New routing flakiness

[axil]

Very glad to hear you are seeing some potential improvement.

One question: are these routes using the same start and end points? I know my 660 basically refuses to navigate routes if the start and end are too close together, much less identical.

-dan

No, that doesn't seem to be the problem. I have run into problems in the past when I have anything close to a loop anywhere in the route, so I try to avoid that. If I am doing a loop I will generally split it into one route out and a second route to get back.

In the cases where I have had the problem, the route initially loads fine and I can preview it without problems. It is only when I am close to one of the shaping or waypoints along that route that it attempts to recalculate and fails.

I'll be out riding next week, so I can do some more testing.

[axil]

So, I did get out yesterday to test again. I created a new route, sent it to the SD card, and imported it on the 660. At the first shaping point it recalculate successfully and then continued on the route. That the unit recalculates at shaping points, failing when the route is sent directly to it rather than being imported, is something that has only started with this specific software (5.10) and map (2019.30) release.

Most of the rest of the trip was fine, except one section of the device routing did not match what I had created in BC. Rather than going around one lake, the unit wanted me to go to the shaping point near the lake then U-turn and go around the shorter side.

[stkm04]

Hi Axil -
I have been experiencing exactly the same problem with my 660 for quite some time. I don't remember when exactly the problem started, but by now it has spanned many map updates and firmware updates.

I did try recalculating on both the Garmin and BC, nothing helped so far. I am sure that all my way points are on roads (I did check that manually in BC) but still I get this error from time to time.
I did not find a solution yet - only the same work-around (when on the road): Reloading the route and hope for the best....

Since this is a very annoying problem (Reloading a route while riding my Harley is no fun, in particular not in winter with thick gloves on...) I am very interested in learning what you find.

I have a question for you: When you wrote "sent it to the SD card, and imported it on the 660", what exactly did you do? Export route from BC as GPX, then save it on the SD card (Which folder), and then how did you import it?

Thanks!

[axil]

Since this is a very annoying problem (Reloading a route while riding my Harley is no fun, in particular not in winter with thick gloves on...) I am very interested in learning what you find.

I have a question for you: When you wrote "sent it to the SD card, and imported it on the 660", what exactly did you do? Export route from BC as GPX, then save it on the SD card (Which folder), and then how did you import it?

Thanks!

Hi stkm04,

Yes, it is incredibly annoying. I was prepared to buy a new GPS if I couldn't find a workaround. I am planning a 2 month trip in the spring and couldn't imagine reloading the route every 15 minutes.

I am doing everything within BC. I create the route there and then, with the GPS connected via USB, I copy (drag & drop) the route to the SD subfolder of the Zumo 660 (under the "Devices" folder), rather than to the "Internal Storage" subfolder. It should be listed as something like "Memory Card (X:)", where "X" is whatever drive letter gets assigned to the SD card on your PC when you plug in the USB. When you disconnect and reboot the Zumo, it should pop up a message "New User Data detected. Import now?". If not, or if you just want to do it later, you can import it by going to "Tools"/"My Data"/"Import Data"/"Routes"/.

Viewed from the PC, the routes get copied to the folder X:/Garmin/GPX/ and are named RouteN.gpx (Route.gpx, Route1.gpx, ...) . You can find the actual route name by looking for the tag "name" in the XML file (if you are don't mind looking at XML - I have a linux/cygwin shell script that renames the RouteN.gpx files to the actual route names to help me manage lots of stored routes).

I would be interested to know if this method works for you. Garmin has certainly messed this up badly.

[stkm04]

Hi Axil -
I'll play around with the method you describe (copying to the SD card and then importing manually) and will report back. But since the error occurs randomly I don't know when that is going to be...

Thanks,
Stefan

[danham]

For what it's worth, I do this a little differently and do not have much trouble with routes.

Create the route in BC. Export it (not drag or copy it) as a GPX file, saving it wherever you like on your computer or an external drive, but NOT on your zumo. Connect the zumo, then drag the file onto the SD card, placing it in a Garmin/GPX folder. I also tend to say No to importing new user data, as that can result in duplicated waypoints and other annoyances. Instead, I go to My Data, Import Routes and grab the route that is stored on my SD card.

-dan

[axil]

For what it's worth, I do this a little differently and do not have much trouble with routes.

Create the route in BC. Export it (not drag or copy it) as a GPX file, saving it wherever you like on your computer or an external drive, but NOT on your zumo. Connect the zumo, then drag the file onto the SD card, placing it in a Garmin/GPX folder. I also tend to say No to importing new user data, as that can result in duplicated waypoints and other annoyances. Instead, I go to My Data, Import Routes and grab the route that is stored on my SD card.

-dan

Hi danham,

I suspect that the two methods do exactly the same thing. I tested that by exporting a route explicitly to my hard drive and then drag & dropped the same route to the SD card using BC. The two files are identical except for the XML creation timestamp. The advantage of doing it the way you suggest is that the Window filename is the same as the route name, which is definitely a good thing.

BTW you don't need to place routes in the Garmin/GPX folder if you are explicitly putting them on the SD card. I keep a second folder on the SD card called Routes and use that to store explicitly exported routes. The Zumo will find them when it boots up and they can be imported in the usual way.

[danham]

axil,

Thanks. I like to dive into the XML and edit filenames and also arrange things by trips and create dividers in the GPX folder on my SD card, but none of that has any bearing on how the route behaves; it's just easier for my brain to follow when I'm on the road. (You can make dividers by using -------- as the filename of a dummy route.)

-dan