GPS Week Number Rollover Event – April 6th 2019

Joined
Dec 19, 2010
Messages
77
Location
Florida
TomTom Model(s)
XXL550TM
On, or possibly after, this date, some GPS receivers may start to behave strangely. The data they output may jump backwards in time, resulting in month and year timestamps that are potentially up to 20 years out of date.

This is a known issue; in April 2018 the Department of Homeland Security in the United States issued a memo to make GPS users aware of the situation. Any changes, adjustments, or other actions are ultimately the responsibility of the user, so DHS strongly recommends owners and operators of critical infrastructure to prepare for the rollover.

This refers to the GPS Week Rollover on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) derived from GPS devices.

More here
https://www.gps-repeaters.com/blog/gps-week-number-rollover-april-6th-2019/
------------------

This looks to me like it is only going to affect GPS devices that use the week number for a timestamp.
Read the article and let us know what you think.
 

Yes, I had already read that thread and there is no solid information about what actually happens when the clock strikes 13. TomTom is very wishy washy with the info they provide (what else is new).

If you read the link there is some info about what types of systems will actually require an update to keep functioning like those types of systems that need to have specific timing events acted upon or recorded.

It has been suggested that the personal gps receivers such as TT should not malfunction due to the rollover but that recorded info such as dates will be off.
 
On the whole, navigation should remain OK. Date/time stamps for all associated logging and non-realtime probe reporting for IQRoutes will be whacked, though. The folks who really get hurt by this are the ones using the GPS system specifically for obtaining accurate date/time information for servers and other equipment.

That said, I am now realizing that I've not ever looked into the possibility that ephemeris data might be upset by a date issue. This is the information that a GPS often stores as a long term (week) look ahead into the expected position of satellites that allows these units to get a quick satellite lock and fix when powered up.
 
Friend of mine asked me to check his XL on 8.014.
At https://www.tomtom.com/en_ca/updates/
keying in RH2428C01329 it shows a red question mark,
keying in 4EG0.001.08 it just sits there when using the Enter key.
Deric_XL_Serial.jpg

@canderson, is that OS the newest? Home calls it up-to-date and only offered MapShare and GPSQuickFix.
 
That comes back from my personal database as
XL (30 Series) TTS / 330S - 1GB
So for sure it will never see another map update!

Yes, I believe that 8.014 was the last release for that device. The firmware for that comes from the "xl2008" family, so there were no updates beyond that point.

The bad news is that there won't be a rollover update for this device, so it's going to have bad timestamps on logs, will err regarding the current time, and therefore the ETA time for routes will also be wrong.
 
Thanks, a bit annoying that the site to check, https://www.tomtom.com/en_ca/updates/ just returns an exclamation mark when entering the Serial number. (Shows that CS is manned today, the 7th.)

Also, that the OS cannot be found in their update list http://uk.support.tomtom.com/app/release_notes/type/navkit/locale/en_IE although 8.010 is shown.

Just tried it. Time was slow by 3 minutes; changed it to current. Programmed a route and all looks OK.
Never used an XL before. Fantastic little machine. Superior UX to anything available today, LOUD and crystal clear announcements, GPS reception far better than my GO930.
 
Yes, that page is almost, but not quite complete. "XL 30 series" is the unit your friend has, and yes, it shows 8.010, but 8.014 was truly the last release for that model. There was also an 8.020 for that series, but it only impacted units operating with Cyrillic (Russian) character sets.

Manually programming the time could get to be a bit of a drag. Will be very interested to see if the error remains only 3 minutes on future boot cycles. Surprised that it isn't quite different.
 
I don't think he had a GPSQuickFix for over a year and I did not check the time before 'updating' yesterday.
I am still surprised how pleasant that unit is to use.
He does not have a good memory for roads but Eta will not be a problem for him as he is only using it for short , local drives.
Thanks
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

Latest resources

Forum statistics

Threads
28,825
Messages
194,364
Members
67,759
Latest member
marc84

Latest Threads

Back
Top