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kernowing wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 8:40 am An excellent post @jfheath thank you. Given your observations, would you agree that the 595 would be a better choice if the price was comparable?

The 595 seems to have a couple of quirks that were carried over to the XT. Odd behaviour that the 590 does not have.
But if you like the Live Track and the Edit Route / skip facilities ... the 595 is a pretty safe bet.

The XT. I ride with it all of the time, but I am on roads with which I have a broad familiarity. I know a lot about it, but if I deviate from a route, I simply cannot trust it to navigate me to the next route point without me running out of fuel before I get there. This would be disastrous in a place that I do not know. I'll illustrate that point with an example from yesterday when I get my XT screen shots onto my PC.

On the other hand, the combination of a route and a track do work pretty well on the XT. But that facility also exists on the 590 and 595.

Example of Unexplained behaviour on the XT.



The first image shows the route that I plotted in magenta. Underlying thatit the track of the route the roads that I followed in dark blue. The route started about 20 miles to the right. The first Via Point flag is shown on the screen shot. (Near Harewood if you know the area). The seconf route point is a Shaping point. This is placed just south of Tadcaster at a village called Towton.

Although I deviated from the original route, I passed through both route points. After Towton, the stanav was happy to route me ahead, but it wanted to take me onto the A1. This part of the A1 is a two lane motorway and is invaribaly brought to a standstill when one lorry doing 59.1 mph tries to overtak another doing 59mph. I prefer to avoid it, so I head East onto the A19 heading south as shown by the blue track.

For the rest of the journey, the satnav is trying to take me back to the motorway. Before running this route, I checked on the XT how it would navigate me towards my destination starting from different places along the blue track. IN the middle of that track is a village called Hambleton. If I place my start point at the East end of that village, the XT will navigate me East and then South to the end point. If I place at the West end, it will head west to the A1 until can turn East direct to the end point.

I expected the stanav to re-route me in the direction that I was heading after I had passed through Hambleton. It didn't. It kept trying to get me to go back. I stopped and checked whether it thought that I had missed Towton. Towton was still in the skip list (oddly), but the Via point wasn't marked on the map any more, and the route made no attempt to visit it.

The second screen shot shows me two miles from my destination. I am the green flag. Destination is the chequered flag.
The route is still heading me back up north, back through Hambleton and then down the A1. Along the original route.

Stupid.

It isn't for me to advise, but I would not recommend the XT to anyone for serious navigation. It is good fun to play with, and it has a brilliant screen and a lot of very usable features. Navigation from route point to route point after encountering a closed road doesn't appear to me to be one of them. I like the 595 and have mine set up as a 595 for the majority of the time. If I am going to places new to me - I'll have the XT on the dash where the pillion can see our progress, but the 595 is positioned between the bars as a faithful standby.

And if you don't like the 595 and want the ultra-reliability of the 590, then its a 5 minute job to switch the software. (I've only done it to and from an original 590 though). I quite like it as a 595 though. I think the software that I acquired is a USA version as it does not switch to portrait mode ... not that I want to.

Right - I have a bit more information about the above little problem. It may well be a lightbulb moment.
Please refer to the images in the post above - the screenshots from the route.

The route is a 4 point route. The start is well over to the west.
The orange flag is the Via Point at Harewood.
The blue disc Shaping Point is just south of Tadcaster at a place called Towton.
The destination is south down the A19 at a place called Norton.

Navigation up to Harewood was fine - even though I took a couple of small diversions, the stanav recalculated a reoute and resumed farily quickly. These were just layby type diversions. Leave the road, join it again a little further on.
All is good so far. I went throgh the Via Point at Harewood with no issues.

The stanav was intent on taking me down the A1(M). That is the magenta route heading south. I didn't go down the A1(M), the old A1 runs close and parallel to it and I went down that. So the blue track is not on the motorway, it is on the parallel road. Te blue line is my track - where I actually drove. Part way down below Wetherby and heading to Tadcaster and the Towton Shaping Point, I turned off my parallel road and headed generally East. And this is where the problem begins.

I know that this is where the problem begins because the road heading away from the motorway is called Aberford Road.
Just remember that.

From that point on, the XT was demanding that I turned round. It was trying to take me back to the motorway, I think. As I got close to the blue disc sahping point 3 at Towton, it seemed to give in and finally navigated me the mile to Townton and continued navigating after that. I was back on the magenta line.

Then I deviated again, becasue the XT was heading me for the A1 - that is where its route was plotted. And from that point on it just kept asking me to turn back. All the way until I was nearly at the turnoff for my end point. I stopped and checked the Edit Route list (this is the double headed arrow that can be displayed on the right hand side of the screen).

This is what I got:

The next Destination should be the end one - point 4 - Norton
And I passed through Towton, yet it is still there in the list.

But ths significant bit is Aberford Road. Its a destination.. A Via Point. I didn't put it there. The stanav did.
At the point that I deviated from the calculated route following a previous deviation, it must have decided that it needed to bring me back to this point and placed it in the route. I didn't see it happen, but clearly it did. I've labelled this point on the screenshot int he post above with a red arrow and Aberford Road.

Subsequently, I passed through the Towton Shaping Point, but the XT ignored that - it wanted me to get to this new Via Point first. So both points remain in the 'skip list'.

The 27 mile square that the satnav is taking in order to get me back to the end point is finding a way back to Aberford.

It doesn't actually go to Aberford. But I reckon that it realises that this is on the route to the end destination and is happy with that. The XT does seem to be happy to skip a Via point if you get close to the later magenta line.

Its a working theory. And If it proves to be correct, I know how I can handle it.

Report already sent to Garmin.

A possible way of dealing with this behaviour - based on what I think that the XT is doing (which may still be wrong) ....

1. Make sure that you can identify your route points on the XT. THis is not as easy as you may think, because any name that you give them in Basecamp will be changed to something else when the route is transferred to the XT. Not always, but more than half of the time. Unless your route points were first created with the Waypoint Flag tool. It never alters those.
2. MyRouteApp routes do not go through the same transfer process. Route Points created in MRA always keep the name that you give them. That is probably the case for other programs too. Worth considering. I haven't tested yet.
3. If you deviate from the route, and then deviate from the recalculated route - expect this problem. It will be demanding U turns instead of plotting a new route ahead. You can expect this to happen anyway for a while, but not forever. At some point it will be faster to go the way that you are heading. When you get chance, check the Skip button to see which point it is aiming for next. Also check edit route to see if a new Via Point has been added. If you spot a new route point - skip it.

I need to get out and try out these notions, but anyone else out there that is tuning in may also like to check it out and feedback.

I also want to check out all of these behaviours on routes made with MRA - because they do not put in the same route point extension info for each route point. They let the Zumo work it out.

At the NEC show I had a chat with the Garmin rep and asked them if the XT was being replaced in the near future. "No it's not" they said, surprising I said "as you seem to have stopped doing updates for it and while it does everything brilliantly, it is absolutely hopeless if you deviate from a planned route which has a via point". I explained that I've had Garmin's since the Streetpilot 3 and that if only they could incorporate the routing logics of the 590 into the XT then I'd be very happy.

They did admit that they'd had similar feedback, which they promised to feedback to Garmin

jfheath wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:03 pm A possible way of dealing with this behaviour - based on what I think that the XT is doing (which may still be wrong) ....

1. Make sure that you can identify your route points on the XT. THis is not as easy as you may think, because any name that you give them in Basecamp will be changed to something else when the route is transferred to the XT. Not always, but more than half of the time. Unless your route points were first created with the Waypoint Flag tool. It never alters those.
2. MyRouteApp routes do not go through the same transfer process. Route Points created in MRA always keep the name that you give them. That is probably the case for other programs too. Worth considering. I haven't tested yet.
3. If you deviate from the route, and then deviate from the recalculated route - expect this problem. It will be demanding U turns instead of plotting a new route ahead. You can expect this to happen anyway for a while, but not forever. At some point it will be faster to go the way that you are heading. When you get chance, check the Skip button to see which point it is aiming for next. Also check edit route to see if a new Via Point has been added. If you spot a new route point - skip it.

I need to get out and try out these notions, but anyone else out there that is tuning in may also like to check it out and feedback.

I also want to check out all of these behaviours on routes made with MRA - because they do not put in the same route point extension info for each route point. They let the Zumo work it out.

I tried fighting the "wind mills" as well, but doing it while riding is too dangerous, stopping every so often is annoying. If there a navigation problem occurs for some reason I'd X-out the route and just follow the track.
Then maybe at brake stop I'd try to restart the route again.
Reporting to Garmin seems to be just another dead end street.

jfheath wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:48 pm But ths significant bit is Aberford Road. Its a destination.. A Via Point. I didn't put it there. The stanav did.
At the point that I deviated from the calculated route following a previous deviation, it must have decided that it needed to bring me back to this point and placed it in the route. I didn't see it happen, but clearly it did. I've labelled this point on the screenshot int he post above with a red arrow and Aberford Road.

A small note on this. I have a route set up including via points with a remote start point. I set off and fairly shortly after took a turn before the XT planned me to, fairly quickly it gave a reasonable route, and added the road in, just like your example. Followed the route for a small distance and then ignored the next turn instruction, and it placed a via point after it realised I'd gone "wrong".

So, the inserted via point seems to be there when it gets you into U-turn madness, and when it isn't.

Fxwheels wrote: ↑Tue Nov 29, 2022 3:29 am I tried fighting the "wind mills" as well, but doing it while riding is too dangerous, stopping every so often is annoying. If there a navigation problem occurs for some reason I'd X-out the route and just follow the track.
Then maybe at brake stop I'd try to restart the route again.

Me too. As soon as XT routing weirdness starts I will pull over as soon as I can and restart the route. So far, CEP has worked well on these restarts.

I discovered yesterday that adding a POI to the route (restaurant in this case) from the Up Ahead function results in a recalc of the rest of the route. The recalc routed on an Interstate highway. Definitely faster, but a number of miles longer, and of course no where near as enjoyable. I don't know why I was surprised except that I have done this before without issue. I am guessing that my quickly-created Basecamp route for yesterdays ride did not have enough points in it to force the XT into submission.

Oop North John wrote: ↑Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:57 pm

jfheath wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:48 pm But ths significant bit is Aberford Road. Its a destination.. A Via Point. I didn't put it there. The stanav did.
At the point that I deviated from the calculated route following a previous deviation, it must have decided that it needed to bring me back to this point and placed it in the route. I didn't see it happen, but clearly it did. I've labelled this point on the screenshot int he post above with a red arrow and Aberford Road.

A small note on this. I have a route set up including via points with a remote start point. I set off and fairly shortly after took a turn before the XT planned me to, fairly quickly it gave a reasonable route, and added the road in, just like your example. Followed the route for a small distance and then ignored the next turn instruction, and it placed a via point after it realised I'd gone "wrong".

So, the inserted via point seems to be there when it gets you into U-turn madness, and when it isn't.

That's very interesting @Oop North John. Thank you. I don't know if it is there every time I get into the U turn madness. Because I have spotted the added Via Point in this situation just once. (A few times on other occasions, but I wasn't sure of the circumstances).

My current thought is that it is introduced not when I first deviate from a route, but after I have deviated, it has calculated a new route, and then I deviate from that. But that is a working theory, based on the tests that I have done when I have deviated from the original route rather than from a recalculated route. I've given very detailed test reports to Garmin Support. They are actually looking at the broken track log issue, but were curious about my description of when it happened (ie when the u turn madness starts). They cannot reproduce the broken track log problem, so they want to switch out my XT so that they can use mine to see if they can reproduce it then.

You seem to be saying you get a new point inserted when you first deviate, and then another when you deviate from the recalculated route. Is that correct ? I'm not sure what you mean by the last 4 words "and when it isn't" ?

"It isn't for me to advise, but I would not recommend the XT to anyone for serious navigation"
I have to agree with @jfheath on the above.
After 2 recent motorbike trips to the Alps (Italy and Austria).
navigating the roadwork diversions on the wat down in Holland & Germany was a nightmare with the XT once you got off the planned route.
At one stage we had to pull over a resort to a paper map as the XT kept sending us round in circles.
I'm seriously considering going back to my 590 or buying a TomTom for next year's trip.
Every Garmin motorbike GPS that I have previously purchased (Starting from the little triangular shaped B&W screen one) has improved on the last but the XP although it has a lot of great features is rubbish for navigation. (IMHO).

This Alien Via Point thing makes a lot of sense after the issues I had in September, I will have a look into this and try and replicate it.
It is crazy if the XT starts making routing decisions based on some algorithm when you are forced to change direction due to road conditions.

It seems like Garmin have added loads of features and scuppered the one benefit!