550 re-routing

[BillL]

The experience described below may be related to other posts:
Might this be related to the discussion here?: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=526
Or here?: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=608

I have been experiencing what appears to be routes re-calculating in the Zumo that were created in BaseCamp. These recalculations ignore and or delete what I would call “shaping points” created by dragging a route just created in BaseCamp to use a road that was not initially used on the route.

My most recent use brought this distinctly to light as I have been suspicious of “odd behavior” recently.

Here are the details. Route created in BaseCamp. a starting “favorite” and a destination “favorite” from the database. Both favorites are my creations, not coming direction from the map. I then drag the route around by clicking and dragging to a preferred roadway.

The experience this past week-end that brought this to something recognizable for me was a trip from Newark Liberty Airport to suburban Hartford, Connecticut. My route started from the rental car terminal and ended at a hotel in Farmington CT. I placed 3 shaping points to place the route to take us north on I95 to the George Washington Bridge, cross the Hudson River and quickly turn north again on I87. Then onto the Hutchinson River Parkway east and north towards intersecting with I684 North. The goal here is to reach Danbury CT and then East in I84 into the Hartford area.

All of the above planning done in BaseCamp 4.8.7 on MacOS 10.14.6 MacBook Pro. City Navigator North America NT 2020.2.
Zumo stats are Software eversion 5.00, Map CN North America NT 2020.20
Map resided on an SD card in the slot. No maps in the Zumo's internal memory slots.

My routes and waypoints are then exported from basecamp to a gpx file and drag copied to the Zumo. I then import selected favorites and routes into the Zumo from the gpx file.

I chose the route to navigate as we exited the car rental terminal, very close to the coordinates of the starting “favorite”. We were on the route and not a quarter mile down the street when the Zumo directed a turn onto a street that struck me as no quite correct. I did so and the Zumo immediately said make a u-turn. It appeared in the Zimo display that a shaping point had been placed there. Well, as in many airport circumstances this was a one-way street and it, we were headed back into the airport and the departure terminals, unable to make a u-turn. At that point the Zumo recalculated. It did so several times in the course of getting back out the the departure terminals maze of roads as it seemed unable to reconcile the roads we were on and the map database.

We finally made our way out of the airport. The new route took us on truck routs and into the city streets of Palisades Park, New Jersey as the Zumo attempted to get us to the I95 George Washington Bridge. We made it there and the Zumo continued to guide us east on I95 across the Bronx and then NE on I95 all the way to New Haven and then north on I91 to the Hartford area.

Essentially, the Zumo trashed my route and shaping points either on import or on the first recalculation at the phantom shaping point and stuck to what it wanted to do and the planned route was gone. A couple missed ramps and wrong turns on the truck routes made for a frustrating drive in an area that is complicated and unfamiliar.

So, has anyone experienced a Zumo throwing out a route and waypoints when going off course and re-calculating?

My experience has been that the Zumo goes back to the original route plan. Not so this time. Pretty unnerving.

Thanks for any and all discussion

Bill

[sussamb]

You could simply have fallen foul of the fact that Garmin does not recommend using BaseCamp with your Zumo, see https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=i ... wZpVKmw7t9

[BillL]

To me, that seems to say "if you want to use MacOS, don't bother looking at Garmin". What am I missing? I've been using BaseCamp for years without apparent trouble. Maybe the complexity of road choices and my lack of familiarity of the environment finally illustrated the shortcoming.

What software should be used on MacOS? Has this always been the case?

[rbentnail]

Perhaps try doing it differently:

instead of dragging the route, try using the insert and move editing tools. Dragging the route to modify it creates problems with the 595 too, requiring excessive shaping points to keep the route where I want it to be. It's just quirky that way.

[BillL]

Perhaps try doing it differently:

instead of dragging the route, try using the insert and move editing tools. Dragging the route to modify it creates problems with the 595 too, requiring excessive shaping points to keep the route where I want it to be. It's just quirky that way.

There has been a lot of discussion on these forums about such tools. I don't know where they exist. As a Mac user, I gave up on MapSource at the time BaseCamp came to be. I have never been able to find "insert" or "edit" tools in terms of a route. The only thing that BaseCamp for this OS can do is click and drag to move a route to a different road. Neither have I be to tell the difference be via point or a shaping point in BaseCamp. Clicking and dragging a route inserts a point into the list of objects in the route. I have no idea what kind of a point it is. Except it does not seem to be a waypoint as it does not seem to be an object in the database. The software seems to make no distinction if different types of points exist.

It seems to me that the Windows version and the Mac version of BaseCamp may have different toolsets. Or perhaps the distinction between BaseCamp and MapSource sometimes gets lost in discussions.

[Breezly]

Ok there is a lot to digest here. I used Basecamp for several years with my Zumo 550 without issues. It worked fine but there are a couple of caveats. Also, Basecamp works perfectly fine on MAC OS and has every bit the functionality as the Windows version. Don't let anyone tell you differently. Yes Garmin claims BC does not play well with earlier GPS units but the issue is easily avoided.

You say that you started the route near the beginning point and there in may be part of the problem. You should place your beginning point where you will actually drive through it. If you bypass the beginning point, depending on the settings in your 550, it could force a recalculation of your route.

You need to make sure that all of your settings, including avoidances, in Basecamp and on your Zumo are the same to the extent that's possible. For example, if Baecamp is set to shortest route and your Zumo is set to fastest time your routes will likely never be the same.

Another thing to check after you've created the route in Basecamp, open the route dialog box and check to be sure there are no shaping points. Shaping points, (not what you refer to as shaping points) are a special kind of via point in Basecamp and are not recognized by older GPSs like the 550. This is the compatability issue between Basecamp and the 550 that caused Garmin to claim BC was not compatible with the 550.

I recommend you take some time to go through the New England Riders Basecamp Tutorial for MAC (link in my signature). The tutorials were developed by and for motorcycle riders but are equally useful for automotive use of the Zumo, and cover what you need to know to get the Zumo to behave for you.

[sussamb]

To me, that seems to say "if you want to use MacOS, don't bother looking at Garmin". What am I missing? I've been using BaseCamp for years without apparent trouble. Maybe the complexity of road choices and my lack of familiarity of the environment finally illustrated the shortcoming.

What software should be used on MacOS? Has this always been the case?

Not just on Macs, Garmin don't recommend BaseCamp for your zumo on Windows either. However as Breezly says many use BaseCamp quite happily, seems that occasionally though folks get bitten, either due to a specific area of a map or something else within the route they are trying to use. The New England tutorial Breezly has linked to though is a good starting point in understanding fully how best to use BaseCamp.

[BillL]

Gentlemen,

Thank you for the input. I never knew that BaseCamp was not recommended. I bought the 550 in 2006 or 2007. When BaseCamp hit, I was so happy to dump Windows. The 550 was the only thing that I needed Windows for.

I was a user on the old site, too. I never came across the BaseCamp-older Zumo warnings.

I saw the post on the tutorial as I was looking around here on the new site. I'll go back to it and figure out how to get it. I did read far enough to learn that the author has taken steps to protect it.

Maybe I'll learn something. I considered replacing the 550 several times over the years and always concluded that the 550 remained superior. Even the new 595, I'm not sure about. There no longer seems to be specifications on how many routes can reside inside, etcetera. When I figured out how to have maps reside on an SD card and not in the unit, many of my early troubles went away. (memory overruns and lockups requiring rests).Learned that from the old community, lots of whom now seem to reside here. Thanks for that, whoever started it.

The 595 display would be really nice. That coupled with what seems a new generation of maps and on-route guidance.

Bill

[Breezly]

"I saw the post on the tutorial as I was looking around here on the new site. I'll go back to it and figure out how to get it. I did read far enough to learn that the author has taken steps to protect it."

The tutorials I referred to are not protected - they are freely downloadable PDF files. In fact we encourage folks to share them. They've been used by folks to teach classes all over the country. Just our way of giving back to the motorcycling community.

We have tutorials for both the Windows and Mac versions. The key to using them is to start at the very beginning and do not skip anything.

https://www.newenglandriders.org/GPS/Learn_BaseCamp.htm

[BillL]

Thank you!