GPS stops responding to Navigator 2

Fuego

Hmmm, thanks.

My BT stack version is 1.1 at the moment, and the last upgrades were all fairly clean, since I had to re-install when the battery went flat overnight, a short while back (due to some condition that caused it to power-up and stay on).

As for testing the BTGPS itself, I've almost already done that, in a way. I've had it running with my Toshiba laptop and Autoroute on a couple of trips, before I got TTN2, and it did not appear to suffer from any disconnection issues. Maybe the test was not extensive enough, although I rarely get a half hour trip without a freeze, or two, at the moment - on the iPAQ.

Also, it is worth noting that you can have the GPS working and talking to TTN2 in the cradle, for hours, without problems, despite the presence of a BT mouse, BT mobile phone, BT laptop, and several WiFi cards polluting the nearby airwaves ;)

It might also be worth doing a few runs with the BTGPS and the TTN2 GPS driver program, logging (or not) the data stream, but without Navigator itself running.

It may be an iPAQ BT stack or ROM issue, but it also may be related to loading on the iPAQ.

Anyway, I'm still fairly sure that the BTGPS unit is ok, and that this is a problem shared by myself and many other iPAQ users that I have seen post with similar symptoms.

Dave

Installing the database won't have any effect on TomTom hanging, it's just a list of POI's.

I have experienced similar hanging before, and what I have found is a format or defrag of the storage card has helped. What tends to happen sometimes is that the Pocket PC is trying to read a file from the storage card, and because it has lost clusters, or it's spread right the way across the card, it can take a lot longer, and appeaer to hang, this also has the same effect on the GPS Status screen.

Paul Carl

Hi

I have the same problem. I am using I got an Ipaq 3870 and Navigator 2.05 and EMTAC Bluetooth GPS. For no apparent reason TT seems to lock up. If you switch to the GPS Status screen the GPS tab shows the correct connection. But on the Status tab shows the last received position and the moving dotted line between the IPAQ and Satellite dish has frozen. Once this lockup occurs it seems to happen for a number of days. After a number of soft resets all works again. The Ipaq has all the latest patches installed. I first suspected a bluetooth problem on the Ipaq but when TT locks up I can still use bluetooth connections to my mobile phone. I only seem to need to reset TT but this requires the Ipaq to be soft reset restart TT and connection is there again. The bluetooth manager still shows that the EMTAC is still connected then TT has locked.

I have got use to resetting IPAQ when using TT

mshah

I'm so glad that it's not me. If its not just me then it will more likely be picked up in the next upgrade.

Dave -> I have a card reader which gives me a drive letter and allows me to do the usual stuff e.g. defrag using the Windows XP tool. Is this sufficient or should I use a special program to defrag the card?? Thanks
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mshah

Ok, just tried to defrag the SD card but it said it did not need to and the picture showed it looked pretty much defragmented anyway. I clicked to defrag it anyway and it was done in like half a second. I don't think that would have made a difference but see how it goes.
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Dave

Yep, I tend to use WinXP defrag, just right click on the drive and go into the tools option. It should take more than a second though.

nicknick · Regular Visitor Joined: 03/02/2003 17:18:53 Posts: 154

The other thing which can work is to reformat the SD card with bigger (say 16k) clusters

Check this thread for more details

Nick

Fuego

Almost a relief to see it's not just my unit either that has this very exact same problem.

I have an iPAQ 3870, a Socketcom BTGPS (really an Emtac Bluetooth GPS) receiver, latest version of TTN2 and GPS software.

I get the "freeze" with the speed showing in the Navigator screen, where the distance to next turn is normally shown.

At the moment I am getting it once or twice in a half hour trip, but sometimes not at all.

I have reformatted my 128MB SD card and reloaded the maps. Even tried with a small 16MB map segment, but I still get the problem. Come to think of it, at 16MB I can probably load it into main RAM for testing (makes note to try).

All the latest iPAQ3870 patches are loaded, and, as far as I can tell, all the other symptoms described above are what I get as well.

I have also tried different GPS settings in an effort to see if this was the problem (NMEA0183v2 4800, Emtax CRUX, Sirf Wireless, etc.), but they all behave the same way.

Right now, the whole thing is bordering on unusable because of this problem, which is a real shame, because it looks like a great solution to me.

Dave

I always run the Socket BT GPS at NMEA 4800 using the Emtac Wireless driver. There are a lot of things that can cause this sort of problem like

Badly written ROM Bios Update
Fragmentation on Storage Card
Processor is being throttled by another app (or Today Plug-in)
GPS losing connectivity with the Pocket PC
GPS losing connectivity with the satellites

Not all of the above will cause this direct problem, but it's possible. I also nearly forgot to mention the dreaded software update (eg TomTom Navigator). Try downgrading if a previous version worked better, as it could be the newer version that's causing problems. We've seen this a lot of times and have had to downgrade back to a previous version.

nicknick · Regular Visitor Joined: 03/02/2003 17:18:53 Posts: 154

Fuego,

Your suggestion regarding using smaller maps and main memory is exactly how I managed to realise that my (old) HP568 wasn't reading the MMC card properly.

Luckily for me I could fit a 32M chunk of map on the HP (just about) and I could then travel a route I would normally travel along (125 miles) with 4 lockups, with none at all.

So seeing all the issues with SD cards I would definitely look there first (try your own suggestion to confirm)

Nick

mshah

Quote: Originally posted by Fuego on 13 June 2003

Almost a relief to see it's not just my unit either that has this very exact same problem.

I have an iPAQ 3870, a Socketcom BTGPS (really an Emtac Bluetooth GPS) receiver, latest version of TTN2 and GPS software.

I get the "freeze" with the speed showing in the Navigator screen, where the distance to next turn is normally shown.

At the moment I am getting it once or twice in a half hour trip, but sometimes not at all.

I have reformatted my 128MB SD card and reloaded the maps. Even tried with a small 16MB map segment, but I still get the problem. Come to think of it, at 16MB I can probably load it into main RAM for testing (makes note to try).

All the latest iPAQ3870 patches are loaded, and, as far as I can tell, all the other symptoms described above are what I get as well.

I have also tried different GPS settings in an effort to see if this was the problem (NMEA0183v2 4800, Emtax CRUX, Sirf Wireless, etc.), but they all behave the same way.

Right now, the whole thing is bordering on unusable because of this problem, which is a real shame, because it looks like a great solution to me.

Please post back as to the results of the map coming off your PocketPC. I would be interested to see what happens there.

Quote: Originally posted by Dave on 13 June 2003

I always run the Socket BT GPS at NMEA 4800 using the Emtac Wireless driver. There are a lot of things that can cause this sort of problem like
Badly written ROM Bios Update
Fragmentation on Storage Card
Processor is being throttled by another app (or Today Plug-in)
GPS losing connectivity with the Pocket PC
GPS losing connectivity with the satellites
Not all of the above will cause this direct problem, but it's possible. I also nearly forgot to mention the dreaded software update (eg TomTom Navigator). Try downgrading if a previous version worked better, as it could be the newer version that's causing problems. We've seen this a lot of times and have had to downgrade back to a previous version.

I have already tried formatting and defragmenting the SD card using Windows XP and using storage tools software.

I suppose the bad ROM update can be a the problem but I haven't got any other problems elsewhere, and quite a few others have the same problem so seems unlikely we all have a badly written ROM all in the same way.

I never have any other software running while running Nav2. I always do a soft reset before I start the journey just to make sure. I didn't realise the Today screen can use so much processor power as it isn't doing much. I've played MP3s an video clips on the Ipaq and never had any problems with them (surely this is as much processor intensive as nav2 if not more).

As for the GPS loosing connectivity with the PPC, well I've done this manually by taking my Emtac BTGPS out of range and sure enough nav2 gives a bleep to indicate there is no signal from the GPS...after a while when you bring it back in range nav2 will find it again also indicated by a bleep. To me this seems to cope with loosing connectivity (for a period of time).

The point at which it freezes is not related to the number of satellites being picked up. I have had 9 satellites when it has frozen before. In addition, the green light indicated a satellite fix on the GPS is still flashing. I'm pretty sure this is independant of the software on the PPC.

I would say that the above is possible (but unlikely)...I would say that the problem is almost definitely with Nav2. I am tempted to try out some of the old versions again but how do I get some of the old upgrades to Nav2. I missed version v2.01 and v2.05. I've got the original v2.0, v2.02 and v2.22

Thanks for all the help
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Fuego

Still haven't got around to trying the 16MB in RAM, but I'll load that tonight and see what happens tomorrow.

I did upgrade to v2.22 of TTN2, since the release notes stated:

Release Notes for TTN2 v2.22

A problem was fixed that could cause the system to become unstable. Especially on devices with the latest ROM revisions, such as the Compaq Ipaq 3970 or the Dell Axim, the application could freeze or even silently exit.

Sadly this has not cured the problem. Two more lockups on the 45 minute drive to the office this morning.

DavidW

Fuego,

That fix was actually in version 2.01 (from version 2.00) - I think the fix list includes all fixes from version 2.00 upwards.

I suspect your problem is Bluetooth related somehow - but that really is a guess. Assuming you're on the latest 3870 ROM, have you tried deleting all your Bluetooth partnerships on the iPAQ and recreating them?

David

Fuego

Thanks for the heads-up Davidw.

nicknick, mshah:

I tested with 16MB GB map using iPAQ 3270 (fully patched), Socketcom BTGPS and TTN2 2.22 and ...

It still gave me the "freeze" problem, so I do not think it is an SD card or interface issue, as I was running completely in main memory, and the SD card wasn't even inserted.

Coincidentally enough, it froze at exactly the same spot as yesterday, as I was driving into the office. Navigator suggested a right turn, and I ignored it and turned left (as I knew better, in this case). As soon as I turned, I knew it had frozen, because my speed was frozen on the navigator screen, and it was not displaying the next turn.

I had an opportunity to take another close look at the condition, and it is indeed starting to look like a Bluetooth issue on the 3780.

As far as I could tell, the GPS driver program has lost it's connection to the BTGPS and was unable to restore it. I tried manually restoring it, using BT Manager, as well as trying with other utility programs, but the connection to the BTGPS via BT COM8 did not get re-established.

That kind of lets the TTN and GPS driver software off the hook, thus making this off-topic for this forum now, but I will stick with this thread, even though there are about a dozen threads in other places, that appear to be this same problem.

Anyway, I then turned off the BT radio, using BT Manager, and then turned it back on, half expecting a BT stack reset dialogue box, but I did not get one.

Having switched the BT radio off and on, everything went back to normal working operation.

So now I'm going to try the suggestion above, of re-creating the BT links from scratch. Not really holding out much hope, but one step at a time.

I have a feeling that I'll be performing a hard reset of my iPAQ unit and trying it without the ROM Upgrades and BT patches, as well as raising a support issue with Compaq/HP.

It is a little curious though that I haven't noticed a problem with a BT connection to my GPRS phone, which appears to stay connected throughout a journey. It's using a different BT profile, of course - BT Dialup Modem versus BT Serial Port, but even so ... then again it doesn't have the same level of activity.

DavidW

Just to say - I don't think it's off-topic to continue your debugging journey here at all, though I can't speak for the forum administrators. It could well be that you will discover something that helps someone else.

My suggestion to look at Bluetooth as the source of the problem was based on my experience as a software engineer and on trying to isolate sources of failure (my background is in network servers).

To a certain extent it was a guess - if I'm right, there was a huge element of luck in it, but it does sound like you've narrowed down your problem significantly. Suggesting a Bluetooth issue was based on my experience that if connectivity fails, starting out by blaming the connectivity itself rather than application software using that connectivity is usually the best way to proceed. As with all decisions on a problem such as you're experiencing, you have to regard the diagnosis as provisional until you've resolved the issue.

A 'wild card' here would be if your GPS itself is faulty. I'm not sure how you could debug that, unless you have a friend using the same GPS that you could exchange GPSes with.

Anyway, it sounds as if the evidence is pointing increasingly strongly to a Bluetooth issue.

If you have to hard reset, my suggestion would be to start out with the latest 3870 ROM and install EUU3 if you haven't already (EUU3 doesn't change system software like the Bluetooth drivers on any iPAQ to my knowledge - it just bug-fixes some of the Pocket PC 2002 applications software).

You can try with and without any other driver updates. Probably the best thing is to start without, and introduce them one at a time, on the basis that they often can't be uninstalled without a hard reset. I'm afraid I can't give you first hand experience of 3870 driver and ROM issues, as I'm a 3970 user.

I think there may be at least two versions of the Bluetooth manager for the 3870, whereas this doesn't apply to the 3970 (which always uses version 1.1). Maybe that information is relevant to you in your quest, as I've never seen a 3970 user complain of a similar issue to that you're experiencing. I wish you luck with your debugging!

David

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