Mandatory 9.541 firmware xxl 540?

Joined
Dec 1, 2010
Messages
85
Location
New York
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<img src="/styles/default/custom/flags/us.png" alt="United States" /> United States
TomTom Model(s)
XXL 540 TM, TT Go Android
When I connected my trusty old XXL 540 today to update the maps, Home updated and then wanted to push an update of the xxl 540 firmware to version 9.541. I cannot uncheck the update in order to not install it.

I see things online about users who got this new firmware and then could not update their maps.

What is this firmware update? Will it create a problem with installing map updates?

Thanks!
 
They call it a 'maintenance release'. We do not (yet) have any confirmation about what this 19 December 2018 release was designed to accomplish. However, there is a strong possibility that an 'event' may occur in April 2019 that will break the code on some GPS devices (and not just those of TomTom), causing erroneous date calculations.

The primary problem with the update so far seems to be interaction with Home where the Operate Your (model) feature isn't working yet, but in your case, it sounds like Home updated successfully ahead of the device update. If you don't use that feature of Home, it's likely not going to be of concern in any case.

As for users who could not update their maps, I suspect there's more to that story than is being told. Pirated maps couldn't be updated immediately following the device firmware update. I haven't seen a legitimate map update fail so far post-update.
 
The 540 has been decreed as End of Life by Tomtom meaning no further map updates.
He may be just picking up the periodic incremental update, not a full map set.
 
However, there is a strong possibility that an 'event' may occur in April 2019 that will break the code on some GPS devices (and not just those of TomTom)

Hi Canderson and dhn,
Thank you for your replies!

I'm wondering what the "event" you're referencing is, and how/if this "maintenance" update might affect things.
Until I have continued to be able to update the maps on my xxl540. My last update was quite a few months ago, so I brought it in from the car to do the update.

Maybe the best thing for me to do is to back up my xxl from Windows explorer, do the updates, and see what happens.

As for "end of life" of my device, at one point I was going to replace it with a newer Tomtom but decided to keep my xxl have when I learned that with the new model I'd have to pay monthly for traffic camera functionality and could not easily use custom POIs.

Anyway, thank you as always for being there and thoughfully responding. I will post back after backing up and updating.
 
The event has to do with a rollover in a count of weeks (part of the GPS time information) where the number of bits forces a rollover from week 1023 to week 0 instead of 1024.

Week "zero" started January 6, 1980. The 10 bit weeks counter ran out and rolled over to 0 again on August 21, 1999 and has been counting 1 for each year since. The next time the 10 bit counter will reach week 1023 and rollover to 0 is on April 6, 2019. So suddenly the date for impacted units will show up as back in 1999 when we reach 4/6/19.

As this same thing had already happened before in 1999, it should have been anticipated, but evidently was not. Then again, there were only a small handful of commercial and military GPS manufacturers back in 1999. Most GPS devices won't be impacted by this problem since most code was written more recently and will handle this special case. More recent TomTom devices, for example, are prepared for it already. Somebody just got sloppy back in the earlier years there -- lack of homework done, I guess.
 
All of the above, of course, assumes that we're right about the reason for the mandatory update, but there's good reason to believe that's the case.
 
That's interesting Canderson.. I have some other GPS receivers that may be affected by this - they are old Magellan Sportrac units that I use for hiking. Arrrgh.... thanks for the heads up :).

My xxl 540 is now backed up and currently updating to the "maintenance" firmware - which I hope will simply be a benign fix to problem you described. It is also at the same time updating to a new map. I may not know for quite some time whether all will continue to be well with my old friend the xxl 540.

I did also notice on my computer that TT home was hoarding copies of old map updates going back several years. It was taking up about 14GB, so I deleted many of the old map downloads from Home. I am assuming this will not be any sort of issue. I left a couple of the older ones that include the whole United States, as opposed to the current map updates which are just the Eastern US and Canada, but do not know if I could even load an old map that TT had saved in the Home directory.

Being fond of my XXL, at one point I even considered modifying it by changing the memory chip to larger one. Left it alone, however, in the end... not knowing whether the firmware might be hard coded to only recognize the original flash memory size.

Anyway, thank you again!
 
UPDATE:
The xxl 540 firmware updated to version 9.541.
The map updated to version 1020.9276.

At a glance, everything seems to be working normally.

Wishing you all good things...


Harry
 
I am assuming this will not be any sort of issue. I left a couple of the older ones that include the whole United States, as opposed to the current map updates which are just the Eastern US and Canada, but do not know if I could even load an old map that TT had saved in the Home directory.
Can't hurt to have the current one plus one previous in case things go badly. The rest you can discard at will. Surprised that they offered 1020 for your XXL540. Without an option for an SD card, not sure how they're getting even just the USA map to fit, but sure wouldn't complain! Afraid it won't be long before pulling Canada out of the mix won't leave enough space.
 
Can't hurt to have the current one plus one previous in case things go badly. The rest you can discard at will. Surprised that they offered 1020 for your XXL540. Without an option for an SD card, not sure how they're getting even just the USA map to fit, but sure wouldn't complain! Afraid it won't be long before pulling Canada out of the mix won't leave enough space.


They are not fitting the whole USA map anymore. I'm just getting the Eastern States + Canada. When I have downloaded the maps for the last year or two, I had a choice of which USA region to download and install.

I wonder what will happen to GPS units that are not in some way updated to reflect the end of the 1023 week counter. From what I have read since your post, not all GPS units with 10 digit counters will necessarily encounter a problem at the same time. It is my understanding that GPS units manufactured (or possibly firmware updated) later then then the last rollover date in 1999 may have start dates for their counters that are later then 1999. If a gps unit has counter start date that is later then the last rollover date, it will encounter the next rollover later as well. And it seems like different units may react differently when they do rollover. Some may just show incorrect date, but still have correct Nav information. I have no idea what will happen to TomTom units. I guess we will find out eventually...


All the best...

Harry
 
There will be only a few units impacted by the problem. OLD units by known manufacturers and those of manufacturers now out of business are about all that one need worry about. Even some old DeLorme units (that company was purchased by Garmin) have had updates provided. The remainder will probably have been replaced and out of circulation. In any case, we won't have to worry over it again for another 19+ years after April 2019, and if the code is done right, even that won't matter. The newer units and newer GPS messages will use 13 bits, so that should keep the problem at bay.

How a particular receiver handles CNAV and MNAV message types will determine what kind of failure will occur. In most cases, navigation will continue as normal, but any recorded tracks or other logs with date stamps will be incorrect by -1024 weeks.
 

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