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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject: C510 Problems.... Freezing & POIs
I have recently purchased a C510 and am having a few issues with it....
- Firstly, when working on the battery, with at least half charge, it has a tendancy to turn itself off before reaching the destination. Thinking this may be power related I connected the power lead to see how this affected things - whilst there were no unrequested power-offs, it did start to freeze / lock-up during navigation. Neither of these situations are desirable.... What could this be?
- I have loaded the PGPSW speed camera database and MaFt's POIs onto the unit using the Garmin POI loader. The C510 has come with preloaded POIs, some of which are useful and others, including the garmin speed cameras are not required. The Garmin speed cameras don't seem as comprehensive as the PGPSW database, and also will bong throughout a whole area designated as mobile speed camera area. My question is whether I can delete the Garmin speed camera database without deleting the rest of the POIs?
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 564 Location: North Devon
Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 3:18 pm Post subject: Re: C510 Problems.... Freezing & POIs
Swebster wrote:
- Firstly, when working on the battery, with at least half charge, it has a tendancy to turn itself off before reaching the destination. Thinking this may be power related I connected the power lead to see how this affected things - whilst there were no unrequested power-offs, it did start to freeze / lock-up during navigation.
I'm actually on my 2nd C510, (despite only getting the 1st one on Dec 25th). I was suffering these 'shutdowns' that I initially thought were power-related (4 in 3 miles was the record). However, if you press and hold "Overall Avg" or "Moving Avg" on the trip screen, you are taken to a series of diagnostics screens, the first of which is a 'crash' log. It wasn't powering off - it was crashing. You can get more detail by touching each line in the log entry. I found I was able to reproduce these crashes, by selecting a particular destination with the GPS switched off and then saying "yes" to "Do you want to simulate driving this route". I was in the process of determining exactly which change had brought about this behaviour, when the C510 stopped being recognised by the PC. Garmin were brilliant and swapped it for me within 48 hours. They logged it as a software fault, but I thought I'd just worn out the mini-usb socket, with my constant plugging and un-plugging. When the new unit arrived, I resumed my investigations and found I was now totally UNABLE to reproduce the crashes. Make of that what you will - bad batch of them out there?
Swebster wrote:
The C510 has come with preloaded POIs...the garmin speed cameras are not required. The Garmin speed cameras don't seem as comprehensive as the PGPSW database... My question is whether I can delete the Garmin speed camera database without deleting the rest of the POIs?
As noted in another thread, the initial Garmin/Cyclops cameras are stored in \Garmin\Poi\CyclopsUK082906Sample.gpi and any loaded using POI Loader are stored in \Garmin\Poi\Poi.gpi. You can just delete or rename the Cyclops file if you want, or just disable it's 'Alert' function. (On the 'spanner' options screen, press Down-arrow then 'Proximity Points').
Interesting that you find the PGPSW list more 'comprehensive'. I would accuse it of 'Crying Wolf', as in, alerts for cameras that face the other way, and even just the humps at the side of the motorway. You can argue better safe than sorry, but I've been finding it a little wearing. When the Garmin 3 month trial runs out, I was contemplating sticking with the last file I get from them, and distilling out just the updates from PGPSW each month, to supplement them.
Thanks for the reply. I've contacted Garmin and explained the issues; they told me to return it to the shop I bought it from and ask for a replacement or refund as they believe it to be faulty. I had a look at the 'crash log', and there were a number of events relating to times when it had crashed - the details made no sense to me though....
Fingers crossed for a freeze-free trip later today.
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 564 Location: North Devon
Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 5:47 pm Post subject:
Swebster wrote:
Garmin ... told me to return it to the shop ... as they believe it to be faulty.
I had a look at the 'crash log'... the details made no sense to me though....
Interestingly, I've managed to reproduce these crashes on my second unit. Not sure if that's good news or bad... So far, I've narrowed it down to the proximity of a "Netto" -- I'm sure there's going to be a sensible explanation, rather than an inherent dislike of Netto's! Unfortunately, it does rather scupper the 'bad batch theory'.
BTW, I've noticed that the C510 does sometimes power-off due to low battery, without putting out a low battery alert first (handy eh?). It does seem to write a "Low Battery" event to the crash log, when this happens though.
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 564 Location: North Devon
Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 6:51 pm Post subject:
PhilHornby wrote:
I've managed to reproduce these crashes ... So far, I've narrowed it down to the proximity of a "Netto"
I now have this is in a reproducible form that I can report to Garmin. Not 100% reproducible, because it relies on the "Simulate Route" function and that itself is not 100% reliable (Probably, no one else is sad enough to sit and watch it for any length of time, but sometimes it misses turns and gets lost! - now that's what I call a real simulation ).
In my test case, the C510 crashes at the point where the icon for a local Netto supermarket would be just about coming into view. I changed the format of the supplied NETTO.BMP from 24bit colour to 4 bit colour and the problem goes away. Curiously, the C510 can display either type - it's just this particular case, where it makes a difference.
The problem also goes away, if you downgrade from the 4.10 firmware back to 3.30!!
Just back after w/e away... Loaded latest unit software off Garmin site and then put POIs onto new unit. Was a little surprised to see similar crashes on the new unit... Don't remember passing any Nettos - might try taking them out of my POIs if you think they're the cause....?
Nothing else out of the ordinary happened.... Would any of the data from my crashes help your analysis?
If these crashes continue, where can I get 4.00 firmware?
This is the email I sent to Garmin this morning, via their web form :-
Quote:
I (and several others) have been suffering random hangs and crashes after a
particular set of POI's have been loaded. I have managed to get this into a
more or less repeatable state.
It appears to be related to the use of a 24bit .BMP file for a particular
POI. The crash is not reproducible with a 4bit .BMP, nor with any firmware
version other than 4.10 (I've tried 3.30 and 4.0). To reproduce the crash, I
have found two points, which when a simulated journey is undertaken, will
more or less always produce a crash at the same intermediate point. I think
this point, is around the place where the offending .BMP would start to be
displayed. The POI.GPI was built with the lastest Beta version of POILoader.
I have a .ZIP file containing:-
1) 25 screenshots of the steps I used to reproduce the fault
2) A current.gpx containing the Start, End and Problem locations.
3) CSV, BMP and POI.GPI for both versions that do and don't reproduce the
error.
4) A register dump after the crash.
Where can I send it?
So far, no reply - but the website did warn there was a 'Seasonal' surge in faults that they were dealing with. Presumably, folk all over the globe are sitting down to do a spot of Crash Analysis
In practical terms, your choices are :-
Downgrade to V4.00 - this will probably reset everything in sight, so backup Favourites etc first. Also, it will copy an earlier version of the Sirf firmware file back on (006B047800.BIN). The C510 won't act on this file, ie it won't downgrade the SIRF receiver, but I didn't like the inconsistency, so I copied the proper one back on afterwards. Well actually, I picked apart the two firmware installers and made myself a hybrid one, but that's probably a bit OTT!
Or...Delete all the .BMP's - they're not absolutely essential - and rebuild POI.GPI. BTW, it's not just the Netto ones that are 24bit ...
Or...Find a batch editor that can convert them all to 4bit (16 colours).
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 564 Location: North Devon
Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:57 pm Post subject:
Quote:
Downgrade to V4.00 - this will probably reset everything in sight
Just thought of something - make sure you have the GMAPPROM.UNL file in place (containing your 25digit unlock code, without the dashes). This file is only accessed sporadically - one of the times (I know to my cost) is during one of these master resets. The first C510 I had, came with this file. I deleted it to see what would happen(!) and nothing did for a week. The 2nd C510 didn't have the file, but I was ready for it second time around!
Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 12:35 pm Post subject: POI Icons
Just been reading this thread with interest, as I get similar crashes on C510. I happen to have POI's on my PC, so started checking which were 24bit. I came to the HSS icon, and Irfanview told me it was actually a psd file with a bmp suffix. This might tie in with the fact that I get regular crashes on the A61/A617 roundabout in Chesterfield - adjacent to which is an HSS. Haven't had opportunity yet to look for crash logs.
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 564 Location: North Devon
Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:16 pm Post subject: Re: POI Icons
clivechitty wrote:
I came to the HSS icon, and Irfanview told me it was actually a psd file with a bmp suffix.
Clever old Irfanview... it's not wrong, I've got the same file and you can open it in Notepad and read it...
I wonder what on earth did POILoader did with that when it encountered it? It seem to pass the bitmaps through as-is.
The strange thing about the 24bit .BMPS's is that they do actually display OK on the C510...it seems to be when they're lurking slightly off-screen that the problems start. I checked Garmin's documentation and they are suitably vague as to what varieties are acceptable.
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject: Spoke to Garmin
Spoke to Garmin today to see what they thought of this prob...
I was told that the unit crashing was to do with the safety camera database from PGPSW and not the POI bmp images of differing sizes.
I was told to reload the camera database, as the issue had been resolved, and my C510 should then work without crashing.... We shall see.
I have managed to crash the unit by simulating the route with gps off, inside. Not exactly sure whether its a safety camera location or POI bmp that triggers it. Will try the same route after re-loading camera database.
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 564 Location: North Devon
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:58 pm Post subject: Re: Spoke to Garmin
Swebster wrote:
Spoke to Garmin today to see what they thought of this prob...
I was told that the unit crashing was to do with the safety camera database from PGPSW.
I'm going to have to ring 'em up - since I've had no response to my problem submission via the website. I've got the issue into a reproducible state and have all the evidence to pass on; I just need them to tell me who to ... the PGPSW camera 'database' (i.e. those plain text files full of commas and numbers) isn't a part of my evidence...
I could well believe that POILoader has it's part to play -- the more I delve into the way that works, the more incredulous I become. They're not responding to any of those concerns either.
Quote:
I have managed to crash the unit by simulating the route with gps off, inside. Not exactly sure whether its a safety camera location or POI bmp that triggers it. Will try the same route after re-loading camera database.
Sounds like you're well on the way to reproducing it yourself. Assuming you can spot the exact location of the hang / crash (and I did it using NRoute, since the C510 tended to power-off rather than hang) - you can then set location there and hit "Where to"|"Custom POIs"|"All categories"|("All categories") and see what it thinks are the nearest POIs to the problem spot. You will probably find that the culprit is amongst the ones at the top of that list...
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 564 Location: North Devon
Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:50 pm Post subject: Re: Spoke to Garmin
PhilHornby wrote:
I'm going to have to ring 'em up - since I've had no response to my problem submission via the website.
I spoke to Andrew Harvey at Garmin - he asked me to email him the details, which I have done. I managed to reduce the POI 'database' down to a single entry in a CSV file ;)
Someone at Garmin has a sense of humour -- their mail server responds with:
Thu 2007-02-01 15:44:28: Waiting for protocol initiation...
Thu 2007-02-01 15:44:29: <-- 220 Commodore VIC-20 (with anti-spam cassette)
Have posted this elsewhere, but the PGPSW camera dbase is definitely not the cause of crashing/hanging up. I can reproduce the same crash every time at the same place, and when I load only the speed camera locations I get no probs. Only prob is when garminpoi dabse is also added.
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