Message to Michael - PanEuropean

Michael, I tried to PM you with the answers to your suggestions to cures to the lack of memory messages problem appearing on my GPS device. No sucess with the PM, so will try posting them here. Hopefuly you will pick them up.

Hi Mike,

I have:

1. Reset the device’s routing preferences to neutral, as you say roundabout halfway between motorways, A roads, B roads and bumpy track.

2. I have checked via the Garmin’s website that the software is up-to-date. It tells me that version 4.60 is the latest. I have now reinstalled it. Are there any other updates that I should check for?

I asked the device (BMW motorrad Navigator II, with map version 8) to plot a route from ‘Home’ (in central London) to Algeciras on the southern tip of Spain, which it did quite happily.

I then asked the device to plot a ‘Fastest route’ from ‘Home’ to Fes, Morocco. It started the process (the little box in the left hand corner lit up and the route plotting wiggly line started to run, and the right hand lower tab showed ‘calculating’ as normal). Then it stopped and the device showed the message:

Route Calculation Error: Not enough memory available.

I then asked the device to plot a ‘Shortest distance’ route from ‘Home’ to Fes. The same failure occurred, with the same error message.

I then asked the device to plot a route from ‘Home’ to the southern tip of Italy. All OK and had the same success form ‘Home’ to a tiny village in the very north of Sweden, picked at complete random from the map. Again complete success.

I then suspected it may be a problem between choosing a destination on Map version 8 Europe and one on the base map. So I chose ‘Home’ to Moscow, Russia. Again it worked properly. So, it would seem that neither the map nor pure road mile distance would seem to be the problem.

I then tried ‘Home’ to Casablanca, Morocco. Failure. The Route calculation Error: Not enough memory available message came up again.

Lacking anything better to do I then asked the device to plot a route to Saratov from ‘Home’, a distance of about 2,414 miles into central Russia. This route worked fine.

I then tried, ‘Home’ to both Ankara, Turkey and Tiblisi in Georgia (about 3,012 miles) again both routes were plotted OK.

But then complete failure with ‘Home’ to Marrakech, Morocco and, oddly, failure with ‘Home’ to Hammerfest in the very north of Norway and with ‘Home’ to Norrkap (I think it’s in Norway).

I then asked the device to plot a route from Fes, Morocco to Casablanca, Morocco.

This the device did quite happily. But the device then failed to plot a route from Casablanca to ‘Home.’ The Route calculation Error: Not enough memory available message came up again.

I then tried Casablanca to Algeciras, in Southern Spain. This is the Spanish port city used for the ferries between Spain and Morocco. Complete failure and the same Route Calculation Error, not enough memory!

So, I have tried multiple permutations. Some work, some don’t. Pure distance doesn’t seem to be the obstacle, nor does jumping from V8 to the base map appear to create a problem. Journeys within Morocco seem fine, but routes into or out of the country seem to fail. There was also a failure with London to some locations in north Scandinavia (but not others) whilst London to southern Italy, deepest Russia and Georgia and into Turkey all seem OK.

Writing routes on my PC and then transferring them to the device seems to create no problems at all, which seems to suggest that it's the device's ability to calculate some routes that is suspect.

Any ideas?

Kind regards,

Richard Nash

Richard,

Sorry to hijack, but you have PM too. Is your box full?

David

DavidHale said:

Richard,

Sorry to hijack, but you have PM too. Is your box full?

David

Click to expand...

David,

Sorry, I missed your message.

Have replied now.

Richard

Just a thought, but i've had a few routing problems with ferry routes on my quest. ie it doesn't recognise some of the available routes. So much so that i've had to make two independant routes one on either side of the channel. Is there a chance that your unit doesn't think there's a ferry from spain to morroco, and it's trying to route you around the med ?

st247 said:

Just a thought, but i've had a few routing problems with ferry routes on my quest. ie it doesn't recognise some of the available routes. So much so that i've had to make two independant routes one on either side of the channel. Is there a chance that your unit doesn't think there's a ferry from spain to morroco, and it's trying to route you around the med ?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I wondered about that too whilst tidying the garage this afternoon.. Am going to try routing to Crete, Malta and some other islands to see what happens. It doesn't explain though why it struggled with the very top end of the Nordic region (maybe there are some small ferries )

I would be interested to hear if anyone can get a similar device, with V8 map, to calculate London to Casablanca.

A general advice is to avoid creating extremely long routes in the GPS device. This you should do in MapSource on the PC and upload the routes to the GPS.

The reason is that the GPS has memory limitations that you don't have on the PC. The final long route may very well fit into the GPS but during the route finding & optimization process it may happen that the software is testing alternative routes that are very far off and therefore needs extremely much memory.

And who needs one long 15-days route? Chop it up in smaller pieces and your problems are gone.

A correction and a credit to st247

I had said that I thought I could ask my PC to find a route from London to Casablanca, Morocco. I was wrong. I can't. The PC has several goes (for about 30 seconds) then gives up and simply plots an 'As the crow' flys route in a straight line between the two cities. I guess that the BMW Nav II cannot cope with 30 seconds of calculations, so gives up. Hence the memory shortage message.

I can only assume that st247 is right, the ferry route between southern Spain and the northern Moroccan coast is not shown on the V8 map, so no routing is possible, the software treating ferries as 'roads', which makes sense. This would explain why route calculations within Morocco are OK, but not the very short journey from Morocco to Spain. There are no ferries in Morocco, but of course there is one from Morocco to Spain.

I guess that the device had a similar problem with London to Norrkap but not to some obscure northern Swedish village. Maybe there is a small ferry enroute or the road 'vanishes' between London and Norkapp? It also explains why the device is able to plot from London to darkest Georgia witout any problem. The device 'knows' about the Dover to Calais crossing and there are roads all the way for the remainder of the three and a half thousand miles.

HMR said:

A general advice is to avoid creating extremely long routes in the GPS device. This you should do in MapSource on the PC and upload the routes to the GPS.

The reason is that the GPS has memory limitations that you don't have on the PC. The final long route may very well fit into the GPS but during the route finding & optimization process it may happen that the software is testing alternative routes that are very far off and therefore needs extremely much memory.

And who needs one long 15-days route? Chop it up in smaller pieceIs and your problems are gone.

Click to expand...

Hej HMR and tak for the input.

The problem seems to revolve around the ferries, not the distance.

It is only a few kms from Morocco to southern Spain but no ferry route is shown on the map, so the PC and the device both fail to make a calculation being unable to cope with a blue expanse of water. This is not a critism of the device or the software. It makes perfect sense to me that water = 'no roads' = difficult or impossible calculation = limited memory = no route on the device or a compromise straight line on the PC. The PC did its best and gave me a 'direct route' (straight line, between London and Morocco) I guess because it's memory for calculations is so much bigger than the device.

I only made the device perform the very long calculations (which it did very quickly and well) for the theoretical journies from London to deepest Russia, Turkey and Georgia to see how it managed the task. That it did so correctly quickly is a credit to its computing power.

I agree that, as a basic rule, it is better to break routes into bit sized chunks when using the GPS device itself (not the PC). Unless you want to go the short distance from Morocco to Spain or there is an 'unknown' ferry in the way, in which case it doesn't matter how short the journey is, the calculation will not be made.

Could it not also be that if you're using City Navigator Europe, Morocco isn't on the mapping?

samwise said:

Could it not also be that if you're using City Navigator Europe, Morocco isn't on the mapping?

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Neither are Moscow, Saratov, Tblisi or Ankara. All of these non-European cities live on the base map (not on European V8 per-se) but the device copes with routes to them, no sweat. Similarly, the device copes well with routes in Morocco itself and, as I have just seen, from Moscow to Saratov. It is, as st247 surmised, all to do with the ferries (or more precisely) the lack of some ferry routes held on the maps.

Does the base map itself have ferry crossings anywhere else?

CN/CS have ferry crossings within the mapping area (i.e., Western Europe), but maybe they don't when leaving that mapping area - although I would have thought the ferry to Ceuta should be on there, as it's Spanish enclave in Africa. Then again, Microsoft AutoRoute Europe 2005 doesn't show the ferry either, and that uses NavTeq data too.

samwise said:

Does the base map itself have ferry crossings anywhere else?

CN/CS have ferry crossings within the mapping area (i.e., Western Europe), but maybe they don't when leaving that mapping area - although I would have thought the ferry to Ceuta should be on there, as it's Spanish enclave in Africa. Then again, Microsoft AutoRoute Europe 2005 doesn't show the ferry either, and that uses NavTeq data too.

Click to expand...

I have no idea about the other ferries on the base map. I guess you could experiment with the Black Sea or the Caspian. I am just happy that the riddle of Morocco is resolved. The V8 Europe map certainly has the ferries to Sciliy and Sardinia as I simulated a route from Rome to each.

The Cueta ferry certainly isn't there, on V* or the base map. NavTeq do not regard a few square miles of fly blown Spanish Morocco as Europe and I can't say I blame them! As the old mapping of Spain and Ireland was a bit dodgy it's not surprising the north coast of the dark continent is shrowded in mystery.

Hi Richard:

Sorry, just saw your note (above) now.

I'm going to refer the Garmin software engineers to this thread, it sounds like you may have identified a 'bug'. I have a few guesses about why you might be encountering that error, but rather than me guessing, it would be better for all if the Garmin software engineers determined what the problem was - that way, they can solve it and the fix will be incorporated into the next software update.

Michael

PanEuropean said:

Hi Richard:

Sorry, just saw your note (above) now.

I'm going to refer the Garmin software engineers to this thread, it sounds like you may have identified a 'bug'. I have a few guesses about why you might be encountering that error, but rather than me guessing, it would be better for all if the Garmin software engineers determined what the problem was - that way, they can solve it and the fix will be incorporated into the next software update.

Michael

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Hi Mike,

I think I am delighted to have found a 'bug'.....Is there a prize?

Kind regards,

Richard Nash (Wapping)