Closest entry point... A new function in the XT

Quick update on this issue
Despite the fact that i was being told otherwise there was a issue with basecamp and the XT
The latest update to basecamp has sorted the problem

https://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4435

" Change History
Changes made from version 4.7.1 to 4.7.2:

Fixed routing mismatch issue on Zumo XT
Fixed map display issue on Zumo XT
Re-enabling Yelp searching
Various stability and bug fixes
FourSquare and Parkopedia products will now be displayed in BaseCamp as pre-loaded maps on specific devices "

The XT now works fine with routing now basecamp and the XT have been updated
So thats good news

It's also worth remembering in future unless you have got the particular unit in front of you so you can see for youself
how it works and what is going on..DON'T assume it works like other units

You assumed that it should work like your other units, too. But now it seemingly does work like other units, so you will be happy. Just remember not to place your viapoints miles of the road. As to the rest? I doubt if anyone is going to apologise for trying to help you. See post #56 and be thankful for the good assistance you did receive, not least with sorting several of your posts (relating to various topics, challenges and problems) into some sort of logical order.

Enjoy the device, you have waited for this happy day long enough.

Just coming back after a couple of months away from this thread ....

Reading through - I spotted a comment which stated something that I also believed to be true until a few months back.

When I got my XT, I noticed odd behaviour in a route. I was testing what the XT did when I skipped a route point. It did what I expected - except that a section of the route a few points up the road was dramatically changed.

It turned out that that for that particular section, it was a close call between going one way and going another way. The original route went over the hill, the other way was to double back and take a longer but faster route. It chose to double back.
I verified that this was the cause, so I was not bothered too much about that.
But why did it recalculate ?

So I did some more tests with a BAsecamp route from which I had retained the Via points but stripped the shaping points. THe satnav should retain the original route. It did.
But as soon as I skipped a route point, the entire route was recalculated. Not just the current section up to the next route point. Every single section was now altered.

I reported the faults to Garmin, and had some replies. In the meantime, I did some more tests. The same happened on the Zumo 595. And the 590.
Which came as a big surprise.

I am still not sure if this happens when the route recalculates when you wander off route briefly. Easy to test but I haven't done so yet.
But it puts a big hole in the notion that Stripping the shaping points retains the original route. It does - but the second it recalculates, it is gone. All those so-called 'Ghost Points' in a Basecamp route are completely redundant as far as I can see.


I had to withdraw the complaint - although a third issue is still being investigated. (The fact that when you change a Via Point to a Shaping point on the zumo route, the point changes its location - current view is that this might well be a software error).

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Another point regarding faster time and shorter distance, and a change in behaviour.

On the 590, If you create a route in Basecamp and set the profile to shorter distance, that property stays with the route. When the route is loaded, the route will use shorter distance if it recalculates - not the profile that is set for motorcycle in the Zumo 590.

In the 595 and XT the opposite is true. If you set the route to be for a Motorcycle and faster time in Basecamp, the Zumo will use whatever mode is set in the Zumo itself for the motorcycle. The only piece of data that it uses from the BAsecamp profile is car or motorcycle.

With v 2.90 - or perhaps one of the previous upgrades - Closest Entry Point has again changed its behaviour.

AFter the second update to V2.50 I repoted on here that it really did seem to find the closes place on the route and navigate the shaping points and Via points from that location. I tried to work out which route point it was aiming for - but it seemd to find the place on the magenta line that was closest - and not navigate to the closest route point.

That's what I reported way back post #53 28 April.

I didn't check this feature on subsequent upgrades, but I now find that it seems to be finding the Closest Via Point on the route and navigating to that point - ignoring any shaping points between the current location and the closest Via Point. In other words it is a bit like having an automatic 'Select Next Destination' except that it doesn't let you know which point it has chosen.

Furthermore, if you have a circular route, and your final point is closer to your current position than your start point - you are in for a very short ride ! I can't see that this is a good solution at all.

Does anyone know if it ispossible to revert back to previous versions of the software ?

For that reason, I make circular routes in 2 halves


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Does anyone know if it ispossible to revert back to previous versions of the software ?

Click to expand...

Not as far as I know.

jfheath said:

With v 2.90 - or perhaps one of the previous upgrades - Closest Entry Point has again changed its behaviour.

AFter the second update to V2.50 I repoted on here that it really did seem to find the closes place on the route and navigate the shaping points and Via points from that location. I tried to work out which route point it was aiming for - but it seemd to find the place on the magenta line that was closest - and not navigate to the closest route point.

That's what I reported way back post #53 28 April.

I didn't check this feature on subsequent upgrades, but I now find that it seems to be finding the Closest Via Point on the route and navigating to that point - ignoring any shaping points between the current location and the closest Via Point. In other words it is a bit like having an automatic 'Select Next Destination' except that it doesn't let you know which point it has chosen.

Click to expand...

Ok - now I don't understand what is happening here. Having just cleared everything out and reset my machine to empty, I loaded some routes up for a forthcoming trip, and thought - I'd try 'closest' entry again. Picked the first route, set my position to be somewhere between two Via Points, off the plotted route, but closer to a couple of shaping points than anything else. And it came up with a sensible choice, heading for the closest shaping point. It might have actually been heading for the closest point ont he magenta line, but this test didn't show that. One thing is for sure - it did not head for the closest Via Point that my previous tests had shown.

I did download a couple of updates - but these were not for software, they were for translation and text. I don't have the XT set to connect to my wifi - so it cannot update without me using Express. Perhaps there was a patch in one of the updates I downloaded. (It did download a new version of Express - having only just downloaded one two days ago). Alternatively, maybe the XT needs a couple of cold start recycles before downloaded software is implemented.

I'll do some more testing on this - it has me baffled. I'm glad I documented the previous test, otherwise I'd think I was going mad.

Which may still be the case of course !

Just come across this old post from a year ago. Just for completeness I will add this footnote.

V6.20 of the system software. Closest entry point does exactly what it says - as it did with v2.90.

Except.....

Just before you set off, there is a pretty good chance that the XT does not know which way you are facing. If you do not allow the unit to make U turns, it will try to get you to the closest entry point, but you may be forcing it to set off in the wrong direction.
Make sure you have U turns enabled, or that the satnav knows which way you are facing before selecting CEP.
Otherwise you will have a very long ride.

Thank you for the update. It makes perfect sense that the device needs to know which way you are facing or be allowed to make a U-turn, in order to direct its owner to the nearest entry point.

I can imagine the device thinking to itself: “Well, the way to get to the nearest entry point would be to turn the bike around and go that way. But, my owner has told me to avoid turning around in a U-turn, so I’ll do as I’m told, not do the U-turn and we’ll go the other longer way. This of course will be my fault when he realises, but hey I can’t feel pain or even hear him when he shouts at me”.

You do see the devices get confused as to which way they are facing sometimes, most usually because the device does not have a clear view of - or hasn’t locked onto - enough satellites. Sometimes, when starting to ride a route, I take the device out of its cradle and walk it around a little, just so it orientates itself correctly. To me this is no different than taking a paper map or even a compass and turning it to orientate yourself before setting off.

Wapping said:

Thank you for the update. It makes perfect sense that the device needs to know which way you are facing or be allowed to make a U-turn, in order to direct its owner to the nearest entry point.

I can imagine the device thinking to itself: “Well, the way to get to the nearest entry point would be to turn the bike around and go that way. But, my owner has told me to avoid turning around in a U-turn, so I’ll do as I’m told, not do the U-turn and we’ll go the other longer way. This of course will be my fault when he realises, but hey I can’t feel pain or even hear him when he shouts at me”.

You do see the devices get confused as to which way they are facing sometimes, most usually because the device does not have a clear view of - or hasn’t locked onto - enough satellites. Sometimes, when starting to ride a route, I take the device out of its cradle and walk it around a little, just so it orientates itself correctly. To me this is no different than taking a paper map or even a compass and turning it to orientate yourself before setting off.

Click to expand...

It's obvious when you think about it. But when I was trying to work out what was going on and it seemed to work sometimes and not others - particularly when it was near to the start point - it took a while to work it out.
It cannot know which way you are facing until it has moved enough in one direction for it to escape the effect of the random positional errors. The XT seems to have a new feature (in that I haven't noticed it before on the 590 or 595, but then I never looked) - It remembers the direction you were travelling before it decided you had stopped moving. So when stopped, the icon doesn't seem to move around the screen as much. Trouble is, it ignores the fact that the first thing a bike does when parking is to reverse it into a sutiable parking space !!

But so far, with U turns allowed, It can quite happily plot a good route when facing the wrong direction and so far it has never calculated an unreasonable closest entry point. It seems as though they have the test in the wrong place in the software. Better would be to calculate the route first regardless of orientation, then start to naviagate towards it (and allow a U turn no matter what the setting). Once under way, then allow / disallow U turns as set in the preferences.

It is funny that even experienced Garmin users sometimes scratch their heads as to why something happens. As you say, it is obvious - when you think of it - that the device needs to be pointed in the correct direction, if it is not correctly aligned. I can imagine you wondering why it sometimes took you to the most logical nearest entry point and sometimes to somewhere less logical. I think it would have baffled me, too.

As an aside, there is a point in a village in Belgium where my Garmin devices always go haywire, the cursor spinning like a dervish. I guess that just for a moment the satellite signals bounce off houses or something. I go through the village quite regularly, so it amuses me to watch it happen. Ironically, there is also a spot about three hundred yards from my house, where the same thing happens, along with any phone signal dying. I call it the Black Hole of Waitrose.

The good news is that the ‘Nearest entry point’ function does seem to work reliably and, inevitably, logically. One success for the much maligned Garmin company.


PS Now I think about it, I am not sure why I have ‘Allow U-turns’ turned off by choice. I am sure there was a reason, but I can’t now remember why…. Other to avoid the embarrassment of a U-turn, when leading bods on a Wapping Wander.

I now allow "U-turns" as once, in France, I had a nice 15 miles ride to a roundabout, to come back the same 15 miles, oh how I enjoyed seeing the same scenery from a different direction!

John Armstrong said:

I now allow "U-turns" as once, in France, I had a nice 15 miles ride to a roundabout, to come back the same 15 miles, oh how I enjoyed seeing the same scenery from a different direction!

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You are allowed to make a U-turn if you fancy it. I would though not recommend it on a motorway, unless it is very very quiet.

Wapping said:

PS Now I think about it, I am not sure why I have ‘Allow U-turns’ turned off by choice. I am sure there was a reason, but I can’t now remember why…. Other to avoid the embarrassment of a U-turn, when leading bods on a Wapping Wander.

Click to expand...

It can be a pain when you decide to deviate from the route (a misplaced route point) or traffic or an obstruction - and the satnav is determined to get you to go back to the missed shaping point - which it will do until you rejoin the route after the missed shaping point. If U turns are disabled, it just stays quiet if you ignore instructions more than a couple of times.

I'd rather have it turned on because sometimes it is the only way you know that you are following the magenta line in the wrong direction ! I have the volume for instructions turned down pretty low. Just something to alert me to glance at the screen. Its easy to ignore that, and the output from the satnav is balanced fully to the rider on my Autocom, so it doesn't annoy my pillion.

I'd rather have it turned on because sometimes it is the only way you know that you are following the magenta line in the wrong direction….

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That was it. I knew there was a reasonably good reason.

Thank you.

I've not been on the site for a while.

Its interesting to read the analysis from @tomcat of the use of Closest Entry Point. I found very much the same behaviour.

I did my own testing when I got my XT in April 2020. It was a disaster. I think it was v 2.30 of the firmware then. In the following weeks a series of upgrades came out, and although the descrption never mentioned changes, the behaviour changed significantly. First heading to nearest Via point, then it included shaping points as a target, but only those that had been created with Basecamps waypoint flag tool. Then updated again and it selected any route point, via or shaping.

Eventually, by v2.90 it ignored route points completely and headed for the place in the magenta line that is closest to the current position.

And that is how it has remained. We are on v 6.2 now (August 2021)

But there is one setting that seems to affect behaviour seemingly at random.

The Zumo doesn't know which way you are facing until you start moving is my only explanation for this random behaviour, and CEP sometimes produces really odd results apparently heading towards later route point. sometimes I have seen it heading many miles in the wrong direction before turning back to join the route.

A light bulb moment made me change an avoidance settings and I was able to repeat the test multiple times with and without the setting, to confirm that it was this that was affecting the calculated CEP.

Advice. If you are using Closest Entry Point, make sure that you allow U turns.

Thank you for the update and advice to allow U-turns, when using that ‘Closest entry point’ facility.

My memory is going. I forgot that I had already posted that advice on this forum - only a month ago. Sorry about that.

jfheath said:

I've not been on the site for a while.

Its interesting to read the analysis from @tomcat of the use of Closest Entry Point. I found very much the same behaviour.

I did my own testing when I got my XT in April 2020. It was a disaster. I think it was v 2.30 of the firmware then. In the following weeks a series of upgrades came out, and although the descrption never mentioned changes, the behaviour changed significantly. First heading to nearest Via point, then it included shaping points as a target, but only those that had been created with Basecamps waypoint flag tool. Then updated again and it selected any route point, via or shaping.

Eventually, by v2.90 it ignored route points completely and headed for the place in the magenta line that is closest to the current position.

And that is how it has remained. We are on v 6.30 now.

But there is one setting that seems to affect behaviour seemingly at random.

The Zumo doesn't know which way you are facing until you start moving is my only explanation for this random behaviour, and CEP sometimes produces really odd results apparently heading towards later route point. sometimes I have seen it heading many miles in the wrong direction before turning back to join the route.

A light bulb moment made me change an avoidance settings and I was able to repeat the test multiple times with and without the setting, to confirm that it was this that was affecting the calculated CEP.

Advice. If you are using Closest Entry Point, make sure that you allow U turns.

Click to expand...

I thought the latest firmware was 6.2, do you have inside information from Garmin?

Cheney Triumph said:

I thought the latest firmware was 6.2, do you have inside information from Garmin?

Click to expand...

I wonder if it was rolled back. I kept getting messages on the device (on 6.2) that a firmware update was available, but when I plugged it into GE*, there was only the usual Cyclops and iOverlander updates.

* I don't connect it to wifi in case it does an update which buggers it up just before I'm going somewhere