Question for PanEuropean or Garmin. BMW Navigator III running City Navigator NT+ V8

[Wapping]

Michael,

I have, I think, just found something odd with BMW Navigator III running City Navigator NT+ V8.

If I create a route on my PC in City Navigator NT+ V8 send it to the device and then ask it to simulate driving the route everything is fine. The device simulates driving the route exactly. No problem.

However, when a route is created on a third party PC, running City Navigator V8 (not NT+) a problem seems to occur.

The route can be sent to the device and appears in the My Data / Routes / Navigate Saved Routes screen. No problem so far.

If I then ask the device to simulate navigating the route I get a message saying: The route does not match the available maps and that the route will not follow the roads precisely. It then goes on to ask me if I want to recalculate. I guess this is logical as the route was drawn in V8 and I am running NT+ V8? Irrespective of whether I then click YES or NO to this question, what happens next is very odd.

The device starts running the simulation from whatever point on the map the device last believed I was at ie. It does not simulate driving the route at all, but rather seems to try to take me to my simulated route’s destination (or to the start, I cannot tell as I haven't had the patience to let it run one all the way through yet) from where it thinks I am at the moment. For instance:

(1) I use the device on my bike right up to my front door in London and turn it off.

(2) I then go inside, turn it on and switch it to indoor use. The device’s map shows my last known position and my home location.

(3) I then ask it to simulate driving a saved route downloaded from a third party PC created in bogstandard V8 (see above) from, say, Paris to Berlin.

(4) I get the prompt that the route I am asking it to simulate does not match the maps (see above)

(5) I click either YES or NO (it appears to make no difference to what happens next)

(6) The simulation starts to run, not from Paris but from home.

Any ideas?

==============

One more question if I may:

What is the difference between City Navigator NT+ V8 and City Navigator V8 (without the NT+)?

Many thanks,

Richard

 

[PanEuropean]

Hi Richard:

Two issues here.

1) What you think is the problem (you have CN 8 NT inside your GPSR, and your friend has 'plain old' CN 8 - not NT - inside his computer) is in fact the cause of the 'route recalculation' prompt that you get when you try to run the route created with 'plain' CN 8 on your GPSR.

2) (I'm going to presume the GPSR is in simulation mode - meaning, it has no satellite signal. If it does have a satellite signal, then it's behaving as it should.) It's trying to start the simulation from where the GPSR last knew itself to be at - your home - not from the beginning of the route. I don't know if that is intentional behaviour or not, I'll mention it to the engineering staff. You can workaround that problem by putting the GPSR into simulation mode (indoor mode), then telling it that it is at a new location (in Paris, near the start of the route), then activating the route.

Please double-check and tell me if the GPSR is, in fact, in simulation mode (indoor mode) when you try and simulate the route. If it happens to be seeing enough satellites out the kitchen window while you are sitting at the table fooling around with it, it will establish a position fix and then do the logical thing - try to guide you from your kitchen to the start of the route in Paris. If you want to simulate a route, the GPSR must be in 'simulation' or 'indoor' mode.

As for maps... I'm not 100% sure what all the differences are between 'plain' CN products and CN 'NT' products. Garmin explains the difference as being in the file structure, which I presume includes how the cartography is indexed. I think (but am not sure) that you also need to have NT version maps in order to get FM traffic broadcast information displayed on your GPSR, because the FM traffic broadcasts use their own special mapping format - practically like a 'map within a map'. Again, I'm not 100% sure on that one - only about 95% sure. Anyway, I can create a 100 foot route along a single road, for example, from number 1 Main Street to number 10 Main street, and if I create the route in 'plain' CN 8 and download it into my GPSR that is running CN 8 NT, I get the same recalculation prompt. So, I would not worry too much about the risk of the GPSR changing the route. You could double-check this by perhaps putting something unusual into the route (a diversion to the downtown area of a small town), and then confirming that the diversion is preserved when the recalculation is done on the GPSR.

One thing I do know for sure is that there is zero difference in the roads and streets contained on a 'plain' CN product and a CN 'NT' product, provided that the version number is the same for both.

Michael

 

[Wapping]

Michal,

Many thanks for your clear and prompt reply.

I am sure that I put the device into 'Use indoors' mode, so leakage in of some weak satellite signals would seem to be unlikely.

I am away today but will recheck everything on my return and report back.

Thank you also for your thoughts on the differences betwen vanilla V8 and the NT+ version.

Richard

 

[Wapping]

Michael,

I have rechecked:

(A) The device is in ‘use indoors’ mode. The GPS info screen shows ‘GPS off’.

(B) The base map shows my location as Home in central London. This is correct and was where I was when the device was last powered up on my bike, one hour ago.

(C) I selected a route I had downloaded from a friend’s machine, Paris to Berlin, written in vanilla City Navigator V8 (not NT+).


(D) I requested that the device simulate driving the route

(E) The device asked if I wished to recalculate Yes or No, as the maps did not match. I checked YES.

(F) The device then asked if I wanted to simulate driving the route. I checked YES

(G) The device then asked if I wished to restart simulation when navigation is complete. I checked NO

(H) The device then recalculated.

(I) I was then asked again whether I wanted to simulate driving the route. I checked YES.

(J) I was then asked again whether I wished to restart simulation when navigation is complete. I checked NO

You will note that prompts (E) and (F) are repeated in (I) and (J) – once before recalculation and again after recalculation.

(K) The device started me from Home in London, not from Paris.

(L) I let the simulation continue, until the simulation took me out of London, down the motorway, heading for the port of Dover.

(M) I then stopped the simulation with me on the motorway towards Dover and started a fresh simulation on another route down loaded from my friend’s machine. This time, Madrid to Lisbon.

(N) Again the device went through the stages (E) through (J) above, except this time it ran the simulation from the point on the motorway described in (L) above.

I concluded that, when carrying out the recalculation process, prior to running the simulation, the device somehow ‘leaks’ information from the last known position.and then mixes this position into the simulation. It then displays the simulation as starting from that point (London not Paris or halfway down a motorway in the UK not Madrid) and starts from there, rather than from the start point of the saved route. This conclusion is, as you will see, not entirely right.


I then wondered whether some sort of glitch came across from my friend’s PC and decided to see if I could replicate the problem using my own PC.


To check what happened I wrote a fresh route Manchester to Glasgow, on my PC in City Navigator NT+ V8, downloaded it to the device and simulated driving it.

(A) There was no recalculation prompt. This is logical as the maps match.

(B) The screen briefly showed my position as being on the motorway to Dover (the last place I was) but quickly flashed itself to Manchester and started the simulation of taking me to Glasgow. Everything was fine.

On my PC I then wrote a fresh route, Bruxelles to Rome, in vanilla City Navigator V8 (not NT+) and downloaded it to the device. Not unsurprisingly I received a prompt to recalculate, as the maps do not match. In brief, I then repeated (E) through (J) but, again, instead of starting the simulation in Bruxelles it started the simulation a little outside Manchester (see B in the paragraph above).

I then checked whether the problem went away if I checked NO when prompted to recalculate. In other words, would it run the simulation of the Bruxelles to Rome route starting in Bruxelles? It made no difference, the simulation did not start in Bruxelles, it started from the last known point, somewhere between Manchester and Glasgow. In other words it still started the simulation from the device's last known point.

The results, to me at least, seem clear.

(1) The problem has nothing to do with me using two different PCs. There is no strange imported bug coming from my friend’s PC.

(2) If the route is written using City Navigator NT+ V8, downloaded to the Navigator III and then simulated, everything is fine.

(3) If the route is written using vanilla City Navigator V8 (not NT+) and then downloaded to the device. Then, with or without recalculation, the subsequent simulation is wrong. The simulation always seems to run from the device’s last known position, not from the start point of the route for which simulation has been requested.

Whilst I am not big on paranoia, I am now staring to wonder if anything else strange starts to happen to routes written in anything other than City Navigator NT+ V8.

I would be interested to hear your / Garmin’s views.

Richard

======================

PS At the risk of hijacking my own thread.

You may recall that I raised an observation a few months ago about my Navigator II displaying an ‘Out of memory’ message, when I requested Morocco to London. At the time the only conclusion that I could draw was that, as there is no ferry route shown between the North African coast and Spain, the device was confused as to how it was to calculate the crossing of the Mediterranean. I was pleased to learn that the same bug / glitch exists on the Navigator III. However, due to its much quicker calculation time, the ‘Out of memory’ message flashes up quicker - which, I guess, is progress of some sort

 

[PanEuropean]

Hi Richard:

My guess is that you have identified (and very professionally documented) a software snag in the Nav III. I'll bring this thread to the attention of the software engineering team.

Michael

PS: Just for the record, please confirm what version of unit software you are running in your GPSR, and what exact version of CN Europe NT you are using. You can get that info by pressing MENU / SETTINGS / ABOUT. I think the ABOUT command is kind of out of sight, down on the bottom right corner... it's not a big rectangle like most of the other commands are.

 

[Wapping]

PS: Just for the record, please confirm what version of unit software you are running in your GPSR, and what exact version of CN Europe NT you are using. You can get that info by pressing MENU / SETTINGS / ABOUT. I think the ABOUT command is kind of out of sight, down on the bottom right corner... it's not a big rectangle like most of the other commands are.

I will check this evening.

Richard

 

[Wapping]

Michael,

Software version 2.2

City Navigator Europe NT+ v8.02 (found on DVD) on the device it simply says, City Navigator Europe NT+ v8 ALL

I have also downloaded the latest updates from the Garmin website onto the device.

Richard

 

[PanEuropean]

Software version 2.2

Richard:

You have out of date software. Go to the Garmin website and download the WebUpdater program, install that on your PC, then hook up the BMW Nav III to the PC using the USB cable and run WebUpdater. Pay close attention to the prompts on the computer screen when you use WebUpdater - it normally requires two passes to get everything fully updated. So, when it offers to check for 'additional updates', accept that offer, say YES. Unit software gets updated first, then you are offered language updates.

That will bring you up to software 3.0 (at least), see if that solves the problem.

Michael

 

[Wapping]

Richard:

You have out of date software. Go to the Garmin website and download the WebUpdater program, install that on your PC, then hook up the BMW Nav III to the PC using the USB cable and run WebUpdater. Pay close attention to the prompts on the computer screen when you use WebUpdater - it normally requires two passes to get everything fully updated. So, when it offers to check for 'additional updates', accept that offer, say YES. Unit software gets updated first, then you are offered language updates.

That will bring you up to software 3.0 (at least), see if that solves the problem.

Michael

Michael,

Now here’s an odd thing.

I had already run the Updater two or three days ago, being an obvious place to start. From memory it simply installed an update to allow better communication with mobile ‘phones that hadn’t had a firmware update. This installed fine.

The Updater finds the device OK and it appears in the dropdown screen.

When I ran the Updater again just now it says there are no updates available for the device. This is followed by a second advice that there may be further updates available. When I click next again it runs a second check that tells me updates are available but they only appear to be voice updates for various countries in a tick-box choice table.

If version 3 or higher is meant to be available then the Updater, for some reason, is not picking it up as missing on my device?

I then went into the Garmin site and clicked on the 2820 page (basically the same model I believe) and onto the Updates and downloads menu. There it says, No software is currently available for this product. Please check back for updates.

I then went to the BMW site and checked for updates. The only one mentioned there is: Changes from 2.10 to 2.20: - Modified internal file name. No functional changes. As I already have 2.2 I guess that's it?

Richard

 

[PanEuropean]

Geez, I'm stumped now. I've been running 3.0 since the old King died... but, I can't find it on either the Garmin or BMW website.

I don't know what to say... guess we will just have to wait.

Michael

 

[Wapping]

Geez, I'm stumped now. I've been running 3.0 since the old King died... but, I can't find it on either the Garmin or BMW website.

I don't know what to say... guess we will just have to wait.

Michael

Look forward to the news.

Richard