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Joined: Dec 25, 2007 Posts: 7 Location: The Highlands
Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:20 pm Post subject:
Thanks for the welcome guys. I think I should document exactly what happened to me in case it's any use to anyone else.
I powered up the TomTom One v3 for the first time, without it being connected to the computer (my machine is an iMac, running with OS X 10.4.11). It worked fine. We set the voice, home location and stuff like that.
I connected it to the computer and the device's internal memory mounted as a volume on the Desktop (normal behaviour when anything that the Mac can treat as an external drive is connected by USB or Firewire) with the name 'INTERNAL'.
There was a Mac app inside it which promised to install TomTom HOME. I clicked this and it started to do an installation, but then began downloading stuff and after a few minutes it hung. I couldn't even get the Force Quit window up (similar to ctrl+alt+del on a PC), and that is a pretty rare occurrence on a Mac. I had to turn the whole machine off to get out of the installer. The TomTom was still connected to the Mac at this point.
Next I went to their website and downloaded the Home app from the link displayed there (you see the Mac link in the large graphic if you visit the page using a Mac). It was v1.5. I installed this. It appeared to go ok but then crashed for no obvious reason within the first couple of minutes of operation.
The HOME app immediately offered me an updadted app for GO CLASSIC. I wasn't certain this was what I needed but I figured it wouldn't be offering me updates I didn't need. I clicked ok and it offered to do a backup first. I agreed to this (I think this is what saved my bacon later on).
Afterwards I ran the updater and it proceeded to about 99%. The TomTom HOME app crashed again at this point. I suspect this is probably when the device itself went wrong but I don't know, as I left it connected to the computer for some while afterwards.
Next it offered me an update for 'GO, ONE and RIDER', which when I saw it alongside the other update made me wonder for the first time whether the previous update may not have been the right one. I tried to run this update and it seemed to go through ok.
At this point, I tried to unmount the device. I saw the flashing x in the red circle flashing and immediately suspected that this meant something had gone very wrong. I reconnected and tried to restore from a backup, but to no avail.
That was when I went Googling. I found TomTom's own support website to be utterly hopeless - for starters it was running dead slow and stop, I grant this may have been due to people unwrapping their new toys for Christmas and going online to learn about them (or to find out how to make them work ). However when I did find the FAQs they were useless.
Reading this thread, though, plus one or two other question-and-answer sites, put me on to the idea of having to reformat and reload everything. At this point I was very glad I'd done that initial backup, although I had to find where the app had stored it on my machine. For any Mac users out there, you will find backups performed by the TomTom HOME application at this location:
Within the GO folder are additional folders, one for each backup you have performed through the HOME application.
I dragged a complete copy of my original backup to the Mac Desktop, putting the contents (which from what I could tell, were a simple duplicate of the contents of the device's internal drive) into a new folder which I called 'original backup'. Then for good measure I made a manual backup of the current contents of the TomTom device, dragging the files and folders I found in the mounted drive called 'INTERNAL' into another new folder on my desktop.
Then, with my heart pounding, I opened the Mac Disk Utility (Found by going into the Applications folder, then the Utilities subfolder).
I selected the volume called INTERNAL from the column on the left of the Disk Utility window, then ensured the selected the Erase button at the top centre of the window. Once looking at the options in the Erase pane, I left the Volume Format and Name options as they were (MS-DOS File System and INTERNAL, respectively), and hit the Erase button at middle right of the window.
The process completed fairly quickly. I returned to my desktop and double clicked the INTERNAL volume. There was one file inside it, which I can only assume the TomTom recreated by itself once the format was complete. I manually trashed this file for good measure (can't remember what it was called now).
Then I opened the 'original backup' folder that I made earlier, and dragged its entire contents to the INTERNAL volume. This took a nail-biting five minutes or so across the USB connection. All the while the TomTom device displayed the orange screen with the 'do not diconnect' message. When this process was complete the TomTom reverted to showing the graphic which indicates it's connected via USB.
I unmounted the INTERNAL volume from my desktop at this point. The TomTom responded immediately - it showed a yellow progress bar whizzing along the bottom, then booted into normal route-finding mode. I have been testing it exhaustively ever since and can find nothing in any way wrong with it.
Today I have installed the v1.6 HOME app, from the link contained elsewhere in this thread. I've not dared try to manipulate the TomTom device via the HOME app though. I have taken another manual backup though, by connecting the USB, tapping YES to connect to computer, waiting for the INTERNAL volume to mount to the desktop and then dragging a copy of its entire contents to a new folder I have created within my Documents folder. I think I will do this every few days from now on.
I have masses of questions arising from this experience, such as whether the HOME app is inherently buggy (the Mac version at least), how much of an update is it possible to do to the device without using HOME, and so on and so on ... but I suspect I ought to have a wider read around this forum before I start posting questions that may have been answered elsewhere.
Thanks for reading - hope this may be useful to someone. _________________ I have a TomTom One v3 but I'm a novice :-s
Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 19638 Location: Blackpool , Lancs
Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:32 pm Post subject:
A hard lesson to learn with respect to the Home application, but it is is best left alone unless absolutely necessary. I am glad you have managed to recover the device though, the backup is a vital step that you had taken (thankfully).
What I would do now is burn a copy of the backup to removable media either CD or DVD just in case, should you want to install speed cameras and spoken voice alerts to go with them please use the Mac for this avoiding the Home software.
Home should only be required for Map and software updates, anything else can be accomplished using more reliable means, if / when you do update the software or maps please ensure you take another full backup once the device is stable and working - Mike
Joined: Dec 25, 2007 Posts: 7 Location: The Highlands
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:41 pm Post subject:
m-tek wrote:
Working fine here!!
741 bytes (741 bytes)
Working here too - it decompresses to a 2,354 byte unix executable called TomTom.mnu. But I still don't know what to do with it or how to tell if it's safe ... _________________ I have a TomTom One v3 but I'm a novice :-s
Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 19638 Location: Blackpool , Lancs
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 1:04 pm Post subject:
Chris, You need to place the TomTom.mnu file into the SdkRegistry folder on your TomTom device.
If you want to read the actual file right click it and open it with Note Pad or Word Pad (or whatever equivalent to these applications there are for your Mac), the mnu file is just lines of basic text - The file looks OK to me so it should work fine on the device - Mike
Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 19991 Location: West and Southwest London
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 3:46 pm Post subject:
christownsend wrote:
it decompresses to a 2,354 byte unix executable called TomTom.mnu.
Don't forget you are dealing with files intended for a Linux-based device that are likely to have file extensions that Windows does not understand (or gets wrong).
For example all the sound and voice files ending .chk are thought of by Windows to be "recovered file fragments" i.e. bits left over after a major crash. More than once, people have deleted these because a Windows help file has said you can!
In this case, the .mnu file (presumably short for "menu") is just a text file.
Joined: Dec 25, 2007 Posts: 7 Location: The Highlands
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 4:14 pm Post subject:
Andy_P2002 wrote:
christownsend wrote:
it decompresses to a 2,354 byte unix executable called TomTom.mnu.
Don't forget you are dealing with files intended for a Linux-based device that are likely to have file extensions that Windows does not understand (or gets wrong).
For example all the sound and voice files ending .chk are thought of by Windows to be "recovered file fragments" i.e. bits left over after a major crash. More than once, people have deleted these because a Windows help file has said you can!
In this case, the .mnu file (presumably short for "menu") is just a text file.
Thanks ... I'm using a Mac, which doesn't rely on filename extensions to determine what a file is. There must be something inside the file that identifies it as having come from (or being intended for) a unix-like OS, which is wot Linux is, essentially.
I've opened it in TextEdit (slightly more sophisticated than Notepad but a lot less sophisticated than Wordpad on a PC) and had a read through, it seems to offer menu screens to access various settings and data that I've already come across in one form or another whilst playing with the One. I'm assuming that this file is designed to make all these things more easily accessible than they otherwise are? _________________ I have a TomTom One v3 but I'm a novice :-s
Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 19638 Location: Blackpool , Lancs
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 4:40 pm Post subject:
Chris, the idea is to put the menu text together in whatever order you want for your device, this option of a custom menu also allows for certain functions to be accessed that the as supplied menu fails to deliver. See my reply to your previous post on the page before this one, I didn't know which application you could use to view/ edit the text though as I don't use a Mac (yet). In the previous reply I made I also informed you where to put the TomTom.mnu file in order for it to work - Mike
Joined: Dec 24, 2007 Posts: 100 Location: pacific northWET
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject:
While I have a 920, I have not yet tried any alternate menus. Is it as simple as copying the xxxx.mnu file to that folder and then starting it up. And more importantly, is it SIMPLE to UNDO the change by just deleting that item from that folder?
Got any samples for the 920? (I see the menu posted has rotate screen option - applicable to a square screen or can it work on any?) I guess as long as I am asking - are there any "hidden" features on the 920 which can be activated by specific menus?
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