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Heeeeeelp!!!!

 
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NoddyDog
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 12:35 am    Post subject: Heeeeeelp!!!! Reply with quote

Below is a copy of an email I sent to TomTom today. Please can anyone shed some light on this. I am losing hair and sleep over this and my family have seen me turn into a grumpy middle aged man!

As you read please bear in mind that this has happened on three seperate Ipaq's with different storage cards. The only common factors are my Garmin eTrex GPS, the cables and the TomTom 2 software. And before somebody asks I have downloaded and installed all the updates from the TomTom website.

Anyway here goes. I wrote to them;

Ok, I have one huge problem which seems connected with your software. It has failed to work correctly on 3 separate HP Ipaq Pocket PC's over the last month. Let me briefly explain what has happened.

In December 2003 I purchased a HP Ipaq 2210 and installed TomTom 2 navigation software. Very quickly the whole pocket PC developed a lot of faults (full details of the faults will be given at the end of this email). I contacted HP technical support and they asked me to replace the unit with another new Ipaq 2210. I did this and exactly the same faults occurred on the new unit. Please note that your software was loaded on both units. Since I had so many problems I assumed it was a design flaw with the Ipaq 2210 so I went back to the retailer and asked for my money back.

On the 1st of Jan 2004 I purchased an HP Ipaq 4150. I used the machine constantly for one week without any software on it. I deliberately did not allow the unit to sync with my home PC so that I could test it with only the internal software it was shipped with. This unit was operating perfectly until today.

Today I installed TomTom 2 navigation software (nothing else) and a number of problems occurred as soon as I hooked it up to my Garmin Etrex GPS.

Here is a list of problems that occurred intermittently within only 30 minutes of running the TomTom 2 software;

1) The map details all disappeared on the 'map' view. By this I mean the only things visible were the coloured background and the cursor cross. The rest of the surrounding 'window' was also present. I had to do a soft reset to get the map detail to reappear.

2) When using your software on 2 occasions the whole Ipaq 4150 unit locked up within a couple of minutes of use. I could get nothing else to run and even the user buttons on the front of the Ipaq would not work. A soft reset was required to get the unit to work again.

3) On several occasions the TomTom 2 software would not launch when it was selected via the Windows menu. I instantly tried to start other programs on the Ipaq and they all launched without any problems. A soft reset was again required.

4) On one occasion when I selected a location on the map I would not be given any menu options, e.g. 'set as destination'. I tried this on other locations and no menu appeared. However after a soft reset the facility went back to normal.

I have performed two 'hard' resets since the above problems occurred. Each time the TomTom software starts to become unstable very quickly, even before it is used with the Garmin eTrex GPS.

Also even if you disconnect the Garmin GPS the random problems still continue and will NOT go away until you do a 'hard' reset. Also I wish to highlight that these problems do not occur exactly the same way every time. They are random. About 50% of the time everything works as it should, i.e. the unit gets an accurate location fix and the software will calculate the route and give me the correct audio and visual directions.

I will now give you some background information you may need;

My home PC is a Dell 8200 Dimension P4. It has up to date antivirus software on it and a good firewall. It has never had a virus on it and has always been stable. I can think of no reason why my PC would affect the Pocket PC.

I have owned my Garmin eTrex several months and it has worked perfectly. When I owned the first Ipaq 2210 I set the Garmin interface I/O format to 'NMEA' Baud rate 4800. The TomTom software was able to recognise these settings and generate an accurate location on all three Ipaq units. For your information the GPS software on my pocket PC (installed as part of TomTom 2) is set to 'TomTom Navigator GPS' and 'Serial Cable on Com 1'.

The cables that I use to connect the Ipaq 4150 to the Garmin eTrex are from

www.memory-map.co.uk

INTERGPS-GEDC
INTERGPS-GQ38P
INTERGPS-CKUC

They seem to work since I assume I would not get an accurate location fix if they were faulty.

Please can you help me? I have spent a lot of money on all of this hardware and software and I have had a very stressful time with it all. It is taking up so much of my time in investigating, testing, resetting, etc.

If necessary I am prepared to post everything off to you (Ipaq, GPS and cables) in order to discover what the problem is.

Yours Sincerely,

Nigel Davey.


Here is a list of the problems that occurred on the other two Ipaq 2210 units;

A) The unit froze completely once during the use of TomTom2 for in car
navigation. Nothing was being pressed on the unit. It was just in its cradle
providing directions (until it crashed).


B) The position on the map keeps changing when you calculate a journey. For example you can plan a route from X to Y. Then when you look at the start of the route it has changed to some other position on the map that you did not involve.


C) The program will suddenly close all on its own when selecting something in the program (e.g. the favourites icon) and is not even running when you select the Itask window to look at all running programs.


D) When you zoom in or out of the map sometimes all the detail disappears and won't come back until you do a soft reset.

E) Once when trying to start TomTom2 an error message appeared on the
screen stating data was missing and the program needed to be reinstalled. However a soft reset rectified the problem
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TonyCal
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Joined: Dec 29, 2003
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 7:54 am    Post subject: Re: problem Reply with quote

Are your maps loaded to a memory card? as I have a similar problem, with Tomtom crashing. It would appear that the memory card is causing the crash. See the post I started in beginners GPS lounge.
Hope this is of some help.
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NoddyDog
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Joined: Jan 08, 2004
Posts: 7

PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 1:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for that Tony. On this 4150 they are loaded to memory card. However last night I loaded 16Mb into the internal memory and I will be testing that. However on the 2210's that I had I tried both internal memory and compact flash cards and the problems occurred on both.

I have also noticed one other symptom, when TomTom starts to fail (requiring a soft reset) some of the tick box settings in certain Windows menu's disappear, e.g. 'On external power' in the Backlight setting and the 'Buttons Lock' under the Buttons setting.

Personally I am amazed that TomTom can release software so full of bugs and charge such a premium price for it. Considering how much time I've wasted on this it seems criminal.

I'll update the tread as and when TomTom reply to me and if I have any more developments.

Nigel.
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Darren
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 2:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll be interested to here how the testing with the 16Mb sectional map fares. I run a h2210 with TTNav2 and have experienced none of the issues you describe nor are they something I've heard of in these forums.

Can you tell us what version revision of TTNav and the GPS Application you are using?
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TonyCal
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Posts: 12

PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 4:33 pm    Post subject: re: memory card Reply with quote

Darren
when the maps were loaded into memory on my 2210 I had no problems at all. When loaded to SD card tomtom crashed regularly requiring a restart of tomtom, one time I had to soft reset and turn off the bluetooth gps and turn it back on again. I recieved this from Jon at a site that dave sent me to:

"Hi Tony

My 2210 also has a problem with data on a SD card. Basically any
software I wish to keep running all the time can not be installed on the
SD card as my Ipaq will lock up within 30 seconds of being turned on...

Yet there is no problem with my Panasonic 512mb SD card (nor 30 other SD
cards I've tried too)...

Try this little trick. Open Start / Settings / System / Power. Leave
the battery screen up when you turn the 2210 off. Leave your PDA for 30
minutes or more, then turn it back on. If the display shows that the
battery level is "unknown" for 10 seconds or more your 2210 will have
problems with software / data on the SD card...

A number of software companies I have talked to over this issue have
stated that the 2200 series of PDAs seems to have a power management
driver problem. This means that a SD card isn't awoken quick enough
before software requires data off it, and therefore the PDA locks up.

Note that battery & memory meter displays on the today screen can make
this problem worse.

BTW, I've got TomTom2 GB running off an SD card with no problem, but
software like Textmaker, Calligrapher and Resco Picture Viewer only
works fine if installed in main memory...

Jon C"

Tony
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TonyCal
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 4:35 pm    Post subject: Versions Reply with quote

I'm on TTN version 2.24.2 and gps version 2.09
Tony
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DavidW
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 7:31 pm    Post subject: Re: Heeeeeelp!!!! Reply with quote

NoddyDog wrote:
B) The position on the map keeps changing when you calculate a journey. For example you can plan a route from X to Y. Then when you look at the start of the route it has changed to some other position on the map that you did not involve.

That one could be down to not having the map datum on the Garmin set to WGS84.


Check boxes disappearing seems to be a bug in Pocket PC 2003 - theorised to relate to resource exhaustion. This has been discussed in the microsoft.public.pocketpc newsgroup. A soft reset is the answer. I've never seen it in TomTom Navigator - but in other programs having not even run Navigator since my last soft reset.


As for the rest - memory card problems are the most likely, and trying a 16MB sectional map in RAM is a good idea. We've already had some comments from Jon Crawford posted - I know Jon knows what he's talking about as he and I collaborated on the original Axim X5 / SD problems (we had one very lengthy phone call which revealed just how detailed Jon's work was). It's possible that bad power management drivers are causing some of the problems.


It would be useful if you'd post any markings from the back of your SD cards. Though you said you had several storage cards, there's far fewer manufacturers than brands and most of the brands relabel cards from a handful of manufacturers.

If you post details, I can often tell you what manufacturer the cards are, and how problematic they're likely to be.


I can say categorically that I haven't had the instability you describe on my iPAQ 3970 under either Pocket PC 2002 or Pocket PC 2003, using a couple of known good SD cards (the markings indicate they're likely to be either Panasonic or Toshiba).



David
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NoddyDog
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok, thanks for all the help guys. I feel I might actually crack it this time!

Since installing the 16Mb map onto internal memory today the TTN software has been quite stable. I have only made a 3 mile journey to and from work and played with it offline (minus GPS), but so far no freezes/other listed problems.

In answer to an earlier question I am using TTN 2.24 and GPS 2.07. I know that 2.09 is out there, but in another thread there was much debate over whether 2.09 was worth the hassle when 2.07 was apparently more stable, particularly with Bluetooth. At the moment I don't use bluetooth for my GPS, but may use it in the near future with other hardware. However should I install 2.09?

Finally the SD card I am using is a Lexar 128 Impact SD card (with lock on side). There are no other details on it (brought brand new, but cheaply from Ebay and shipped from the USA).

However when I had the two 2210's I used three different 256Mb compact flash cards (type 1). The fastest was a SanDisk Ultra II 65x. They don't come much faster than this. I had problems when any of the three cards were used and also when the 16Mb map was installed on internal memory. I did not use a SD card on the 2210's, I only brought the SD card for the 4150.

Right now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the SD card is the problem. I won't know for sure until I have tested it for about a week.

I will post the conclusion here just in case it helps somebody else.

Does anyone have any info/recommendations re my current SD card.

Thanks again,

Nigel (NoddyDog).
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NoddyDog
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just had another thought. What somebody said about the unit not being able to access the SD card when powering up makes some sense to me. When I had the 2210's, and also to some extent with this 4150, the problem of the map detail dissappearing seemed to happen more often after the unit was left powered down and then restarted.

If this is the case then perhaps I can still make use of my current SD card for long journeys (ie going outside the 16Mb map boundaries). Effectively I would need to swap to the map on the SD card and complete my whole journey (using the SD card map) without powering down. But then again it may not be that simple.

After a bit more testing under my current situation I may give that a try and see if I get any crashes.

I would like to point out that in my experince this problem is not just limited to SD cards. As I stated above I used three different Compact flash (type one) cards in the 2210's and I had the same problems.

Nigel.
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DavidW
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GPS 2.09 I'd leave - 2.07 is fine for what you want.


So far as cards go, it could be that if there's bugs in the power management drivers of the 2210, they equally affect the CompactFlash and SD slots. It sounds like there's some issue of trying to access the cards before the hardware is powered up and ready - if this is the case, as seems likely, the issue could easily affect all storage cards.

If there is such a problem, the solution is to make sure you exit (and not just minimise) TomTom Navigator before you power off, and wait a few seconds before starting it after you power back on. There are options in the TomTom Navigator program to exit the application (File -> Exit, or the Exit Application option on the Navigator menu), though unless you have special software installed (such as Spb's Pocket Plus) that makes the X button really close an application, tapping the X in the top right of the screen minimises rather than closes the application.


Your Lexar 128MB SD card sounds suspect - no markings suggests it is unlikely to be one of the better Japanese designs as they're usually quite obviously marked. Lexar, unfortunately, can be absolutely anything these days - they used only to ship the better Japanese cards but that changed some while back.

A good 128MB or even 256MB card isn't dreadfully expensive - check out the SimpleTech cards at clove.co.uk (it looks as if ebuyer.com are discontinuing them for some reason). Click here for the range at clove.co.uk.

However, you may find that the problems go away if you make sure that Navigator is only started once the storage card is powered up, and you may not feel the expense of another SD card is worth it for a possible performance gain. After all, it seems worth trying to get the best of what you've got before spending any more money.



David
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alix776
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 3:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

noddy like darren i have 2210 that ive had for a while now i use tomtom on a daily bassis with only the odd sofjust as a reset just as a thought are you loading the nav and gps programs to the storage card the only problem i had with tomtom was with my jornada it kept crashing on there but that was due to a slower processor an add on mmc cardreader could be a dodgey cd
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NoddyDog
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I brought a 256 Ultrafast II SD card. Guess what? TomTom 2 is 95% more stable now!!!

Nigel.
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Darren
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Glad to hear that Thumbs Up
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DavidW
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 8:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm glad you've found your fix. Bad SD cards waste a lot of time and money, as well as leading people to false conclusions about the reliability or otherwise of a piece of software and even Pocket PCs in general. The problem isn't, in fact, limited to the Pocket PC - but seems more prevalent in the Pocket PC community than elsewhere.

I'm an alpha tester of a program on the PC that makes the hard disk (or hard disks) in the computer work hard. The usual answer if anyone complains of certain "internal error" messages is "check your disk subsystem". There are several people who didn't follow this advice, and in one case someone continued to insist for over a year that his hard disks were fine. Eventually something happened (fairly catastrophic, I believe) and he had to concede that his system had suffered some kind of disk related instability for all that time.


One poster on microsoft.public.pocketpc kept chewing me out when I posted about bad SD cards - he seemed to believe in the supremacy of some tests he'd been involved in over the entire community experience. I know who Jon Crawford has spoken to and worked with on the Dell Axim X5 / SD card issues, and I trust his conclusions! There's more than can be posted publicly.

However, the important thing is that repeatedly the answer comes back that a new SD card fixes an otherwise unreliable system when nothing else would. I think that's proof enough that this is a real issue. TomTom Support are convinced - I've heard of them suggesting a new SD card in response to certain enquiries.



David
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NoddyDog
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Even the problem of my vanishing radio boxes has stopped now!
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