists they own. Read carefully and check for hidden/white text.
12.Look at their photo gallery and see if there is anything strange/unexpected.
13.Back on the cache page look at the attributes - are they strange? See the solving puzzles section for how to find their numbering by downloading the gpx file. Click on the link under them to show a list of all the attributes. I have seen people use this list as a basis of how they have numbered them to give you the desired coords.
14.On the cache page check for any past trackables. Read carefully and check for hidden/white text.
15.On the cache page look at bookmark lists. Read carefully and check for hidden/white text.
16.One weird thing I have discovered is that if you use hidden html in a log, it does not appear on the cache page, but you can look at it by downloading the GPX file and opening it in NOTEPAD or load it into GSAK, click on the cache there and then look at the source of the cache page you have just opened in your browser.
If you download the GPX file of a cache and open that with notepad it will tell you the cache id, the cache owner's id and also the numbers used for the attributes, which might lead you to some coords
17.Look carefully at the geochecker - is it really for the correct cache id - sometimes the one on the cache page is a dummy. Enter the dummy coords there and it may well lead you to a new bit of information.
That covers the usual culprits. If you still haven't found anything then try looking to see if there is a profile for any of the other information on the page. Go to your home page (click on your name at the top) and about 2/3 of the way down on the right click on find another user. Try the GC number of the cache, the coords, the map reference, the cache name, the owner , in fact anything that appears on the page!
If that turns up a valid name, then check the profile/TB/lists/photos/stats etc. of this new person as above.
One other neat one I found was hidden in the review for a book - this can be a book by the CO or a book with the same name as the cache.
A Tutorial
I have published a cache leading you through many of these techniques called Click Here and Drag Down. I can also highly recommend the blank series published recently by cache! eh?