Favourites deleted when updating, can I selectively restore?

[Joseph in Adelaide]

Carminat in Renault Koleos 2010, when updates are installed it deletes most (but not all) of my stored favourites!
Why is this happening, how can I stop it, or how can I selectively restore favourites from backup?
Joseph.

 

[dhn]

When you connect the device to the computer, do you have access to the file system on the device? In other words, do you do the updates using Home, not MyDriveConnect?

If so, you can copy the mapsettings.cfg file from the map folder on the sd card to the computer and restore it to the new map folder when a new map is installed.

 

[Joseph in Adelaide]

Thank you dhn for your help.
Yes, I can access the files on the SD card.
I do updates using Home 2, which opens and checks for updates whenever the SD card is plugged into the PC.

At the risk of "too much information", here is what I've found:

The SD card is in the PC now (Home closed down)
There is no "map" folder.
There is no "mapsettings.cfg" file, in fact no ".cfg" file anywhere on the card.

(I have checked my PC settings, hidden files & folders are visible if present)

There is a "maps" folder which contains 'Australia.tlv' and 'New_Zealand.tlv' (both only 1Kbyte) and no other files.

Most files on the SD card are dated 2009 or earlier, except for two folders "Australia" and "New Zealand".
All files in these two folders are datestamped when I bought the car.

I searched the card for anything modified today:
One folder "ephem", containing 3 files:
- "ee_meta.tlv" (635 bytes)
- "ee_meta.txt" (17 bytes) text = "Expiry=1504327121"
- "packedephemeris.ee" (50.2 Kbytes)
(The non-text files appear as unintelligible gibberish in Wordpad or Word)

One folder "loopdir" (modified 2009) contains file "ext3_loopback", modified about the time I connected the SD card to the PC.

One file "tthome.bif" in the root directory, this just contains my login username.

I've also searched for TomTom in Program Files and Appdata, no help there; which raises the question "where does Home store the device backups?"

I can't think where else to look, or what else to search for...
Presumable different devices & versions store information in different places and file formats.

Thanks for you time!
Joseph.

 

[Joseph in Adelaide]

Just re-reading my post, I wonder if "packedephemeris.ee" is a candidate file for storing favourites?
Maybe I'll experiment with that next time an update comes along.
Joseph.

 

[dhn]

Maybe support can advise:
Australia
1300 135 604
Monday-Friday:9:00 am to 5:30 pm AEST

 

[dhn]

Just re-reading my post, I wonder if "packedephemeris.ee" is a candidate file for storing favourites?
Maybe I'll experiment with that next time an update comes along.
Joseph.

Nope. That file has something to do with the gps data stored on the device.

 

[canderson]

There must be a folder on that device that contains your map data (or you'd have no maps!).
Look for a folder that contains largish files called cline.dat and cnode.dat (part of your map set). That's where you'll need to look for the mapsettings.cfg file.

 

[Joseph in Adelaide]

Finally Solved!
The file involved is loopback.ex3, in the SD card folder \loopdir
(not in the map folder)

I make a copy of this file, install the map update and all my favourites have disappeared; I put the copied file back into the SD card and my favourites are restored.

So far I have not noticed any side-effects...

 

[canderson]

Interesting. Have never even heard of a loopback.ex3 file on any TomTom. The Carminat is certainly a different beast. Will certainly keep your solution in mind for future questions!

Having now seen the secret filename, I did some poking around on the TT board, and found this thread which confirms your solution >> https://en.discussions.tomtom.com/b...ped-out-favorites-when-upgrading-maybe-978576

 

[dhn]

Equivalent to the mapsettings.cfg file, eh?

 

[canderson]

Sure does sound like it. But why something different for what is essentially a Nav2 device? Interesting. Wish I had one to play with.