I don't know the answer, but you can also drive and catch in a different location. I've often wondered how long and how far you can go. When my signal is poor at a certain location, I've clicked on the pokemon, but then driven to a place with better signal to catch. This works! As long as your phone doesn't lose the signal entirely.
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How much time can pass on the catch screen?
Simple question, but I haven't yet found an answer to it.
One night I had tapped a Pokemon, and I fell asleep. I woke up several hours later, opened my phone, threw a ball, amd caught it successfully.
On another occasion, the same thing happened, but it took me longer to wake up. I threw a ball, and immediately errored out as soon as the ball hit the Pokemon, no shakes or anything.
So exactly how long can you catch a Pokemon after selecting it without erroring out?
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Answers
Based solely on anecdotal evidence: I find that the longer you wait and/or the farther you travel from the pokemon, the more likely it is to run after the first ball.
I haven't seen a trend regarding the error you mention. It seems that, if there is any sort of random error, there is no information for the system to fall back on, so you default back to nothing.
So, anytime this happens, make sure to use a good ball/berry and only throw if the game is not lagging or thinking.
