loosing satellites on TomTom XL

grayus · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:15 pm Post subject: loosing satellites on TomTom XL

Coming home from holiday yesterday 2 hours into my journey on the M1 I suddenly lost all the satellites which made my Tom Tom XL useless it is only just over 12 month old and has been used only about 10 times ( being retired I only use it for holidays ) it’s a good job it packed in just before the A50 as I could find my way back from there. if it had happened going on holiday it would have ruined it. as I am rubbish at map reading, the only way I could get it up and running again was to plug it into my PC and download the updates, but I have lost confidence in it now unless someone says that it is a one off and not some component packing in. I have not had the need to use it again since. Having used sat navs for years (Ipaq 2210 with Holux GR-271 and never had any trouble )any comments would be appreciated.
Crying or Very sad

richard345 · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:46 pm Post subject:

What would be worth trying would be to power the device on now, in the open air and see if you get a satellite fix.

If you do, then a short trip around the neighbourhood would be a test and a longer journey could come later.

If you Plan a Route and run a Demo, does everything work? If it does and you get a good fix, I would say that the loss of satellites was a one off.

have you downloaded a QuickGPSFix from TT HOME recently? If so, it may be that which has cased the problem.
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Ric - TomTom 520 DEAD - Passed to the great traffic jam in the sky. Now using Maps & Waze on Samsung Galaxy S4 + CamerAlert of course!

grayus · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:02 pm Post subject:

Thanks for your swift response Rich yeah the first thing I did when I got off the M1 was to see if I could get a fix outside the car but no go
I downloaded quick fix before starting my holiday it worked perfectly in Winchester and in London it was only on my way home that the problem started.I just fired it up in the house and got 4 sats strait away but I will get uptight if it fails again on a long journey especially with my sense of direction I will probably end up in Afghanistan ..
its a pity that they only have a 12 month warranty

mikealder · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 4:37 pm Post subject:

Its most probably duff qGPS data that has been downloaded, there have been a number of reports about issues such as this over the past few months - easy way is to not bother with it as I find it takes very little extra time for the device to acquire a position fix with very out of date qGPS files - Mike

richard345 · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 7:45 pm Post subject:

I stopped using QGPSFix a couple of moths ago on my 520 and have had no issues at all.

Satellite fix is usually within 30 seconds of powering on in the car.

Mike, is there any way of removing a duff update?
_________________
Ric - TomTom 520 DEAD - Passed to the great traffic jam in the sky. Now using Maps & Waze on Samsung Galaxy S4 + CamerAlert of course!

mikealder · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 7:51 pm Post subject:

Just remove the contents from the "ephem" folder on the device - Mike

richard345 · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 7:59 pm Post subject:

Thanks Mike,

Filed for future reference!
_________________
Ric - TomTom 520 DEAD - Passed to the great traffic jam in the sky. Now using Maps & Waze on Samsung Galaxy S4 + CamerAlert of course!

grayus · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:01 pm Post subject: lost satellites

Thanks for your input Mike .Richard asked what I was going to ask next and he obviously new what you meant regarding "ephem" folder on the device "please help a silver surfer by explaining in layman's terms how I remove a duff download from my Tom Tom XL and if I do nothing will it eventually right itself ?

mikealder · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:13 pm Post subject:

If you connect the device to the PC and use Windows Explorer to view the contents of the drive letter associated with the TomTom you will find the "ephem" folder, click this to open it and simply delet the files contained within.

Next time you connect to the PC and the TT Home application when it offers to download the qGPS data simply decline the offer - Mike

grayus · Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:19 pm Post subject:

Many thanks young sir will give it a go

scarymonkey · Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:24 am Post subject:

grayus · Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:56 am Post subject: sats

I can see where you are coming from, Mike has been around a long time in this forum and has always given good advice ,especially to me ,I think that I have only helped him out once a while back with getting his Holux GR-271 to work on his laptop as the CD that came with it did not have the necessary drivers and one had to download a different model no from there site . I did what he said and although it took longer to fix the Sats it seemed to work OK but I have not been on a long drive since it happened and are now very wary ..

mikealder · Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:33 pm Post subject:

Graham, indeed you did assist me getting the 271 working - its still a great receiver even though it doesn't get taken out as often as it used to.

I have been running without qGPS on a number of my devices for inexcess of 18 months with no issues, I can accept a few seconds longer for signal acquisition on start up vs what can happen when duff data is loaded to the device, I doubt you will notice the difference in the device with/ without the data installed to be honest - Mike

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