Best day or time to update maps?

[Rick F.]

I read somewhere (maybe it was Canderson) who said that TomTom servers seem to be running better or faster. Anyone else verify this? I haven't updated my map to v865 yet and was thinking about doing it today. But... as today is Saturday, maybe I should wait till another day.

Thanx.

 

[dhn]

I downloaded here pretty shortly after the new map was made available and had no apparent issues with its taking a long time.

Install took longer than the download. I'd go for it now, Rick.

 

[Rick F.]

Thanks dhn,

After your encouraging reply, I decided to go ahead and update. It went pretty smoothly, but still really as slow as it was last time I updated the map. I timed it... it took 1:05 hrs for download from server, then 50 mins to xfer or copy files to the unit. After it was done, I checked for updates and was offered map-share updates (first time in 90 days). So I now have 944 map-share updates.

Before downloading the new map, I copied those 3 files we've talked about in other threads...
'Mapsettings.cfg'; & 'MapUserPatch.dat' from the map folder, "North_America_P".
And the file 'UserPatch.dat' from the root directory.

After the new map was downloaded, I checked for these files. The 'Mapsettings,cfg' was already there and the correct size and date – as was the file, 'UserPatch.dat' from the root dir. The only one that wasn't saved during the new map installation was the file 'MapUserPatch.dat' from the map folder. The one there after the update was only 2K in size and today's date. The one I backed up was 3K in size and dated 1-21-2011. To be safe I renamed the 2k file with an 'old' extender then copied the saved file back on to my device. We'll see if I have any trouble with that.

I checked for "speed limit" corrections I had made on the v860 map and they were there on the new map. But as I shared them with the community, it may have been one of the mapshare updates I downloaded. Also, a missing POI I had added was there as well.

-- edit to add --

I forgot to mention that available space has grown again after this map update. B4 upgrading to v865, I had 250 meg free. After the update I now have 389 meg free.
Thanks again.

 

[dhn]

Thanks for the feedback. I'd like to say the new speed limit was due to your using mapshare with the 860 but more realistically, I expect it was due to your copying over the files.

 

[canderson]

Thanks dhn,

After your encouraging reply, I decided to go ahead and update.

What sort of connection do you have there? Have you ever looked at your D/L speed from one of the better speed measurement sites?

When I use this site T1 | Business Broadband & Voice Provider | Speakeasy Inc. hooked up via Dallas, I get
Down: 11.67Mbps
Up: 4.02Mbps

As you can see, I'm pretty well set here for connection speed. Also, these are pretty large downloads. Any chance your ISP throttles things after the first 100MB or somesuch?

As long as you get your D/Ls done before the mass email goes out to users to tell them of the new map release, you'll get in ahead of everyone (except those of us here, of course!). The day the email hits, it always gets pretty busy for a day or two -- and slower.

 

[Rick F.]

Hi Canderson,

TomTom has always been the slowest I've ever experienced with downloads. I just figured it was their servers. Not sure what speed the operate at, but when I look @ the little icon on my sys tray for my firewall (Zonealarm) for download there's only 1 little green line showing - which is very slow. It's never that slow for anything else I download.

But I sure don't have your speed of service. I have DSL, but at 2.55mps download and 32 K upload.

 

[canderson]

Hi Canderson,

TomTom has always been the slowest I've ever experienced with downloads.

In previous years, it's taken over an hour on a 1Mbps circuit. This time around, it took only 22 minutes to download - but at my much higher bandwidth. Once word gets out, the servers can start to get hammered pretty good. The day the email notifications come out, plus a couple, it can be pretty brutal. I did 865 the morning that it was released, and that's when I got the 22 minutes.

There may be some significant differences in how we're being routed to the TT servers, too. Here's something to try .. and we'll need to try to do it at about the same time so that we get a more or less apples to apples situation. I can't remember the precise IP address of the map server out east. Perhaps MVL will recall it, and we can both ping it and see what happens.

MVL - I've looked thru my stuff here, and for the life of me can't come up with the IP. You still have it handy? I know it's in an OLD thread around here somewhere.

 

[Rick F.]

Ok. I'll watch this thread tomorrow for the IP addy. We can ping using the cmd from run. Not sure what that will actually tell us except that it's longer one way than the other.

 

[canderson]

Ok. I'll watch this thread tomorrow for the IP addy. We can ping using the cmd from run. Not sure what that will actually tell us except that it's longer one way than the other.

Well, a ping would only be the first step. If it shows a significant difference, then we'll play with tracert and see where the holdups appear to be happening from your end. Can't change it, but it's entertainment value to find the cause.

 

[canderson]

Geez - more searching and still can't find it. We could just use home2.tomtom.com, but that would take us clear back to Europe, and IIRC, the maps here in the NA area are served from this side of the pond.

Just for grins, what does a tracert of the home2.tomtom.com site get you? Here's mine, taken at the time of this post. As you can see, things bog down pretty badly, but not until we start to hit the NL pieces of the link:

Tracing route to home2.tomtom.com [85.90.77.43]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

  [FONT=Courier New]  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1 [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New]  2    21 ms    29 ms    19 ms  24.8.32.1 [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New]  3    10 ms     9 ms     9 ms  te-8-1-ur02.longmont.co.denver.comcast.net [68.86.105.61] [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New]  4    12 ms    11 ms    11 ms  te-0-8-0-6-ar02.aurora.co.denver.comcast.net [68.86.103.137] [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New]  5    13 ms    11 ms    14 ms  pos-2-4-0-0-cr01.denver.co.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.91.101] [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New]  6    28 ms    28 ms    28 ms  pos-2-13-0-0-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.86.210] [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New]  7    29 ms    28 ms    31 ms  TenGigabitEthernet6-2.ar3.DAL2.gblx.net [67.17.157.221] [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New]  8   185 ms   167 ms   173 ms  206.41.25.158 [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New]  9   170 ms   170 ms   171 ms  vl1403.sara-r9-alm.com.sara.nl [85.90.64.5] [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New] 10   169 ms   169 ms   170 ms  es01salm.tomtom.sara.nl [85.90.85.102] [/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New] 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.[/FONT]
  [FONT=Courier New] 12   168 ms   180 ms   169 ms  85.90.77.43 [/FONT]

 

[Rick F.]

Yes, I see that IP is in Amsterdam.

I just tried it at 11:05 EST. Can't copy the text though so had to use 'WinSnap' to capture an image. The first time there were some packets lost. This might be because I didn't allow ZoneAlarm to give access immediately. Anyway, it's slower than your connection, but doesn't show the hops.

I ran the Ping twice. See image below:

 

[Rick F.]

Oops! I did ping not trace route. Sheesh, I didn't read your post very closely. Sorry.

See image below for trace showing over 30 hops:

 

[canderson]

Apart from the fact that you found 5 more intermediate sites along your path (none of which look all that bad - and I didn't see anything like 30), you're actually a tad faster than I am through the NL segments. I wonder if the size of the download is getting you thottled by AT&T on your end?

BTW, the easy way is as follows (a very old DOS redirect trick)

TRACERT SOMEBODY.COM > TRACERT.OUT

The " > TRACERT.OUT " is a means for creating a file to which all of the text results go instead of the screen.

 

[Andy_P]

.... had to use 'WinSnap' to capture an image.

Ouch! $22.95 for a single-user licence to take screen grabs?

The "PrtScr" key, (top right on your PC keyboard) will copy the screen to the clipboard, for pasting into any prog you like, all for free.

 

[canderson]

Ouch! $22.95 for a single-user licence to take screen grabs?

I'm still using the old Any Capture Screen here (I think it was a freebie in the old days), but I've recently switched to a dual monitor system (two DVI ports), and it doesn't seem to like that. I much prefer to be able to select the screen area rather than having to edit everything after a PrintScreen operation.

Anyone had any luck with a good area definable screen cap program that manages a dual monitor situation properly?

 

[Rick F.]

WinSnap was free when I downloaded it. Can't believe they would charge for that.

Thanks for the "old DOS" trick. It's been awhile since I used DOS. I still remember DOS 3.3 and Apple's Pro-Dos before that.
My first computer was an Apple-//e with 32K memory in '84 at the bargain price of $1995. It had a green-screen monitor and one 5.25 floppy. I remember adding a 20meg HDD to the tune of $700!! They called it a vulcan drive as I remember.